iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Alistair Hamill

Dr David Preece @doctorpreece.bsky.social · 03/10/2025

Delighted and grateful that Secondary Geography in Action is now published and on sale with @hachettelearning.bsky.social as part of @teacherhead.bsky.social's "In Action" series. www.hachettelearning.com/geography/se...

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Alistair Hamill @ahamill.bsky.social · 11/09/2025

It's Thursday, so late night opening of the shops. Take a wander round the city centre. Victoria Sq is worth a visit. Cathedral Quarter has plenty of eating out options.

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Alistair Hamill @ahamill.bsky.social · 09/08/2025

My thoughts exactly! Do you have any recommendations re the VPN? On the plus side, maybe you'll learn some Swedish?!?

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Alistair Hamill @ahamill.bsky.social · 09/08/2025

Anyone have any views on or experiences of the age verification process on here? I guess it's inevitable now, but should I be concerned about the storage of my personal data?

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Alistair Hamill @ahamill.bsky.social · 09/06/2025

GCSE Fieldwork day! It may have been a bit rainy, but the spirits of my Y11s were anything but dampened! Great to get out exploring geography in the real world!

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Alistair Hamill @ahamill.bsky.social · 06/06/2025

#HowIUsedGISToday Prep for GCSE fieldwork on Monday meant using the Chromebooks to allow the pupils to explore the area we'll be visiting to familiarise themselves with the geology. Embedding GIS as the norm involves little moments like this when I choose GIS over paper.

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Alistair Hamill @ahamill.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

Seagull Island at the Giant's Causeway, with some gorgeous painterly light.

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Alistair Hamill @ahamill.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

The glorious Lacada Point at the Giant's Causeway. It's quite the scramble to get here, but the views are always worth it!

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Alistair Hamill @ahamill.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

This is the aurora you've been looking for. Star Wars Day aurora around 23.35 on May 4 2025, beating both the twilight and the bright moonlight.

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Alistair Hamill @ahamill.bsky.social · 01/05/2025

Excellent day yesterday on 6th form fieldwork around Belfast. We started collecting river data along the Colin River. It was great to see the pupils enjoying geography in the real world on the warmest day of the year so far!

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Alistair Hamill @ahamill.bsky.social · 20/04/2025

I like to zoom in and zoom out a lot, too, as it helps build the schema. I'll look at how I can weave that into my analogy more explicitly.

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Alistair Hamill @ahamill.bsky.social · 20/04/2025

...in providing that cognitive cohesion. I'm then including in each chapter about the substantive knowledge the relevant Big Ideas that can be explored there. So perhaps that empowering explanation element will come out more fully in that context.

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Alistair Hamill @ahamill.bsky.social · 20/04/2025

Then I go on to discuss the challenge in geography of the fact that there is not one agreed route through the topics, so it can mean that pupils struggle to see the connections between all the topics we do. Finally I discuss the role of Big Ideas as part of geography's disciplinary knowledge...

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Alistair Hamill @ahamill.bsky.social · 20/04/2025

Thanks, Lee. There's lots that could be said about Big Ideas, including their explanatory power. Where this sits in the flow of the chapter is that I start by discussing the dangers of teaching unconnected, "factoid" knowledge that fails to build strong schemas & connect with prior knowledge.

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Alistair Hamill @ahamill.bsky.social · 19/04/2025

As I continue to write my book, Teacher Hacks: Geography, I'm drafting something on the role of Big Ideas in creating geographical meaning, exploring the metaphor that knowledge had a topography. Thoughts and feedback welcome!

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Alistair Hamill @ahamill.bsky.social · 18/04/2025

Check out my video showing how Tectoglob3D can help you take fieldtrips to the mantle. This is the presentation I made as part of the @gasigict.bsky.social session at the GA Conference this week. docs.google.com/videos/d/1kL...

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Alistair Hamill @ahamill.bsky.social · 17/04/2025

Now that's one I would definitely love to have been at! Alongside yours, too, of course! Talking of which, I'd love to hear more of what you shared.

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Alistair Hamill @ahamill.bsky.social · 17/04/2025

I was delighted to be able to share the story of my Climate Change Citizen Science project as part of @geogramblings.com's #GAConf25 session. It's a powerful story of agency in action, inspiring hope. Here's the video youtu.be/tTWvYb4tJlA?...

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Reposted by Alistair Hamill

Benjamin Hennig @geoviews.wsocial.eu · 16/04/2025

A whole new volcanic hazard map for the Reykjanes peninsula in Iceland has been published by the Icelandic Met Office (Veðurstofa Íslands). Find out more about the redesign at en.vedur.is/about-imo/ne...

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Reposted by Alistair Hamill

Paul Bierman @paul-bierman.bsky.social · 15/04/2025

And...geology matters to public health. Support science. It helps us all🧪 Volcanic ash is a silent killer, more so than lava: What Alaska needs to know with Mount Spurr likely to erupt theconversation.com/volcanic-ash...

theconversation.com

Volcanic ash is a silent killer, more so than lava: What Alaska needs to know with Mount Spurr likely to erupt

When volcanoes like Alaska’s Mount Spurr erupt, the ash can damage people’s lungs, smother crops and kill animals, and the harm can continue to spread long afterward.

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Alistair Hamill @ahamill.bsky.social · 15/04/2025

Thrilled to have been awarded the GA Teaching Geography Journal Award for the second year running! This is for my second article on plate tectonics, Taking Fieldtrips to the Mantle. This award is voted for by my geography colleagues, so I'm happy the articles are proving helpful.

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Reposted by Alistair Hamill

Geographical Association Special Interest Group ICT @gasigict.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

'GIS: the key to understanding our interconnected world – seven ideas' (at least seven!) 15.30-16.20 Wed 16 April Chakrabarti room #GAConf25 @geographicalassoc.bsky.social #GIS #geospatial sched.co/1snE4

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Alistair Hamill @ahamill.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

Not long now to @doctorpreece.bsky.social & my presentation at the @geographicalassoc.bsky.social Conference where we'll discuss how to support ECTs & non-specialist teachers of geography in developing geographical meaning through the content they are teaching.

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Alistair Hamill @ahamill.bsky.social · 13/04/2025

Moonlit aurora at the Giant's Causeway last weekend. I love the detail in the stones picked out by the moonlight.

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Alistair Hamill @ahamill.bsky.social · 13/04/2025

And I posted some qualitative data, too, to illustrate how students reported using AI, not just *that* it was being used. Combine that with a four week programme with lots of conversations between my pupils and me during that time and I'm happy to stand over my claims.

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Alistair Hamill @ahamill.bsky.social · 13/04/2025

As you can imagine, the limits of a post don't allow the full range of my approach to AI teaching to be explored. This thread is focused on what I've found out about how to maximise the efficacy of pupil use to promote empowering revision. Other threads deal with other themes.

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Alistair Hamill @ahamill.bsky.social · 13/04/2025

As for my description of this having powerful impacts, when the pupils make reports like this, I'm happy to use that description..

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Alistair Hamill @ahamill.bsky.social · 13/04/2025

• Extracting one variable that influences outcomes to see what individual role it played is difficult & would have to have had a proper psychological experiment process designed around it to allow us to comment on factors affecting outcomes.

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Alistair Hamill @ahamill.bsky.social · 13/04/2025

Various things. • They haven't done exams yet, so that's not possible to comment on. • It is legitimate to comment on changes in process, not just outcome. • The emotional dimensions of learning are significant. If the pupils are feeling more confident in the process, that is important.

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Alistair Hamill @ahamill.bsky.social · 13/04/2025

I'm not actually coming over in person, Alan. It was too pricey overall. But I'm live streaming in for this session with David as well as the @gasigict.bsky.social session too.

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Alistair Hamill @ahamill.bsky.social · 13/04/2025

The moonlight gives it such an ethereal quality

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Alistair Hamill @ahamill.bsky.social · 13/04/2025

A delightful moonlit aurora display from last weekend, at the glorious Wishing Arch near Portrush.

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Alistair Hamill @ahamill.bsky.social · 13/04/2025

That depends on when I finish the first draft! I'm hoping to get that done by the end of May, then it's into the editing and publishing phase. So maybe 6 months?

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Alistair Hamill @ahamill.bsky.social · 13/04/2025

This is the one I'm working on.

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Alistair Hamill @ahamill.bsky.social · 13/04/2025

I'm ecumenical when it comes to the tool! I prefer Gemini because I'm a Google user and it integrates better. But the tools are broadly similar. One month, one will be slightly ahead, the next month another one will. How you use them is more important than which one you use.

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Alistair Hamill @ahamill.bsky.social · 13/04/2025

🤣🤣 I've always taken the approach with tech never to make myself feel I have to have all the answers before using it. I need to know enough to scaffold their use; but I'm happy to lean into their expertise & what they discover as part of the process.

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Alistair Hamill @ahamill.bsky.social · 13/04/2025

From a teacher productivity POV, I'm loving voice to text. I observed an ECT last week, making hand written notes. After, I opened Gemini, spoke in my thoughts & it outputted quality prose from that that allowed me (once I proof read it) to give the ECT written feedback within 20 mins of the obs.

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Alistair Hamill @ahamill.bsky.social · 13/04/2025

The key is the prompt. AI tools are designed to be helpful and give the answer as fast as possible. So the prompt needs to explain that you want the AI to act as a coach, asking questions to help you think.

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Alistair Hamill @ahamill.bsky.social · 13/04/2025

...for them to interact verbally rather than through reading and typing was powerful in helping them overcome the frictions to learning dyslexic pupils can face.

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Alistair Hamill @ahamill.bsky.social · 13/04/2025

...then for the pupils to trial that approach during the week. The following week we would debrief. Many of them reported liking using the speech interface as it felt like a natural way to express their evolving thinking. One other significant use was for a pupil with dyslexia. The ability...

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Alistair Hamill @ahamill.bsky.social · 13/04/2025

...the next thing was for me to combine those two by encouraging the pupils to "chat to" the AI. We then explored how we could prompt the AI to ensure it gave coaching style feedback rather than the direct answers. The purpose of the pilot was for us to explore uses like this, agree an approach...

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Alistair Hamill @ahamill.bsky.social · 13/04/2025

My starting point was exploring ways that AI could replicate the kinds of conversations I would have with pupils when coaching them. So either voice to text or the full on voice mode was where I started with that. Given how many pupils like to speak out loud when doing self explanation...

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