Nico Zijlstra

I came across the following exhibition in 1898: De nationale tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid in The Hague The organising committee was impressed by the success of the Danish exhibition in 1895. Perhaps an idea to investigate this Danish exhibition from the Danish/Swedish side. 22nd June-15th September Kvindernes Udstilling http://www.kvinfo.dk/side/454/

Of course the translation of texts is a problem we've got to look into seriously. But there is a way of minimizing the problem: try to be brief in using and translating texts. Nobody, especially students and even teachers don't want to read from the screen. Large chunks of texts will -at the best- be ingnored or scrolled by viewers/users. I'll be writing short pieces of texts on Dutch women. And I'll focus on using images rather than words to describe and investigate the History of Women in the 20th century. Translating those materials is hard though, that's true!

Digischool, the main portal for History teachers in the Netherlands has published the E-Help information: Newsletter Digischool

Researching the Dutch branch of the Women Peace Party I followed Dr. Aletta Jacobs. In Spartacus the link to Dr. Aletta Jacobs (John could you look into the spelling on your website?) was dead. Aletta Jacobs Could you please look into it John?

Hopefully not last! We thoroughly enjoyed the hospitality of Henry Compton Secondary School in Fulham. On my forum one of our girls wrote that she would like to see more meetings between students to take place. In my view students exchange should take place within the curriculum of both partner schools. Working on 1 central theme together in History or whatsoever, social meetings and building up contacts over a longer period of time should be in the forefront. This was a start, Henry Compton pupils will always be welcome in Heerlen!

I've contacted Albert van der Kaap and he'll put the E-Help on the e-letter list of 'digischool', the main portal for History teachers: DIGISCHOOL

It's the smaller one in the middle! She was very proud of what she'd done!

I'm taking care of the history of women in the Netherlands, and I'll try to do my best for Germany. I'll as an Austrian collegue to look for Austrian (Habsburgian) materials. Here's one of them (with me in the background!) We had a good laugh on May 8th 2004! My students love this theme! Suggestions for a set of lessons would do, I think.

A very interesting approach to the theme. Giving the students the responsibility of assessing the work, using the original plan is rewarding. I can imagine 'old style' teachers who'd confront this approach, while they feel that they're not in control. The same with Richard's approach in Toulouse where exam results are fine. It surely has got something of Terry Haydn's IMPACT FACTOR we spoke about in Toulouse. This impact factor comes no1 when writing my materials for the E-Help project.

E-HELP : European History E-Learning Project Het European History E-learning Project is een Comenius 2.1 project dat zich richt op het bevorderen van het gebruik van ICT in het Internet in het geschiedenisonderwijs in Europa. Het E-Help team bestaat uit: Richard Jones-Nerzic (Frankrijk: International School of Toulouse) Juan Carlos Ocaña (Spanje: IES Parque de Lisboa, Madrid) Vicente López-Brea Fernández (Spanje: Alcorcon Teachers Support Centre, Madrid) Nico Zijlstra (Nederland: Sintermeertencollege, Heerlen) Anders MacGregor-Thunell (Zweden: Hvitfeldtska Gymnasiet, Gothenburg) Dalibor Svoboda (Zweden: Fredrika Bremer Gymnasium, Stockholm) Terry Hadyn (GB: University of East Anglia) Alf Wilkinson (GB: Historical Association) Andy Walker (GB: Dartford Technology College) John Simkin (GB: Spartacus Educational) In de komende 3 jaar zal E-Help: 1. onderzoek doen naar, evalueren en presenteren van voorbeelden van ‘good practice’ in het geschiedenisonderwijs in Europa. 2. een meertalige website inclusief discussieforum produceren en onderhouden om de doelstellingen te bereiken. 3. innovatieve historische bronnen aanbieden die de Europese dimensie benadrukken, vanuit een verleden-heden situatie en met mogelijkheden van tweede taal onderwijs 4. een cursus aanbieden in juli 2007 (gegeven aan de International School of Toulouse, Frankrijk) waar het innovatief gebruik van ICT in het geschiedenisonderwijs kan worden ervaren en gedeeld E-Help heeft haar eerste bijeenkomst in februari 2005 in Toulouse gehad. Daarbij zijn een groot aantal presentaties rond het thema ICT in het geschiedenisonderwijs. De presentaties waren: Richard Jones-Nerzic (When are computers actually going to teach history?) Dan Lyndon (Information is not Learning) Anders MacGregor-Thunell (Working with Local Archives) Dave Martin (ICT and Students’ Historical Communication Skills) Dalibor Svoboda (The Knowledge and Competent Foundation) Isabelle Voegeli (The Use of ENA in the History Classroom) John Simkin (Using ICT to Turn Students into Historians) Caterina Gasparini (Learning by Shared Connected Knowledge) Nico Zijlstra (Maintaining Your Own History Website, is it worthwhile?) Doug Belshaw (ICT and Collaborative Teaching and Learning) Janos Blasszauer (ICT and the Quality of Teaching and Learning) Terry Hadyn (Using ICT in School History to Develop Political Literacy) José Luis de la Torre (EducaHistoria and Teaching History) Alf Wilkinson (Using the Web Effectively for Research) Andy Walker (Using ICT to Break Down Barriers to Learning) Juan Carlos Ocaña (Looking to the Future) Andrew Field (The Past in the Future) Alle presentaties kunnen worden gelezen op The Education Forum: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?act=idx en dan http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showforum=214

After so many interesting presentations, your presentation was in several ways so different. The flash animation kept us glued to the screen. No need for a pause. The examples you set were so clear that I immediately showed the storyboard-ideas to my collegues. We'll certainly pick the idea up and hope to creat our own boards in the future! Well done!

Presentation 17/2/2005 Toulouse by Nico Zijlstra Maintaining your own website Is it worthwhile? 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! With My own History webpage I’ve been able to realize some of my teaching aims: • I can manage other webbased projects I’ve been doing over the last couple of years: I don’t have to rely on a webmaster of some kind • I’m able to add little tasks to the curriculum: offering extra information tot students, offering them on-line help. • I manage a students forum. Part of it is moderated by students themselves • The homepage keeps you up-to-date with historical or schoolevents. One of the websites is an e-learning environment: it's a database driven website, comining local history with an attractive taylormade e-learning environment:Industrial Heritage • It’s about local history • Resources available to students • Content can be managed by the teacher • Students go step-by-step through their research • Students put their presentations on-line Special feature: • The teacher logs the progress of the student However there are problems in maintaining your own website: Obstacles: – Organizational:  Maintaining is a 1 man job  History Department collegues must share information and educational materials  Schoolmanagment is not happy with this extra website – Technical: Teach yourself in using Dreamweaver/ Fireworks and Photoshop – Educational:  Computers are not always available: I’ve got to book a computerroom – ICT-projects sometimes become homework  History Department collegues stick to books  Not all students are computer-literate  Only 2 Departments write ICT materials: History and ICT But there are solutions:  Have a plan, a structure for what you have in mind – Put it in your school’s curriculum (the best way to get support)  Get backup from the managment/ board of directors  Work in a team! – Don’t do it on your own! – Get involved in the ICT-plan of your school – Good practice convinces lots of collegues – Ask students!  A good Content Managment System gives shared responsibilities  Work with E-Help! Maintaining your own website Is it worthwhile?  Yes,  Because changes are inevitable!  The future classroom could be everywhere and at any time So maintaining your own website:  helps students  motivates students  gives you the opportunity to create your own curriculum  makes teaching up-to-date

Presentation 17/2/2005 Toulouse by Nico Zijlstra Maintaining your own website Is it worthwhile? See: seperate thread in the E-Help seminars section

Maintaining your own History website. Is it worthwhile? Thanks to the contacts in VS-History Department I’ve started to design and maintain my own Sintermeertencollege History Department website. In my presentation I’ll focus on the educational ideals I had when I started two years ago and on the problems I’ve encountered: technical, organisational, educational. What lessons could be learnt?

The news of the end of VS didn't come unexpected. It has been in the air so to speak. The good thing, however, is that ideas have been generated in the form of the E-help project. Personally I've learned a lot of the VS approach to teaching History. In a meeting with Dutch members of the Biology Department we concluded that our personal experiences in VS was spreading to schools and teaching. I've been a member for less than 2 years, so I can't really comment on this, but on a Dutch national level VS-members have been left alone by the ministry of education. They were willing to support VS activities, but by creating a taskforce with national members in different Departments, the idea of VS would have had a bigger impact. Caterina Gasparini raises a sensible question all E-help participants should think of. But perhaps the future is brighter than Caterina expects it to be. If the E-help project is carried out in a creative and sensible way, the outcome in the E-help course will spread the ideas among teachers, teacher trainers and students. The effect might be more direct than VS could ever achieve!

In my opinion ICT should emphasize more on the C of communication: communication between students (forums) between students and teachers, between teachers (interactive websites) so that teaching and learning don't depend on time and or place. I would like to see teachers being able to control their own web-content, share it with collegues, share control of content with collegues in a projectform. Perhaps Content Management Systems can be of help here. Students should be able to create their own webcontent in any form they (and their teachers) like. This implies using and coupling databases. In my school we're starting an experiment on this next year. Juan Carlos makes a point here: But Juan Carlos, resources are available in those European languages, but of some materials we need multilingual versions so that they can be used by more students and teachers. Although English is being used as a Lingua Franca on the web, especially younger students need to be addressed in their own language. Then they will be able to work on subjects (with a European dimension) they would otherwise not have been able to use.

Onderstaand artikel komt van de Onderwijsraad: de vraag is, moeten we aan zulke ideeën meewerken, zijn we het eens over een canon voor de Nederlandse geschiedenis, verwordt geschiedenis niet tot een meewaaier met politieke winden?

I've been using computers in the classroom from the old DOS age. At that time students were invited to use a database in dBase3 and use the sorting function and draw conclusions of what they'd been doing. Primitive, working over a green screen, but the students loved it. Without the database, this kind of source work could never have been done. One of the next projects was to fill a website on the theme of Mainports in History. Internet was relatively new (1992): The idea was to put information in the Internet in an organised way. Students would be able to access materials without having to buy books, work outside office hours. The project showed that students would not read from the screen: they spent fortunes in copying the sources from the Internet. Perhaps no good practice, but it showed that you must have a clear internal structure of your website: Be brief and define beforehand what you want to do with your web and create one accordingly. In an expanding Internet, the sources students can use may be well found outside your own website. Lessons drawn from that Mainports-project were used in a project concerning interviewing people who had resisted the Germans during WW2 in our region. Some 36 pupils participated: finding eyewitnesses, taking pictures of the places where during the war actions had taken place, setting up the structure of the website, programming the website in HTML, organise pressmeetings, cooperate with students in a German partnerschool etc. This work left a great impression on all participants and it showed me as a teacher what hidden capabilities the students have and enjoyed to show. Protest Using the web as a medium for (unilateral) communication using webforms was the next step in the Propagandaproject Creating little webs for students to study local history soon followed. Impressed with the way Iinternational School of Toulouse and Richard Jones-Nerzic used the Internet in their curicullum I decided to host a History website for my school, combining older projects, a forum for discussion, quizzes and combine it with the schoolcuricullum. Not everybody was happy with this initiative: not using the official Sintermeertencollege, official site was the main problem, but that site did not fulfill the requirements of the flexibility I have with Sintermeertencollege History

A German joke for a change: A classic from the GDR: Der wichtigste Buchstabe der deutschen Sprache ist das W. Wenn das W nicht wäre, hieße es nicht Warschauer Pakt. Wenn das W nicht wäre, hieße es nicht Walter Ulbricht. Wenn das W nicht wäre, hieße es nicht Waffenbrüderschaft.

I am a History teacher teaching in a Secondary School in Heerlen, The Netherlands. I run my own website Sintermeerten History website. I also work closely together with a webdesign firm called E-Linq which is specialized in ICT implementation in schools. As a member of the Virtual School team I've become involved in the E-Help project.

During the Battle of Britain the Luftwaffe changed tactics: instead of bombarding airstrips and radarintallations they bombarded the cities and gave the RAF time to breathe. German impatience led to misjudgements. No wonder: Germany was ill prepared to invade the British beaches. Landingcraft were being welded together using Dutch river barges. Personal misjudgements by Göring: No extra fuel tanks for his Me 109 fighter planes: this left his bombers unprotected. What about changing tactics on the British side?

Four more years of excessive spending. A weaker dollar, a delayed economic growth in Europe because of that. (from an European point of view!) And this is just one of the things that came up in thoughts today. It would be very interesting to know what American collegues think of 4 more years! A very interesting topic!!

One of my students is doing research on the schoolsystem in South Africa during and after the Apartheid regime. She want to have a look at the PHFE=Policy Handbook for Educators, prior to 1993. Can anyone help?

Fear for communism was far greater than the fear of Hitler: 'Better Hitler than Stalin'! John's example of Indian politicians favouring Hitler perhaps can be studied by searching for 'Subhash Chandra Bose' in the Internet. The figure of Bose, however, is strongly disputed.

I agree. Within themes we can emphasise on differences between nations amongst other perspectives.