The Adventures of Ottobah Cugoano Teaching Pack & In School Programme

Primary Colours marked the 200^th Anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade by creating a new educational resource and in-school creative programme aimed at primary aged children and their teachers.  This activity will also mark Primary Colours’ 10^th anniversary (1997 – 2007).   We focused on the life of Ottobah Cugoano, a freed slave who wrote his autobiography and lobbied for an end to slavery in the UK.  We developed a teaching pack in the period January – August 2007 and delivered a series of schools-based workshops in the school year September 2007 – July 2008.   

It was reported in the press recently that most students find careers advice pretty useless. “The Association of Colleges found that 55 per cent of students believe teachers steer them towards courses which the school does best, rather than what is right for the student…” and “The ICM poll of more than 1,000 university students found that 66 per cent wished they had received better careers advice.” (TES,  06/10/06) So, what can we do about it?   

To get an idea of the power of Geography listen to the Today Programme on New Years Day. This special edition is being edited by three Geographers. To find out more visit http://givegeographyitsplace.blogspot.com.

As well as being available to download from the "Cool Reads" area of the web site, the draft conference report is now on-line in the "Whitespace" section.

This enables all to revise and amend it at will, using "WIKI" technology.

An idea that takes student created media, adds careers advice, and generates a resource for schools to use. The Real Course Choice “ Post-compulsory students on A-level, GNVQ, or BTEC courses are encouraged to produce a 5-10 minute short film on what it is really like to study on one of their college/6^th-form courses. These are posted on a C4 site. To post students also have to vote for the best short about another course, and they are prevented from voting for shorts from their own study centre. The producers of the top short for each course is then given the opportunity to visit C4 and sees their work broadcast on TV. The whole collection can then be collated and sold as a careers DVD for schools as a resource.

To a fascinating - and rare - London lecture delivered by Howard Gardner at the RSA last week. Gardner is one of the 'big beasts' of education in the past two decades and his influence is as manifest as ever in the UK Government's emphasis on personalised learning in schools. Gardner was previewing his latest ideas that will published in book form early next year. The latest additions to his traditional focus on discipline and creative intelligences is the respectful and ethical minds.A Classic liberal ideas all, but who can doubt their relevance given the challenges we face in the world today and all delivered with a lucidity and modesty that was refreshing...

Distance is a funny thing. Somthing that is 'near' or 'close' to you can be geographically 'distant' and yet someone who is on the other side of the planet might be the 'closest' person to you in the world. The internet has the capacity to both shorten distances to the price of a Skype call, but also for users/learners to develop factually wrong opinions. Just think about wikipedia and how it is now going to use editors for much of its work.

Janey was interviewed in The Guardian on Monday and raised the issues of access and distribution, future content and the need to innovate in how it is generated that featured prominently in last week's conference.