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John Simkin

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I have produced some material on teaching about Communism. I have tried to upload it but constantly get error messages. After wasting a hour of valuable time I sent the material to Chui Hsia. Surprisingly, she has refused to upload it (only a few minute job if the system was working). She has told me to send it to Dalibor. This I have done. I hope you can get the system to work.

Has anyone else uploaded material recently?

I am currently working on the Olympic Games material. It is a year by year history of the Olympics. I have included all the interesting stories I could find. This includes certain themes such as drugs, gender and politics. Has anybody got any idea of activities for this material.

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I have produced some material on teaching about Communism. I have tried to upload it but constantly get error messages. After wasting a hour of valuable time I sent the material to Chui Hsia. Surprisingly, she has refused to upload it (only a few minute job if the system was working). She has told me to send it to Dalibor. This I have done. I hope you can get the system to work.

Has anyone else uploaded material recently?

I am currently working on the Olympic Games material. It is a year by year history of the Olympics. I have included all the interesting stories I could find. This includes certain themes such as drugs, gender and politics. Has anybody got any idea of activities for this material.

How ridiculous :cheers

In such circumstances I would place the materials on my own site and get the VS to link to it.

It is so easy to set up a workable platform for multiple members to use I find it hard to beleibve that the Virtual School have made such a mess of it.

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In such circumstances I would place the materials on my own site and get the VS to link to it.

It is so easy to set up a workable platform for multiple members to use I find it hard to beleibve that the Virtual School have made such a mess of it.

They will no longer do that. In fact, Becta have told me I will be in breach of copyright if I do this. (They claim they own the material as they fund my Virtual School activities).

However, I have found out the problem. I have a new firewall that was blocking pop-ups (these are used in the uploading process). You can see the material here:

http://www.eun.org/ww/en/pub/virtual_schoo..._a_communis.htm

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They will no longer do that. In fact, Becta have told me I will be in breach of copyright if I do this. (They claim they own the material as they fund my Virtual School activities).

What about Education Forum copyright issues? :o

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What about Education Forum copyright issues? :o

They have rejected the idea of me posting this material on their website because it originally appeared on this website. I don't know what they have against this forum, but they definitely seem very hostile to what we do. I therefore ignored them and posted it anyway (I had already promised Dalibor I would do this so I could not obey my instructions).

The issue about copyright concerns the materials I have produced on the Olympic Games. This time I am doing as I am told by not putting it on my website.

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Despite all the troubles you did have with publishing “The Cold War: Living in a communist state” it was worth it. I do like the approach. And I do think that it couldn’t be done better. The Education Forum had been helpful very much when creating this project. Thank you.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I have now completed nine sections of the History of the Olympic Games: (1) Ancient Greece Olympic Games; (2) 1896 Olympic Games; (3) 1900 Olympic Games; (4) 1904 Olympic Games; (5) 1908 Olympic Games; (6) 1912 Olympic Games; (7) 1920 Olympic Games; (8) 1924 Olympic Games; (9) 1928 Olympic Games.

At the moment I am having trouble persuading the Virtual School to list the sections in the right order. I would be interested in hearing your comments before finishing this off.

http://vs.eun.org/ww/en/pub/virtual_school...ympic_games.htm

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As probably everybody else in our History department group I'm happy about the grant we received from Comenius. The hope is that we achieve during the following three years something really good. I think that there are good conditions for that.

Meanwhile during September and October did I some publishing of pedagogical material with the help of Content Manager System. Most of the material did I take from the "old" History department. On the other hand I could not publish Pilgrimage project which was already placed at the new History department but yet unpublished. I asked Chui for help.

John added too freshly made material about Cold war and is now creating material about Olympic Games.

The earlier idea was not to publish more material about Olympics then what was written by me and Anders prior Olympic Games in Athens. Therefore a large amount of text about Olympics written by me went into the dustbin. Instead we asked for contributions from students, teachers and people interested of sports.

Of course we didn’t obtain any contributions. Therefore it seems to be right to contribute to our own project with contributions written by ourselves. John started and I hope that others of us will help him or develop further the project with their own contributions.

These activities rendered us and History department appreciation which is published at:

http://vs.eun.org/ww/en/pub/virtual_school/index.htm

I try to visit History Community at least once a fortnight. I leave short notices about our activities at History department or Educational Forum after me there.

Right now I do write two articles for the section I would like to create at History department. The name of this new section will be "History places around us". I hope that I can publish this section and my articles together with photos there soon.

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Several months ago, I uploaded on my website some material on Olympic Games project:

Cold War and Olympic Games http://www.historiasiglo20.org/JJOO/index.htm

It consists of:

Boicot a los Juegos Olímpicos de Moscú (1980) y Los Ángeles (1984)

http://www.historiasiglo20.org/GLOS/boicot.htm

and a Flash animation in English

Cold War and Olympic Gameshttp://www.historiasiglo20.org/JJOO/jjoo.swf

I hope a link can be put on VS web page.

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1. The Olympic Games. Have a look at these sites

a. Winged Sandals: A delightful multimedia website on Greek Mythology created by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in association with The University of Melbourne's Centre for Classics and Archaeology. The website is designed for children 6-12 but will certainly have a much wider appeal: http://www.wingedsandals.com

b. Perseus Digital Library: A gem of a site for Classicists. Everything you need to know about Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. Based at Tufts University, USA, this site contains masses of texts, pictures, tips for learning Greek and Latin, dictionaries, help with fonts and many other resources: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu

There's a bit on the Olympic Games at both sites.

2. Copyright

Andy asks:

What about Education Forum copyright issues?

This is what Mailbase, managed by Newcastle University, says about the online lists that it maintains. The same principles apply to most online lists:

When you send a message to a Mailbase list, you retain your copyright in that message. You also retain your moral right to be identified as the author of the work, and your moral right against derogatory treatment.

The extent to which your message is made available across the internet will depend on the level of access which has been set by the listowner.

You give Mailbase permission to reproduce, deliver, distribute and archive your message as appropriate, and you agree that other Mailbase users may read, save, download or print your message.

More information about copyright is available at http://www.mailbase.org.uk/docs/copyright.html

NEVER, NEVER, NEVER upload other people's materials to your own site without seeking their permission. If you do so, you are asking for trouble. The general advice given by copyright experts is that you should link to other sites containing material that you wish to draw attention to, making sure that the URL of the linked site is clearly visible in the browser's address box. I have incorporated other people's materials (with their permission) at the ICT4LT site that I maintain. I have often found that they are flattered that I wish to do so. Apart from the copyright issue, it's only common courtesy to seek such permission.

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  • 3 weeks later...

At the end of last week did I open a new section at History department called Historical places around us. The text of invitation to participate goes as this:

There are historical places all around us. Some of them helped to shape the country or the town where we live. Others tell us about the past and forgotten times. Are there any such places in your neighbourhood? Please tell us about them.

The first contribution written by me is named “Bomarsund, the Gibraltar of Baltic Sea”. The article is situated at “Activities” section and could be reached when using:

http://vs.eun.org/ww/en/pub/virtual_school...s/bomarsund.htm

At the end of each article there will be few questions attached which are supposed to activate readers to a small research of his own.

Right now I am writing yet another article to be published at this section this time about Olympic Stadium in Stockholm.

I also plan to attach pictures to each article (this is yet not done with Bomarsund).

I hope that some of you will contribute to this section with similar articles about a less known historical places. For example about catacombs in town of Maastricht or the places with connection to Spanish Civil War we visited together in south of France not long time ago.

Edited by Dalibor Svoboda
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  • 4 weeks later...

All Swedish members of Virtual School received a letter from Angela Andersson the former Head of Virtual School now working at Swedish National Agency for School Improvement.

Angela Andersson is informing us that:

1. Swedish National Agency for School Improvement will terminate its support and funding to History department (which we, the members of History department knew about from information given to us previously).

2. Swedish National Agency for School Improvement will also terminate its support and funding to Civics and Media department.

3. On top of that Swedish National Agency for School Improvement will terminate its support and funding to Swedish teachers who are members of other departments of Virtual School.

4. Swedish National Agency for School Improvement shall together with Danish school authority continue to support and fund Special Needs department.

5. Swedish National Agency for School Improvement will continue to debate at the meetings with Virtual School Boards in January and thereafter how to proceed with recreation of the “new” Virtual school which main task in the future should be to cooperate closely with eTwinning (www.etwinning.net) project.

I hope that I will have more information about History department fate when we meet in Toulouse.

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All Swedish members of Virtual School received a letter from Angela Andersson the former Head of Virtual School now working at Swedish National Agency for School Improvement.

Angela Andersson is informing us that:

1. Swedish National Agency for School Improvement will terminate its support and funding to History department (which we, the members of History department knew about from information given to us previously).

2. Swedish National Agency for School Improvement will also terminate its support and funding to Civics and Media department.

3. On top of that Swedish National Agency for School Improvement will terminate its support and funding to Swedish teachers who are members of other departments of Virtual School.

4. Swedish National Agency for School Improvement shall together with Danish school authority continue to support and fund Special Needs department.

5. Swedish National Agency for School Improvement will continue to debate at the meetings with Virtual School Boards in January and thereafter how to proceed with recreation of the “new” Virtual school which main task in the future should be to cooperate closely with eTwinning (www.etwinning.net) project.

I hope that I will have more information about History department fate when we meet in Toulouse.

Thank you for this information. I have been informed by our European Schoolnet representative that the Virtual School seems to be dying on its feet. It seems highly unlikely that the UK will fund its six members next year. It definitely seems a right shambles. It is a good job we saw what was coming and put in for our Comenius Project. Maybe we could encourage members of other departments to start similar projects to us.

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  • 1 month later...

The meeting of Virtual school board on 31st of January came after lengthy debate to this conclusion about Virtual school.

“The possible scenarios for the future of the Virtual school were discussed. Problems that have all along been a part of the Virtual School experience (lack of funding, lack of focus, disparate agendas) have not been able to be solved in a satisfactory way and no such solution is foreseeable in the near future.

The project has, in spite of different problems, been extremely successful and has been a core provider of content to the European schoolnet. The network of teachers that have worked under the Virtual school umbrella has also been instrumental in the carrying out of other projects that have been of strategic importance to the European schoolnet. However, the time has come to scrutinize the project and critically take into consideration the possibilities for a successful continuation of the project in its current form. From that evaluation the board has come to the conclusion that it’s time to close the Virtual school, end all ongoing projects and gradually take the website offline. In this process it’s important to secure gained experience, gather lessons learned and identify clues for future activities in the field of collaborative online learning.”

The board will organise a closing conference of Virtual School during the spring 2005.

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