Giving birth to babies and books
Giving birth to babies and books
Sunday, 10 October 2010
As you can see by the photo here, taken on Friday when he was just one day old, he is a gorgeous little angel.
Welcome to the world Noah!
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As I mentioned above, on Thursday afternoon this week, I saw copies of my latest book for the first time. The 6th edition of ‘Planet Geography’ has been written to support the new IB Dlploma Geography course. Back in the days when I was Deputy Chief Examiner for IB Geography, there was no book written specifically for the IB Geography course, and teachers had to adapt books that had written for other courses around the world, sometimes with similar content but never with a similar philosophically enquiry-based approach or methodology.
When I finished my term as Deputy Chief Examiner, I was determined to give something back to the subject I loved so much by writing a text to fill the need for an IB Geography book. Now that the book is in its 6th edition, and is supporting its second revision to the syllabus, I can feel assured that the effort has been worthwhile.
Although the teaching of Geography is stronger in some parts of the world (such as Europe and Australia) than others (such as North America), I was encouraged recently to read a plea by Tim Costello, the Head of World Vision Australia to give Geography the same prominence as History in the teaching curriculum.
Costello was quoted in the Sydney Morning Herald as saying “Geography is a subject that needs to be a core subject for the compulsory years of schooling and not an optional extra” (SMH, 6th September, 2010).
He continued by saying that “Geography is not just about learning how to read maps and reciting the names of capital cities. Rather, it calls for critical thinking and the development of important knowledge about big issues of sustainability, migration, asylum seekers, population and climate change. Our children need a great education that equips them to be global citizens in an increasingly globalised world – and our world needs engaged and well-educated young people with a global ethic”.
However, there is a growing trend for some educators to reject textbooks as a basis for teaching, worryingly (in my view) preferring that students base their research on the more ‘instant’ but usually unreviewed and often unreliable material on the internet.
Another growing criticism of textbooks is that they are environmentally unfriendly compared with electronic files and e-books. This claim also surprises me, given that books are made from a (usually) well-managed renewable resource - timber - whereas data transfer on the internet uses non-renewable energy of a type that seems to contribute to global warming. The measure I have heard (on a TED Talk – yes, I know, via the internet!) is that each 1MB of data downloaded uses the equivalent of one coal ball. Thus, a 700MB movie download is the equivalent of burning 700 coal balls.
An interesting perspective on this question was provided last year on a blog by Robert Ivan which included an interview with Don Carli, who is Executive Vice President of SustainCommWorld LLC, and Senior Research Fellow with the Institute for Sustainable Communication (http://blog.metaprinter.com/2009/03/news-media-innovation-convergence-and-sustainability-interview-with-don-carli/). I’ll quote the part that I found most interesting:
“Other than pushing the ‘cool’ factor, one of the main selling points being made by marketers of e-Readers is that they are greener than print. It is little surprise that the common view held by consumers who don’t know the back story is that going digital means going green and saving trees. Many are in for a rude awakening. When subjected to ‘cradle-to-cradle’ life cycle analysis, e-Reading is not nearly as green as many naively assume it is.
There is no question that print media could do a better job of managing the sustainability of its supply chains and waste streams, but it’s a misguided notion to assume that digital media is categorically greener. Computers, e-Readers, and cell phones don’t grow on trees and their spiralling requirement for energy is unsustainable.
Making a computer typically requires the mining and refining of dozens of minerals and metals including gold, silver, and palladium as well as extensive use of plastics and hydrocarbon solvents. To function, digital devices require a constant flow of electrons that predominately come from the combustion of coal, and at the end of their all-too-short useful lives electronics have become the single largest stream of toxic waste created by man. Until recently, there was little, if any, voluntary disclosure of the lifecycle ‘back story’ of digital media.
Sadly, print has come to be seen as a wasteful, inefficient and environmentally destructive medium, despite the fact that much of print media is based on comparatively benign and renewable materials. In addition, print has incredible potential to be a far more sustainable medium than it is today... and a truly digital medium as well. Despite its importance to business, government and society, print has been cast in the role of a dark old devil in decline. Digital media has been cast as the bright young saviour on the rise.
Ironically the future of digital media and e-Book readers is likely to be based on flexible polymer electronics manufactured using printing presses rather than silicon semiconductor fabrication technologies. In fact, the next generation of e-Readers will most likely be digital AND be printed.”