Geographical Association

This GA project was funded by the DCSF and ran for a year between 2004-05.

Teachers from six schools were involved and during the course of the year, with support from the project leader and other experts, were taken through the process of creating a department website from scratch.

1. To find innovative and practical solutions to the problem of how the make the most of the school Geography Department website, and to share the findings with geography teachers
2. To support the CPD of the participating teachers, their colleagues, and geography teachers more widely.
3. To support the development of the geography curriculum in a teacher led, or 'bottom up' way.

You may not be familiar with some of the terminology used in these project pages, so here are brief definitions of a few key words:

• Website: The pages and files seen on the computer screen, which provide specific information, such as for a school geography department. A website has a unique address, and it may be accessed on the internet, on an intranet, or on an extranet.
• Internet: The means for supporting website/s which may have unrestricted access. It can be accessed anywhere with a phone line.
• Intranet: The means for supporting a website/s with access restricted to a certain place, such as a school.
• Extranet: The means for supporting a website/s with access restricted to a certain place, such as a school, which allows it to be accessed EXTERNALLY, such as a school geography department website, which can be accessed at home.

Each participating school developed their intranets and the experience gave them valuable insight into how to make the most of a Geography Department website. These are in a variety of contexts, from setting up an intranet from scratch, with very little technical support, to developing an advanced pupil self-assessment tool, for highly personalised and independent learning.

Participant reports can be viewed on the Project Reports page.