The Educated Kiwi
Posts tagged history
Auckland War Museum Cenotaph Database Great for research
Jun 17th
On Monday we took our Year 11 students to Auckland to visit the War Museum as a part of our NCEA 1.1 and 1.2 assessments where they have to research a person from the 20th century and create a poster with a brief bio/timeline and the relevant historical ideas that apply to that person.
The Scars on the Heart Exhibit always gives them plenty to look at and I only wish we were able to spend more time there. For now we will make do with our local information.
While there I was kindly reminded about the Cenotaph database
The cornerstone of our military information system is Cenotaph, a biographical database of New Zealanders who have died in the 19th century, from the New Zealand Wars and South Africa, through the First and Second World Wars to Korea, Malaya and Vietnam.Cenotaph started primarily as a roll of honour of those who died as a result of war service. Now it includes many personnel who have died since war service. Virtually all those who served in World War One are included.
The database already consists of over 122600 records, many of which include a portrait taken from published sources or supplied by family members. We draw information from a range of published sources and from the Museum Library’s manuscripts collection and references to personal items on display in the Scars on the Heart galleries.
It’s an excellent resource and one I’ve been trying to get the students to look at to see their own family history.
How much work do we do versus how much time we have.
Jul 30th
So at present my class are working on Achievement Standard 1.1, History Research. For this they have two weeks, Four class periods for research in which I have booked the library and laptops and then a week by themselves. As always I feel that this graph accurately shows how busy they are given the fact that two weeks must seem like an eternity to a teenager. The graph was created with Crappy Graphs which I find very funny, especially given that I am known for drawing crappy maps in class.
So now I await my students finished projects and I’m again left wondering. If I gave them two days to complete this how different would the result be? Just how many hours make up a good task?
World War Two Combat studies guides.
Jul 2nd
Recently @Moodlegirl sent me through a powerpoint of the War in Europe. This animated powerpoint show allowed us as a class to go through what happened very quickly as a recap at the end of the topic. I figured this must come from somewhere and there it is on the Combat Studies Institute pages, along with the Pacific and a number of resources on the US Civil War as well. Now the next step will be to get my students to create one of these using a task that I have traditionally done on paper regarding the post war period and New Zealand. Can I say agin how much I love finding stuff on the internet that we all share (cheers mel).
What was the better lesson?
Jun 30th
So yesterday I spent time preparing a lesson for my year 11 History class. The reasons being two-fold one, I had an observation lesson for my appraisal and I always like to show some technology off and two, It’s nearly the end of the term and I need to get this Origins of World War Two topic finished before the break.
So I headed off to the TES site and found a task on appeasement, similar to one I had used before but nicely presented. I then had the laptops booked for the period and after my initial discussion, a quick video clip of Chamberlain arriving with the document he claimed achieved peace for our time got the class started on the task which I had set up in Moodle. Now this task went reasonably well but at the end of the period when I checked what the class had learned I was disappointed with how little was achieved.
So the next day I taught traditionally I would say. We read and answered questions, drew some maps of the period 1938-1939 and discussed why people wouldn’t like to go to war after the pain of the years prior to 1938. At the end of the period during recap a number of the students remarked how they got that and how they like those lessons.
At this point I am confused. I guess when you are trying to move quickly through teaching content and facts it is hard to beat traditional teaching for the shear volume of stuff and it is by doing this that my students have gained scholarships in the past. I am however looking to vary this more and more. Aside from using ICT for making tasks ‘pretty’ I have, at the urging of @efreeman been getting one student a day to write a reflective piece on moodle which we can then work on to post as part of a class blog so we begin.
I must say it makes it hard for me to evangelise ICT use to fellow staff members when my class get better results from ICT poor lessons. I will keep trying to get the results that prove there is a better way.
Photos that changed the world
Jun 16th
While looking to research the Spanish civil war for my History class I came across the Photos that changed the world site again. While I was only looking for the falling soldier there are just so many of these that I will have to spend a bit of time in class looking at some of the relevant ones to our topics this year. It is amazing how many of these photos are about war and conflict.
Free us from exams
Sep 8th
Exam week is again upon us and I read with interest the discussion on the New Zealand History Teachers association blog-
We believe the exam component is important to maintaining both credibility and a sound basis for future study. There is no evidence that Universities or Polytechnics are abandoning exams and we owe it to our students to prepare them, especially at Year13, for the realities of tertiary education.- CBHS
I always struggle with this concept of the importance of exams for these reasons-
1) I liked Bursary. As a student it was easy to follow and I knew what to aim for. As a teacher it was easy to teach, the students liked the abc grades and were interested in the supporting topics that allowed them to work on their skills.
2) I don’t do exams. Basicallly in the rest of my life I have never and probably will never do an exam. The feeling that I would present something that has not been checked by someone else and collaborated on goes against how I succeed and the real world works.
3) Just because University does exams doesn’t make it right. I had a disappointing time at uni (the classes that is) and was essentially just another paycheck so the chancellor could build more lecture theatres. It wasn’t until third year that things were interesting and by then we collaborated on our projects.
4) Credibility just reeks of marketing speak. “If parents don’t see marks then we won’t be valued as a subject” surely it is time to say we can actually change this system a bit and improve it rather than just doing what we know and have always done.
I am reminded of the statement that there will never be change until a catastrophic event forces change. I just thought we might be able to learn from History and be a bit pre-emptive with this subject.
Essay topic on classroom wall reads-
What events led to Charles the First making the decision to go to war. What were the political, social and economic implications of this decision.
All we need to do is substitute Charles for George W and we have an instant hot topic.
Or am I just being hopeful?
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