Post to be completed- bedtime! Post now complete!

The moaning overview.

It wasn’t my day, I got up at five and travelled for four and a half hours, mostly by train, one delay. My presentation went a bit mental. The journey back was pretty good, mostly because I decided to make my own route up, crossing London partly on foot to St Pancreas! It was then I noticed that I had split my trousers.

The Geography bit.

I spent an interesting day at Oathall College, as part of a Rural Dimension workshop, for the Specialist Schools Trust.  Oathall has a real integrated approach to the Rural Dimension within the wider curriculum, supported by an impressive working farm unit. Oh and I saw my first live pig, they are much bigger than I thought! Check out the webcam. Location of the farm can be viewed here, though the satellite imagery doesn’t do the place justice, due to its age. The school also has an outside swimming pool, which I imagine is very nice in summer. I also liked how the farm was used a behavioural management tool, with the most challenging students working to develop confidence and self-discipline. The only drawback of the day was that I would have liked to have spoken to students about their views on the farm and its influence on their learning, though I did turn up late, so probably missed this part.

There were some great presentations, of particular use to Geographers, which I’ll post more about tomorrow. A great presentation was given by a representative of FACE, a resource I have used in the past but has developed since my last visit, especially like how to produce a model of a cow to illustrate milking. Also a section on Geography, with a free PowerPoint on diary farming. This year is the Year of Food and Farming, so a chance to integrate some topical agricultural issues into the curriculum. The FACE presentation can be downloaded here. Has FACE got a logo?

There was also a very inspiring presentation by Laverstoke Park Education, Laverstoke would make a great case study, particularly as it is undergoing  biodynamic conversion. I was touched by how some farmers, off their own backs and at their own expensive, are trying to build educational links with local schools and colleges. I must apologise to the farmer, because I didn’t write their name down. The farm also has a nice selection of educational resources. Particularly exciting about this project is the educational vision, the farm is working with Virtual Schools, to develop a range of interactive resources, one including the ability for teachers to book web-based cameras, control them and hence integrate them within their lessons, proper virtual fieldwork.

I was invited to deliver a presentation on the Rural Dimension in Geography, despite having two separate memory sticks, the presentation on web space, setting up during dinner and running through it, one video didn’t work! Hence, a starter video was slightly psychedelic! I apologise to delegates for this, seems to be one of my running presentation themes. Next time I use my own laptop.

At the moment I am keen to be a magpie, so I tried to present a number of ideas from different colleagues, which I use in my teaching. I was going to provide a basic download, but the complete presentation is over 75mb, so I’ll link to the different resources I utilised, so people can pick and choose. A slim-version presentation can me found here. (ppt 7mb)

I’ve also posted a slimdown version on SlideShare. It should show below, how it doesn’t yet seem to like IE7, though FireFox works fine. No I haven’t, SlideShare doesn’t seem to like my complex presentations, shame because it is a good tool, but recently I’ve found with longer presentations many items disappear!

I must thank David Rogers for being my ‘muse’, I basically corrupted two of his innocent blog comments to inspire my presentation.

Links to resources used in the presentation and with links.

David Rogers Blog.

Flickr Photo sharing site.

Article about the Diary Farmers finding love through their milk cartons, see this post.

My Hill Sheep Starter, and on the day psychedelic, can be downloaded here (wmv 10mb).

Noel Jenkins’ land-use map of a Hill Sheep Farm can be found here.

Tom Briebrach’s farm case study can be found here.

My Doctor Who diversification task can be downloaded here. (zip 1mb)

My Henshaw Farm change over time video can be downloaded here (wmv 10mb)

Pickle My Fancy Blog, hat tip here to Alan Parkinson.

Free Range Studios and Store Wars.

Oxfam Unwrapped and CAFOD send a cow.

3rd World Farmer. Stimulation game.

The Her*in Trail adapted from Geog.2 (Oxford Publishing) textbook, mystery exercise by Gary Dawson and movie by Val Vannet.

In conclusion.

Hopefully, Geographers will embrace the Rural Dimension, as a specialism that we can actively support, and within which I feel, Geography should be at ease. In fact, I have always been slightly worried about land-based courses and their impact on Geography, but I am convinced that this is another area Geographers can contribute and compliment, Mr Spalton and Mr Wright might yet find me in poly-tunnels.

When I was reflecting on the train, I remembered that I studied Agricultural Production at University and at school did a morning a week placement working on an arable farm with adults with learning difficulties during Year.11. So I do have background!

Also had a thought that the Pilot Geography course is part vocational, we have a small agricultural unit, and can’t utilise it… perhaps a land-based module is needed?

For delegates looking for resources, I intended to post links to resources used and my presentation tomorrow. Now completed.

Please free feel to leave feedback.

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Posted in General
Written on Sat, 03 February 2007 at 6:58 pm

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