New Technology and Outdoor Learning (7 of 8): Inspiring Stories

This is the seventh of eight posts where I discuss some of the things that I talked about at the 2010 Learning and Teaching Scotland Outdoor Learning Regional Events.

There is something about adventure stories that captures the imagination of people and this includes children. I think it is really good when schools capitalize on ‘live’ adventure and follow the journey on-line.

Mark Beaumont is really good at doing this. Many readers of this website will have followed his journey on-line when he smashed the cycling around the world record. His second big adventure ‘Cycling the Americas’ made great use of social media and you were able to follow his blog (which often included audio and video), his twitter feed and his flickr photo stream.

I know some schools that used Marks journey as a real context for learning to teach children about cycling, emergency repairs, place, health, geography and imaginative writing.  I think that this sort of thing is fantastic because it helps to inspire children to go on their own adventures and explore places for themselves.

Of course Mark is not the only person who has a story to tell there are a number of adventure texts that often find there way into Scottish Schools. Jamie Andrews, the Edinburgh climber who has all four limbs amputated after a climbing accident in the French Alps has written up his story. Its been used in a number of Scottish schools and LEA's not only as an appropriate text for an English class but also for work in PSHE to discuss with children some big issues such as loss, recovery, appearance and disability.

Alistair Humphreys also has a great story to tell. After he cycled around the world no one would publish his book. So he published it on LuLu (a website that allows anyone to publish books) he has now sold thousands of copies. Not only is his writing really good but his self belief and determination in his work is also really useful to discuss with children and young people.

I also like the mico-journeys that Alistair shares on his website. I thought his journey around the M25 on foot with Rob Lilwall was absolute genius and I completely agree with him when he says ‘you can have adventures anywhere’.

Kenny O'Donnell even connected his class on Twitter to Alistair while he was up training for a future trip recently in the Arctic – what a great opportunity for the class to communicate with a real expolorer and technology has made all of this possible!

Finally, keep your eyes out for an announcement fairly soon about some work that we are going to be doing on adventure narrative in schools.

Comments

[David Rogers]

I am loving this series of posts Ollie, and this one in particular strikes a note!

Best wishes

David