New Applications in Geography Teaching and Bringing CAL Centre-StageAuthor(s): Hugh Matthews and Allan JonesSource: Area, Vol. 26, No. 2 (Jun., 1994), pp. 192-193Published by: The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20003430 .

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192 IBG Annual Conference

Henry and Massey's (Open) study and those of many academics which prompted many of those present to shift nervously in their seats.

The session provided some encouraging signs that a dialogue between feminist theory and economic geography is possible and that it can be explored in mutually rewarding ways. For if economic geographers have to recognise that economic exploitation may only be one form of oppression, it remains a critically important form that other approaches ignore at their peril.

Andrew Leyshon University of Hull

Liz Bondi University of Edinburgh

New applications in geography teaching and bringing CAL centre-stage The HESG provided a full-day programme of activities, with all four modules well-attended. The morning session, ably chaired by David Burtenshaw (Portsmouth), was devoted to a consideration of ' New approaches in geography teaching '. This was a wide-ranging session in which John Gold (Oxford Brookes) led with a commentary on the current role and prospects for the human geography textbook. He argued that the authoritative, definitive textbooks of yesteryear are seldom produced today, partly through lack of agreement of what constitutes human geography and partly because textbooks do not count in the research selectivity exercise. Phil Sarre (Open University) provided a review of the work of the Open University (OU), over the last twenty years, in producing and running distance learning courses for mass use. As other universities move towards similar teaching and learning resources, the OU offers not only examples of experience gained but also the potential for collaboration. David McEvoy (Liverpool John Moores) addressed the knotty problem of copyright and its implications for the production of in-house course readers as a means for coping with larger student numbers and dwindling resources. Another solution to resource problems was offered by David Unwin (Birkbeck) who discussed the notion of ' resourceware ', or the sharing of materials produced by others. This issue was developed by Allan Jones (Plymouth), who asked the audience to consider what teaching resources they could most usefully share. An important aspect of all teaching is maintaining student interest. John Bradbeer (Portsmouth) suggested that problem solving and issues-based teaching, particularly through fieldwork, provide a sense of challenge and involvement which most students welcome. In the afternoon session, devoted to the theme 'Bringing CAL centre-stage ', speakers focused on a number of key issues relating to the effective use of computer technology as a teaching and learning aid. The presentation was organised into two parts. In the first, a panel of three speakers addressed the issue of the value of CAL to geography. Derek Diamond (LSE) argued that CAL was critical to the future of the subject, but he remained frustrated about the current involvement of geographers in its development. Whilst the technology may be available he questioned ' where is the specification from geographers? ' and 'are we united by intellectual aims? ' For Ifan Shepherd (Middlesex) the time has come to stop ' teaching about GIS ' to ' teaching with GIS '. he argued that unless geographers are prepared to get to terms with the exciting challenge of GIS applications, others would steal the initiative, with the danger that geography would miss out altogether. A part of the difficulty, according to David Walker (Loughborough) is that CAL suffers from an ' image-problem '. Only in very few areas have computers been effectively used for geography teaching. Until computers are seen as personal assistants their use is likely to be blighted and geography will be the poorer for it. The second session commenced by John Castleford (Leicester) highlighting ' Ten lessons in how to fail with CAL! ' He argued that CAL offered a path to the future, but that geographers had been singularly successful in obfuscating its promise. More optimistic, were David Walker (Loughborough) and Geoff Thomas (Liverpool), who both provided examples of good practice in geography by examining projects

which have successfully implemented CAL. Among the advantages were savings in staff time,

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IBG Annual Conference 193

the effective teaching of large numbers of students and a healthy sharing of resources. Above all students responded positively about the experience, citing both pedagogical benefits and learning gains. The afternoon modules were skilfully chaired by Roy Haines-Young (Nottingham), for whom special thanks is extended for stepping-in at the last moment, and Serwan Baban (Coventry). The conveners would like to thank all the participants for

making the whole day an innovative, thought-provoking and a thoroughly pleasurable experience.

Hugh Matthews Nene College

Allan Jones

Plymouth

Picturing land and life This day long session, convened by Stephen James (Nottingham) and James Ryan (Royal Holloway, London) for the Historical and Social and Cultural Geography Study Groups, addressed the conference theme of ' Imaging the Environment' from a historical and cultural perspective. Twelve speakers, including four cultural historians, examined the power of visual images of land and life in a variety of settings in a number of media. Having, in the official conference route, passed through the ' Troubled Spaces ' session on gender and sexuality, a large and loyal audience reached a session which confirmed the study of cultural imagery as an expanding and highly fertile field of current human geography.

In a module on photography IBG Guest Lance Howard (UCLA) pointed out that the term geography means picturing as well as writing about the earth. This century, photographs are integral to the meanings of geographical texts, if their role has hitherto been little examined especially in relation to writing. He examined this issue in relation to some texts on post-modernity in general and Los Angeles in particular. Charles Withers (Cheltenham and Gloucester College) and SCSG guest John Taylor (Manchester Metro politan) focused on the role of nineteenth century photographers in constructing rural geographies, respectively in the Scottish Highlands and Norfolk Broads. In contrasting

modes of highland and lowland picturesque, George Washington Wilson and P H Emerson portrayed these places as tasteful landscapes, not vulgar playgrounds, if Emerson, as he confided in his journal, was highly susceptible to the allure of East End female strippers. In the following module on rural visions, David Matless (Oxford) took this subject into the twentieth century and the texts of professional geographers and planners, considering how particular visions of Broadland imply particular standards of bodily conduct. Moving to mid-Victorian paintings of the harvest scenes in the Home Counties, Tim Barringer (Victoria and Albert Museum) examined ideologies of discipline and leisure inscribed in the figures of the labourers, and how these contributed to the redefinition of ' nature '. The labours of the artist were also an issue in an age when the pictorial yield of a harvest field, the painting in the sale-room, could command a much higher price than the grain. Susanne Seymour (Nottingham) explored the material power of pictorial imagery in her study of a landed estate in Georgian Herefordshire and its Caribbean outlier. Using a variety of archival sources she showed how economic and social management were articulated by picturesque aesthetics. In a paper on rural Australia between the wars Roy Jones (Curtin), used statistical data and oral histories to bring out the progressive iconography in cartoons and illustrations. The role of exhibition display in defining national identity was examined in two papers. Steve Mills (Keele) charted the narrative organisation of open air museums in Virginia, including one which portrayed a single day in pioneer history. Deborah Sugg (East London) focused on tableaux from early twentieth century Daily Mail Ideal Home exhibitions to see how an enlightened Englishness-at once rustic and modern-was defined in contrast to the homes, lands and lives of exotically ' other' nations (both now appear equally bizarre).

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