David Rogers

The Hampshire / Western Cape is gathering momentum which is great. I've put together a short Google Earth tour of our recent Year 10 coastal field trip. The tour is basic at the moment but I think the potential for using GE in enabling international (and national) links between schools is huge. I'm going to aim to create a tour showing the local area around our school and the main geographical issues that our students care about. One barrier to using this technology is training. I hope that I will be able to train staff in all partner schools. This would enable us to communicate via GE as well as sharing information on the local area.

Well it's taken a while but there is now a dedicated blog set up for the Hampshire - Western Cape link. http://hantswcapegeog.blogspot.com/ The link is between Brookfield School and my own school and is very much in its infancy. I would appreciate any comments people have on the idea. I'm hoping that the project will gain some real momentum now and eventually lead to a dedicated website forming a wiki. This will act as a resource for all schools in the partnership including Primaries!

Well yet again it's been a while since my last posting! Events have been very rapid lately so I thought I'd just update. I've just got back from the GA SPC meeting in London. It was food to see a few faces again! It is clear that the issue of fieldwork and assessment at GCSE and A'Level is a major issue. I am wondering if a model based on the GCSE Art examinations may yield an acceptable solution? Perhaps pupils could design a research task, undertake the primary data collection and then develop a written response during a longer exam, say 5-10 hours? What do others think? South Africa Link A lot of my time recently has been devoted to this. I have been very frustrated with the lack of progress. After evaluation this has been down to a number of factors including failing to agree specific targets to work towards! However, this will soon be rectified as the first reciprocal visit starts a week today. The main aim is to ensure that we have a number of targets and agreed ...

I was lucky to take a tour around the Cape when in Cape Town and came across this colony of African Penguins near Simons Town. The video is unedited at the moment, so still includes some useful commentary by an American tourist. Africa and Penguins? Mad!

Throughout the South African experience the best days were spent teaching! On he Tuesday we had to address the whole school - 900 Afrikaans speaking students and staff! I am about to use blogs to allow learners in two countries to communicate. The plan is to get a small group of students in my school and our partner school to pose questions for the others to answer. At first we are going to use Year 7 and 8 pupils in order to increase the sustainability of the project - allowing the selected students to 'grow up' with the project. Small groups have been selected so that there are no issues of capacity. The partner school does not have the access to technology that we are lucky to enjoy - 5 computers compared to being able to get whole classes on the machines! The first questions will focus on the physical geography immediately around the two schools - which are very different! It is then hoped that this will widen to include many other issues. Other students in my school will ...

Looking back at Cape Town's CBD The South African adventure has been built up since early October. The aim was for 4 teachers to visit the Western Cape in order to set up curriculum based projects. After half a day's teaching we took an overnight flight to Cape Town. My expectations and fears we as follows: After reading the Lonely Planet there was certainly apprehension about driving in the country! Although a seasoned traveller, the usual fears of lost bags etc prevailed. Expectations To experience Township life To gather and create teaching resources To identify and lay the foundations of a sustainable curriculum link between schools Experience life in a Coloured South African school and teach children Learn more about the history of this nation. After landing and picking up the hire car - we noticed the informal settlements around the airport straight away. What we should have been doing though is navigating as we promptly took the wrong turning. This oversight ended up ...

Now - I know that a travel journal usually starts at the beginning but seeing as I started at the end by posting yesterday I'm going to write about my final day in South Africa. To say that the day was a Geographers dream would be an understatement! Myself and colleague Jamie German were given a tour of the Franschhoek area by one of its residents Julian. Franschhoek being the area around one of the partner schools. The highlights of the day were standing at the base of a dam which will be under 90m of water by this time next year; being given a tour of a water filtration plant and tasting wine from the fermentation tanks with the wine maker. I have to give our thanks to Julian who accompanied us around the area! Julian our guide. The area he is standing on and behind will be flooded once the Berg River Dam is complete The Berg River Dam As this article suggests the Berg River Dam is an important development for the Western Cape. The dam will supply Cape Town with additional wate...

Well I'm sat in another airport (this time Cape Town International) wondering where the time went - again! I have spent a fantastic 6 days in the country, although I will need to come back and spend a lot more time. I have been struck by the similarities between our education systems. There are also differences. One Geography Teaching in a township school summed it up nicely: 'Our teaching resources are in print and the imagination of the learner'. I hope I have made some firm contacts and life-long friends. After half term there will be contact between learners from a school in the suburbs of Cape Town and my own. My one frustration is that I did not have enough time to spend with the teachers here due to a packed schedule. Having said this I did do my best to slow down to 'African Time!' My advice to SLT's planning on this kind of venture is to ensure that the teachers travelling have accurate and detailed information about the schools. Also, our culture of ta...

Ok, so I'm off to Cape Town to work on a school link, then skiing to the French Alps so may not be able to post for a while. At the moment I'm sat in Heathrow feeling anxious. I hope that all will go well, and I'm really looking forward to working with the school and pupils. I'll be keeping a paper diary until I can update this soon - in the meantime I hope you're well!

The research and preparation for the upcoming trip to South Africa is going well! I've found that a number of very nice wines come from the Stellenbosh region. In all seriousness, wine making is one of the regions main employers. I'm looking forward to getting out there now. So far the trip will include a couple of days in Cape Town. After that it will be time to work on developing the links between my school and our partner school. One of the activities I am looking forward to is experiencing the townships. Kayamandi is the large township in the area, although a small township (I'm told around 800 people) has developed on the school playing fields. I think this has been caused by migrant workers who have migrated to the area for a big dam building project in the area. So far lots of Geography!

In February myself and three colleagues are setting off to South Africa in order to develop an international link with schools. Time is running out fast as we get together ideas and material for the visit. We plan to take out some work by KS3 pupils exploring the local environment and hope to gain some valuable insights into life in the townships. There are also opportunities to investigate the regions wine industry (in terms of job creation of course!) and a big dam project - imaginatively entitled the Big River Dam. I'm very excited about the visit, although the difference in the quality of life may take me by surprise. The region that we are visiting is a non-white area. I plan to use some of the excellent ideas picked up during workshops run my Dan Raven-Ellision about the use of digital video (for example windows on the world) and hope to use a map of the world to create an environment in which to explore any issues raised. We hope to come back with a wealth of information and...