TOULOUSE 2005 (PART 1) SEMINARS AND WORKSHOPS
SEMINARS
           
 
 
Information is not learning, using webquests in the classroom (Dan Lyndon) - The World Wide Web has given teachers and students of history access to an ‘information superhighway’ previously unparalleled. However, whilst there are obvious advantages in terms of the resources now available on the Internet, this has not necessarily been translated into the effective teaching and learning of history. This paper will look at the advantages and disadvantages of the Internet as a teaching tool. It will highlight the benefits of using webquests as a method for ensuring the use of higher order thinking skills when using the Internet. The paper will conclude with a case study looking at a webquest that I have written about the contribution of black and asian soldiers in the First World War
(www.comptonhistory.com/ww1webquest.htm). This was taught to year 9 students in January 2005...
           
 
 
ICT and Historical Communication Skills (Dave Martin) - The first section of the workshop summarised the five different strands of ICT use in history that I have been involved with. In each case there are advantages to history from the effective use of ICT. That word ‘effective’ is very important, as sometimes ICT is not the best tool for supporting learning in history. The first four strands were covered very quickly. They are not new ideas, they do work but in some places history teachers have been slow to adopt them. The reasons for history teachers not using ICT are well documented. In the case of databases, the first strand illustrated, the three main reasons are access to ICT facilities, a lack of suitable software and the seeming technical difficulty of using data base software. This workshop focussed upon a use of ICT that will not be so difficult to adopt, the use of electronic whiteboards, an item of equipment that is rapidly becoming available to many history teachers and which is easy to use...
           
 
 
The use of ICTs in the classroom: ENA a case study (Isabelle Voegeli) - The European NAvigator knowledge base, or ENA, is primarily aimed at use in secondary and higher education. ENA provides pupils, students and teachers with thousands of documents on the history of Europe from 1945 to the present day. From the outset, ENA has been developed together with teachers. In particular, they have been involved in content development, in interface and feature evaluation and, more recently, in assessing the various methods of using ENA. In this presentation, I would like to focus on this last point. I shall also be sharing with you the experience that we have aquired as a producer of multimedia content...
           
 
 
The New Paradigm: learning by sharing connected knowledge (Caterina Gasparini) - Teachers are called to change their attitude to ICT, which should not be considered a tool but be integrated into their teaching. Michael Young, the founder of the UK Open University, saw teachers as educational companions who accompany students on part of their learning through life. The stress is less on the content of learning than on the learning process itself, which must teach young people to become expert learners. The final target is learning to learn and the quality of the learning process is more important than the quantity of knowledge imparted...
           
 
 
ICT for collaborative teaching and learning (Doug Belshaw) - The main point of my presentation is to recommend the elements that should be integrated into the proposed E-HELP website to make it the most collaborative environment possible. Before I do so, I intend to discuss the reasons why collaboration is a good idea in the first place, along with potential barriers and methods of doing so...
           
 
 
The role ICT has played in my teaching (Janos Blasszauer) -
1 Background
1.1 1997 teaching journals
1.1.1 e.g. Tillyer, A. (1997) “The InfiNET Possibilities: English Teachers on the Internet.” Forum 35.1, pp. 16-25.
my philosophy - The guiding principle in my teaching is that teachers should seek to empower students with the necessary skills to take control of their own learning (i.e., the "tricks" of successful language learning), and, at the same time, emulate the behaviors they expect their students to acquire. I strongly believe that the main goal in my teaching and project activities is that students can learn to function outside of the sheltered classroom environment, shifting the burden of learning from the teacher to the student. I also believe that teachers should take charge of their own individual development as teachers, researchers, mentors...
           
 
 
The Past in the Future (Andrew Field) - My presentation can be seen at
http://www.schoolhistory.co.uk/ehelp/... My intention - which I hope has been achived - was to provide some explanation of the materials I have already developed and then make a few suggestions about what would be possible yet exciting in the future. The basic ideas for 'the future' were:
- Collaborative mind-mapping - enabling students to put a mind-map together in the same way forum posts are made. This would combine the accessibility of mindmapping with the dynamic communication of forums
- Online video editing - in relation to student presentations - enabling students to access and edit video resources online through the use of Flash technology. The key aim here would be to remove the tiresome and challenging setup issues and focus students' attention on the historical use of video content
- Interactive investigtions - merging 'commercial' standard presentations together with current decision making exercises. Producing effective ICT-based historical investigations but with a far more attractive and dynamic front-end. Yet rather than a 'flashy front end' the goal has to be student control and student freedom...
           
 
 
+ José Luis de la Torre Diaz. Not posted any summary yet...
           
MEMBER PRESENTATIONS
           
Students in the Archive... (Anders MacGregor-Thunell) - My presentation in Toulouse 17/2 2005 included an account of an ongoing class/project in one of my courses at Hvitfeldtska Gymnasiet (Upper Secondary School) in Gothenburg, Sweden. The ideas of this presentation was to emphasize the possibilities of using ICT in connection with local history and work in the archives plus the individual an “public” gain of this work...

The Student as Historian: An ICT Revolution (John Simkin) - The main objective of this presentation is to explore the ways that ICT can help students develop a love of history...
Maintaining your own website, is it worthwhile? (Nico Zijlstra) -
1994: Sintermeertencollege was awarded the title “Computerschool” of the year
• 30 computers: but what to do with them? • Computers being used as typewriters • Full potential of the WWW not fully understood • Students as a driving force behind changes
 The Unesco Time-project kicks off changes (1995). The Time-project included (and includes) 
• WWW • Videoconferencing • E-mail • Chat
> After the Time-project our schoolmanagment decides to build a website (1995)
But after a while the site proved to be too static: Most information is behind a login
Problems I have with the school’s website:
ICT?  Technology: yes but: It is a STATIC website limited  Information only  Communication only per e-mail No learning environment No interactivity possible No nested websites No quizzes  No forum
Solution: Build your own!...
Multimedia school books in education., Are they necessary? How can they be used? (Dalibor Svoboda)
Background. The Knowledge Foundation was established in 1994. The starting financial base of The Foundation was 3,6 billions of Swedish crowns. In the first ten years, the foundation has invested almost five billion Swedish kronor in projects related to research, competence development in industry and ICT development in the schools. The Knowledge Foundation can be found at
: http://www.kks.se/templates/StandardPage.aspx?id=84
ICT in education. In order to promote growth in Sweden over the long term, the Knowledge Foundation supports development in Swedish schools. With investments at both the national and regional level, the Foundation wants to increase ICT use, develop the school’s different ways of working and stimulate children in their desire to learn. Around 1,2 billions of Swedish crowns was invested in projects related towards these goals...
History, ICT and 'Impact' Learning (Terry Haydn) -
1. Influences on my thinking about history and ICT
i) Politicians’ misconceptions about the educational uses of ICT
“Ever since Harold Wilson spoke of the white heat of technology, politicians and decision makers have assumed that silicon offers a hot-wired short-cut to voters’ hearts… A succession of ministers from Benn to Baker embraced technology with photogenic relish; when did you last see an education minister in the media without a computer in the background?’ (Stephen Heppell, Observer, 8 January 1995).
‘The psychologist Weigenbaum observed in the 1960s that computers seemed to have a powerful delusional effect on some people and should not be allowed near the weak minded or gullible’ (Guardian, December 1996).
In the UK, insufficient heed has been paid to the views of practising history teachers on what they want in terms of ICT. Politicians have tended to view ICT as an unproblematic educational miracle and as something that is principally about training pupils to use computers for employment purposes (one of my sad little hobbies is collecting quotes by politicians about the educational uses of ICT). As John Naughton pointed out (Observer, 22 March 1988) ‘It’s not every day you encounter a member of the government who appears to understand the net. Most politicians (Clinton, Blair, Blunkett, to name but three) see it as a pipe for pumping things into schools and schoolchildren.’...
Helping the terrified use ICT in history teaching, Simple steps to moving people on (Alf Wilkinson) - My seminar focused on a simple practical example of how we might encourage history teachers to use ICT in their lessons. If we start from the history, and not from the ICT, then we can show how we can actually do history, only better, using ICT...
Using E-learning to overcome barriers to learning (Andy Walker) - Teaching in a secondary modern school on an area where the old Tripartite system prevails (the top 32% of the ability range go to grammar schools), I am used to encountering some fairly stubborn barriers to learning. Specifically
1. Linguistic Deprivation
2. Cultural deprivation
My seminar is an attempt to outline some of the successful ways software and web pages have been used by classroom practitioners to break down these barriers and engage previously labelled “unacademic” pupils in historical and sociological study leading to examination success...
Looking to the future (Juan Carlos) - So far, ICT and internet has brought about changes in the way history is taught. Teachers and students are able to obtain large amounts of historical contents in a very short time. A few years ago, to get the same information would have meant to peruse tens of books at home or in libraries. John Simkin's Spartacus Educational is an outstanding example. My web site Historiasiglo20.org may be included in this sort of resources...