Mobiles ON, please...

Categories: Biosphere, Urban, Environmental Interactions, s1 and s2
I have used several of Ollie Bray's SAGT conference ideas since October, including using mobiles for homework dates with one class. Last year, I let my Higher voice record a sand dune transect on the PC's, but as accomodation is so tight with many classes displaced due to whiteboard installation just now, I thought about using mobiles for the same thing, except basing it around past papers. I have recently been taking an interest in the use of audio for certain learning styles, and I see it as particularly useful for people in the class who sometimes struggle to organise written answers in a limited time. The beauty of using the mobile voice recorder is, as someone said today, that many are only capable of recording short clips, so answers will have to be concise. Listening back is an excellent way to self evaluate your answers too. I will be suggesting to s4 that you also trial this as part of your revision-I am not wanting to hear your results, and neither am I seeking to send these to a wider audience, the exercise is solely for your own benefit.
Speaking of audio applications, I managed to get Audacity put onto ten machines yesterday, and s2 had a play around with this today doing some simple editing, combining tracks, adding effects etc. Tomorrow, we are going to record our Radio Shows, with some excellent chat show style scripts so far contributing superbly to the work on ecological footprints. I may, with permission from you, put these on your wiki page.
I am going to try very hard to create a challenge board activity for s3 based around Paris, but time is tight on a Thursday, and I've forgotten to bring the template home :-( We will see...
Lastly, my final s1 rotation are either making favelas, or using the 'Thinking Through Geography' Improving a Shanty Town exercise - although I think I may need to try to simplify this a little, as the class I trialled this with had some initial problems with the task before reacting well. All in all, very busy. Two days to go... ;-)