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Nico Zijlstra

JFK
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Posts posted by Nico Zijlstra

  1. I've been working for several years now with Richard Jones-Nerzic. First in Virtual School History Department, over the last couple of years in the E-Help project. This project was initiated in a meeting in Madrid whit Les Albiston, his principal in IST present. It was decided that IST would apply for a Comenius 2.1 grant. Richard Jones-Nerzic was to become the chairman of the project. A inspiring chairman. In the project we were looking forward to have a test-run of the course the members were going to present in Norwich this Spring.

    The dismissal of Richard Jones-Nerzic puts the project into jeopardy.

    I hope the board of directors will overturn the dismissal, looking at the achievements of Richard, not only for E-Help, but for the whole of ISTas well.

  2. In der ehemaligen DDR wurden oft politische und wirtschaftliche Witze erzählt. Sogar Wikipedia hat DDR-Witze im Programm.

    Wikipedia, DDR-Witze

    Diese Witze kann man als subtiler Protest gegen das SED-Regime ansehen.

    Im NL-Unterricht werden die Witze in Zusammenarbeit mit Fremdsprache Deutsch im Kulturprogramm angeboten. Voraussetzung sind und bleiben Kenntnisse der Geschichte der DDR.

    Hiereine Vorschau auf DDR-Witze im holländischen Geschichtsunterricht: http://www.sintermeerten.nl/projecten/gesc...d/DDR-Witze.htm

  3. Moppen worden veel verteld. Moppen kunnen leuk zijn. In bepaalde omstandigheden is het vertellen van een mop een voorbeeld van min of meer subtiel protest. Denk aan de moppen over de NSB-ers in de Tweede Wereldoorlog:

    Over NSB-burgemeesters met een twijfelachtige reputatie:

    Dames gaat U bij de burgemeester op bezoek

    denk dan aan een slot op Uw broek!

    Over de verkoop van Volk en Vaderland:

    Op de hoek van de straat staat een NSB-er

    't Is geen man 't is geen vrouw, het is een ras plebeeër

    Op de hoek van de straat staat hij daar te venten

    Hij verkoopt (volk en vaderland) zijn Vaderland

    voor zes rooie centen

    Als leerlingen de geschiedenis van de DDR bestudeerd hebben, kan met het vak Duits/ Duitse cultuur worden samengewerkt op het gebied van DDR-Witze.

    Een lesbrief vindt u onder: http://www.sintermeerten.nl/projecten/gesc...d/DDR-Witze.htm

  4. I've written a simple worksheet/lesson about jokes told by people in the former GDR.

    Jokes were used as a kind of subtle protest against the SED-regime of Ulbricht and Honecker.

    I'm using German originals in my Dutch class, but I found a series in Wikipedia:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GDR_jokes

    I'll try to incorporate the English version into my website and publish it on E-Help. A German version can be added as well.

    During the war in occupied Europe jokes were often told? Anyone a clue where I can find those? An idea perhaps?

  5. Oft können "Spielchen" die Kinder meht motivieren als normale Unterricht. Russel Tarr (www.activehistory.co.uk) hat für das E-Help-Projekt ein Spiel über die Ursachen des 1. Weltkrieg ausgedacht. Dieses Spiel ist jetzt auch in deutscher Sprache.

    http://www.sintermeerten.nl/projecten/gesc..._D/frameset.htm

    Scheinbar ein einfaches Spiel, aber der Schein täuscht. Mann soll in die Haut von Wilhelm II schlüpfen und seine Entscheidungen nachvollziehen.

    Zum Schluss müssten die Schüler in der Lage sein eine ausfürliche Antwort zu geben auf der Frage: Wer hatte Schuld?

    Mit Arbeitsblätter.

  6. The direct address is:

    http://194.3.120.243/humanities/e-help/yr1...es/frameset.htm

    With Nico kindly offering to do German / Dutch translations, the obvious other ones would be:

    Spanish

    French

    Swedish

    Any takers?!

    :)

    Once I have the translations I would happily develop a "portal" for users. At the end of the game could also be a poll / forum where users could cast their votes on which country was most responsible for World War One. It would be interesting to see if different nationalities tended to vote in particular ways based on their studies. I think this particular topic has a lot of real potential for an international treatment, and I'm open to suggestions on how it could be developed further.

    The Dutch version can be seen here: http://www.sintermeerten.nl/projecten/gesc...nl/frameset.htm

  7. I am glad you agree, Nico. If the website doesn't focus on its main target audience's needs to simply won't be used. The next stage of development, the evaluation, will involve interviewing students about how they use the site: how often, any problems with navigability, features they would like added etc.

    At the moment I'm involved in a project of the Dutch Open University in assessing the way pupils (age 15) use the internet as a source.

    Although it is about using the internet and not a particular website, the outcome (March 2007) might be of general interest.

    We're thinking of producing a 'mind map' of variables to assess a website.

  8. Of course the idea of teaching a 'fact-based' history curriculum in the 21st century is odd given the way the subject has developed

    You've got a point here, although one can object and say that some factual knowledge is the core of understanding history. The Dutch 'canon' in meant mainly for pupils in primary education and the first 3 years of secundary education (up until the age of 15)

    Still the canon comes in a time when narrow neo-nationalism is moving forward in 'continental' Europe.

    Within the broad remit noted above it is possible (even including the 'facts' that the right wing politicians who designed it wanted included) to give an entirely alternative view to the 'preferred' version.

    Fortunately, the committee which has published the canon wants to start a history debate, not only on the choices they made, but on the facts and history as a cultural phenomenon.

    In this election year in Holland it's the right-wing politicians who use the canon for their own politcal (narrow minded) purposes at the moment.

  9. Students were consulted over the appearance and sections they would like to see on the site and their ideas used in the final design. As well as having easy access to resources students said that they would also like to have a section where they could find games and interactive tasks that they could do to supplement the more traditional activities that took place in class. With this in mind a special interactive zone was built into the site with games and links to multi-media activities that students could use for extension tasks or revision purposes.

    This is the approach I like!

  10. In the Netherlands a governmental committee has published a 'canon'of Dutch History.

    These fourteen “main lines of the canon” are meant to serve as background texts to the fifty windows. They are the red threads running through the history of the Netherlands that indicate the cross-links between the separate windows, thereby helping to create cohesion in the topics, objects, persons and themes featured on the chart.

    Interesting is to know how the debate on History is going on in your country and what you think of the Dutch approach

    1. The Low Countries by the sea

    2. On the periphery of Europe

    3. A converted country

    4. A Dutch language

    5. An urbanised country and a trading hub at the mouth of the Rhine, Schelde and Maas rivers

    6. The Republic of the Seven United Netherlands: founded on rebellion

    7. The blossoming of the Golden Age

    8. Business sense and colonial power

    9. Nation-state, constitutional monarchy

    10. The rise of modern society

    11. The Netherlands in a time of world wars: 1914-1945

    12. The welfare state, democratisation and secularisation

    13. The diversification of the Netherlands

    14. The Netherlands in Europe

    Further reading: http://www.entoen.nu/default.aspx?lan=e

  11. I've been trying the 'post-it' program. Everything works fine :) , but I seem to have difficulties in saving the html page on the local harddrive in the classtools folder.Great tool though! :)

    In the backup email is a .dat file which cannot be loaded into an empty template.

    Any way to work around this problem?

    In the backup email is a .dat file which cannot be loaded into an empty template.

    Any way to work around this problem?

    I've loaded the .dat file in microsoft txt-editor and loaded the file in classtools. Apart fom codes in the header the 'post-it' classtool was restored! ;)

  12. I was so organised in sending round that list for people to indicate their willingness to help us with MOODLE, wasn't I … and so disorganised in forgetting to take it with me when I left!

    May I just ask again, that anyone who's interested in conversing with us about the use of MOODLE as an LMS for an educational institution is welcome and encouraged to send me a mail with their mail address. We won't bother you - it's just that we've got a couple of enthusiasts here who're very interested in talking to people who've been down the same road.

    You can mail me at david.richardson@hik.se and I'll pass your address on to either Peter Carlsson or Peter Diedrichs.

    Thanks in advance.

    In my school Guido van Dijk might give some advice. I'll send his email address to you soon. :up

  13. It has been pointed out by Professor Edward Tufte of Yale University that too many lessons now resemble corporate board-meetings. He claims that the software’s emphasis on bullet points meant that “rather than learning to write a report using sentences, children are being taught how to formulate client pitches and infomercials.”

    That's very interesting - The full article can be found at the following url http://www.tes.co.uk/2276562 and should in my opinion stimulate a debate in every school

    I've read the full article in TES. Yesterday we had a meeting with teachers: one PPT presentation took almost an hour with 90 slides. I myself felt almost ashamed when I had to do my presentation using PPT. (but fortunately I got help from 3 students explaining the merits of the interview program live!)

  14. Nico,

    Uninstall the Beta (ie "work in progress"!) version, and install the earlier version. You can change opacity of layers in this version very easily - there is a sliding bar on the left hand side of the screen.

    Russ

    Thank You Russel!

    I was to quick to post!

    It is great with American history but I have been disappointed with the aerial photographs of the UK outside London.
    I'm quite satisfied with the results so far. A couple of months ago the resolution was not that good, but obviously Google has been working on maps in Holland. It's all a matter of time, propably.

    The potential is there!

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