Crete Field Trip : Chora Sfakion
Archive for Academic
June 8, 2009 at 6:03 pm · Filed under Academic
1. Please ensure your background knowledge is up to scratch by reading:
- the journal articles supplied to each group (the general text “The Making of the Cretan Landscape” is also available in the 6-hr course collection in the university library)
- the Sfakia websites linked to from this home page
- the entire contents of this website
2. Prepare, as directed on the Physical Geography page, a one A4 side (maximum) work plan to include:
- explanation of how you will estimate discharge using Mannings n (or other method).
- how you could date the flood given the geographical evidence present
- a list of field measurements to be taken
Reading the gorge paper by Maas and Macklin (2002) will be a great help for the second item.
3. Get to grips with Wordpress and try to complete the basic design (for example, set the theme, customise its header image and arrange your sidebar widgets). Assistance will be available on Friday for any problem areas. Make sure you invite me to join your blog. Don’t worry about doing anything on Google Earth. However you may want to create a group Flickr account to host your photos.
While there is a fair amount to do here it will make your life much easier next week and make your visit to Crete more enjoyable if you can hit the ground running and work efficiently towards the completion of the required tasks.
June 8, 2009 at 5:49 pm · Filed under Academic
Thank you for undertaking the FIELDWORK exercise so positively. The word cloud generated from your contributions, and which highlights the most popular words by displaying them in larger text, is here.
Key words to keep in mind include:
Fun
Independence
Experience
Learning
Deduction (drinking is fine…)
What, Where, Why (Wonderful is also fine…)
Originality
Reflection
Knowledge (kebab is fine too…)
June 8, 2009 at 5:44 pm · Filed under Academic
The process for inserting a photo into a Wordpress blog post is simple so it’s unclear why it didn’t work this afternoon. When adding a new post, click on the Upload/Insert icon to “upload image” and select the file from your computer. The file will be uploaded to Wordpress and stored in your personal “media library” (also available via the “Add Image” icon). After uploading you can choose the photo from the media library and will be given various options, including one to “Insert into Post”.
Alternatively, Flickr allows you to connect your account to your Wordpress blog. From within Flickr you can “Blog” a picture. In effect, you write your blog entry with Flickr and then Flickr publishes it to Wordpress (the photo resides on Flickr and is linked to from Wordpress).
Similarly, and we will cover this on Friday, you may write blog posts offline using Windows Live Writer. When you go back online your posts are published from Live Writer to Wordpress (and any photos used uploaded). In Crete you will be offline most of the time so using Live Writer to draft posts is a good idea.
April 28, 2009 at 6:24 pm · Filed under Assignments
Please purchase a hard back notebook (A5 is best) for use in the field. Everyone will need to record detailed, georeferenced, observations and measurements not only for completing the individual reports but also to facilitate the writing of daily blog entries for your website.
Your field notebook will be submitted for assessment with your individual reports. Producing good field notebooks is an important skill. These two sites provide useful guidance:
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April 28, 2009 at 11:09 am · Filed under Assignments
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April 28, 2009 at 10:00 am · Filed under Assignments
Exploration is fundamental to Geography and Geographers have a long history of sharing their travel observations with the public through publication in books and journals. In the 21st century, the Internet offers the potential for the immediate publication of material on websites and blogs.
For this group project you will merge the oldest tradition of Geography with the latest Web 2.0 technologies, including blogs, photo sharing, social networking and video. The end product will be an interactive, illustrated, real-time account of your travels and work in Crete. Your website will be created “in the field” and published on Wordpress.com. This presents considerable challenges and advanced planning will be all important.
Web 2.0
Web 2.0 is considered to represent a second generation of web development and design that facilitates communication, information sharing and collaboration.
Examples of Web 2.0 inspired sites include, Wikipedia, social networking (e.g. Twitter, Facebook, ning), blogging (Wordpress, Blogger, etc), photo sharing (e.g. Flickr), and video (e.g. Youtube).
Each of these sites is characterised by how easy it is for ordinary people to contribute and share. You will all have been actively involved in communication, information sharing and collaboration using sites like Facebook and ning. You will all have accessed, if not contributed to, material on Youtube. Web 2.0 is therefore already part of your daily lives.
In this project you will harness Web 2.0 to deliver academic content as a “virtual field trip”. Your group project website will be created using the blogging platform, Wordpress.com. You are likely to utilise both Flickr and Youtube and may integrate other material, such as feeds from Twitter or content delivered through third-party gadgets.
This site provides introductions to each of these technologies.
References
O’Reilly, T. (2005) What is Web 2.0. http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html.
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April 25, 2009 at 1:22 pm · Filed under Academic
You will be accompanied on the 20 minute ferry journey to Loutro by crowds of walkers heading for the Samaria Gorge – to walk the “lazy way” i.e. up the gorge a short way then back to the coast (you will do this later in the week).
From the ferry you can see the coastal footpath and take note of and photograph key landscape features.
Once in Loutro, to find the coastal footpath walk across the front of the tavernas. At the small kiosk in the middle of the beach go left. Keep going upwards and to the right. All the village paths lead to a metal stock control gate. Go through, and up behind the derelict house. After a few paces keep on the coastal path, ignoring the branch to the left, which goes zigzagging upwards to Anopolis. You now cannot get lost, following the undulating coastal path (marked in yellow and black) to a church on a headland and then down to Sweetwater beach.
The ongoing path from Sweetwater is marked in the usual yellow and black from the eastern end of the beach, climbing after a few minutes over a huge rockfall. Then comes the headland and a brief series of zigzags up to join the Anopolis road. Turn right and walk on the road to Chora Sfakion. You will pass the entrance to Ilingas beach on the right. Just before you reach the first house in Chora Sfakion take the steps down on the right. The path leads down to the harbour.
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April 23, 2009 at 9:50 am · Filed under Assignments
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