John+Sayers

=John Sayers=

As a Geography Teacher I constantly am asking my students to read material to help build up a greater depth and understanding of key case study material, which is so important for students at GCSE level to succeed.

__**Experiment 1**__

My first experiment with Scoop.it will be for students to use it to review material that has described and explained content so that they can get a feel for how this should develop their writing for this type of question.

Over the last few years GCSE papers (AQA) have had approximately 70% of questions that require students to DESCRIBE or EXPLAIN.

Therefore I have set up the following 3 topics on Scoop.it


 * 1) http://www.scoop.it/t/describing-geography
 * 2) http://www.scoop.it/t/questioning-geography
 * 3) http://www.scoop.it/t/explaining-geography

__**Experiment 2**__

The second experiment will focus on students looking at case study specific material to help develop greater depth to students reading and writing. Hopefully the nature of Scoop.it will weed out irrelevant material.

__**Experiment 3**__ []

A-Level students have found that Scoop.it is a great resource for quickly seeing reading material in a grouped format so that they don't have to go looking for the reading that I have set it is there in one space. I'm going to start getting A-Level to start co-curating on the project. I've started this week with creating reading material for students on their current unit and I'll be creating a questionnaire to evaluate whether this site helps them with their reading with ease, motivation, simplicity, depth, to read deeper, to contribute to peer peer learning.

I'll get students to add comments to various posts next week as we start to really use this resource to increase reading into a topic to provide greater depth to case study writing in order to allow students to read higher levels rather than writing in a generalised manner.

I'll add a screencast and a couple of audio podcasts by the end of the week and hopefully get some A-Level students to add their comments by the end of the week. I've got them to download the app so that they can read on the go, which is a very big plus point according to them especially as it is not blocked by the Council!


 * Areas to explore next week.**
 * APPLY THE BOOKMARKLET TO MY RESEARCH FOR READING AND SEE HOW MUCH I CAN BUILD UP READING FOR STUDENTS IN AN HOUR.**
 * I will review this on my macbook and also on my ipad and then on my iphone on which device offered me the greatest freedom and effectiveness to post suitable curated posts and reading suggestions into my topics.**

Students feedback on app I have given them my log in so that they can see the material as unfortunately we don't have business account which allows co curators.

students to begin commenting on posts

Student comments on posts and linking these to an RSS feed so that I can get quick updates on who has commented on a post in simple format.

__**END OF YEAR REVIEW**__

So at the end of the 1st year of using Scoop it what do I think and what did the students think?

Below is where the main site that my 6th Form developed for their exams. It consists of the final unit of the Geog 1 paper for the AS AQA paper. I thought that what the students produced was brilliant and very very thorough!.

Because of the access to the app all students used the same log in for the site and they found this fine as it didn't single people out for who contributed and who didn't they deemed it a collective effort.



The students found it focussed their further reading as was an invaluable tool for their revision.

I had aimed to use it with my GCSE group as well but with many other projects on the go like #geogsolo it got beyond me this year but next year every year group will use Scoop.It.

A bigger credit for the site was the fact I passed on the details to the AQA Geography Ning and now many others are using the site with their A level classes and It has even resulted in 2 other teachers from the Ning beginning their own Scoop.It!



Another bonus was when I presented Scoop.it at Teachmeet Durham and many of the teachers their said they were going to begin in with their 6th Form as well!

So In conclusion this has and will be an invaluable research and further reading tool that I and more importantly ALL of my students will use!