History and new technology

[vito]

Hi, I am Vito, an italian Siss student. I am looking for a suggestion about the way how to use the new technology in the history teaching. There are many software that allow an interactive study of the history, especially military history, but this way could transform the study in a video game. Could new technology obstruct a deeper study of the historical issues?

I’m sorry for my bad English.

[Dan Moorhouse]

Vito, these links may provide ou with some ideas. They are all to seminars on the history Teachers' Discussion Forum. many of the posts have been made by people whose names you will be familiar with from this forum:

Encouraging history teachers to use ICT - has a range of ideas about good practice.

History in a laptop classroom shows how ICT has been integrated into the curriculum of Richard Jones Nerzic's school and discusses the ways in which this can be developed.

Online Simulations in History - in this Seminar John Simkin leads a discussion about the use of Online Simulations in History.

Future seminars include using forum's for collaborative learning. The student section of this forum has some examples of how this can be achieved, further examples can be seen on http://www.schoolhistory.co.uk/historyhelp, though you may have to register as a teacher in order to see these discussions.

Elsewhere on this forum there are a number of threads which may develop into excellent sources of ideas for innovative and interesting use of new technologies in History teaching. Dan Lyndon has just started a thread on Webquests which will hopefully end up having a large collection of links to user friendly resources. Other threads include this one on Internet Radio stationswhich would be an interesting method of incorporating use of ICT into lessons.

[Peter_Tollmar]

One way to use ICT in history is by Digital Storytelling. Let the students assume a historical role and let them tell a story using technology (e.g. Powerpoint) to show picturs, maps, works of art, citations etc. I think this is very useful to get a deeper understanding of history - the students idetifies themeselves with a historic character be living their lives digitally.

[Justin Q. Olmstead]

I don't believe that technology will disrupt a deeper look into history. Regarless of financial constraints my school has recently gone entirely wireless and is looking at moving to one-on-one computing (each student has a computer) . Currently we are using mobile laptop labs that can be moved from room to room. Our biggest problem is getting time with the computers. Having these allows us to do immediate research or utilize info from outside sources (pictures, video etc.) I spend much of my time trying to find new ways to use laptops in my classroom, and I encourage more people to use them

[Richard Jones-Nerzic]

I don't believe that technology will disrupt a deeper look into history.  Regarless of financial constraints my school has recently gone entirely wireless and is looking at moving to one-on-one computing (each student has a computer).  Currently we are using mobile laptop labs that can be moved from room to room.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I am very interested in following your experiment in so far as it mirrors my own experience in Toulouse. The IST is five years old tomorrow and we've been working in a laptop environment for most of that time. Personally, I can't imagine going back to an environment in which my students can work on a computer at any given moment. I suppose that answers the question about how much impact it has had on my teaching...

[Justin Q. Olmstead]

One of the main concerns of my colleagues is how do we regulate what the students are doing on the laptops. The worry here is that students will be checking their e-mail or looking at porn, or even chating with students in the room or in another room. The general rule of the school is that if a student is caught doing any of these things that they will loose their computer privileges for an unspecified amount of time. In fact it has been taken so far that if a student is looking at a web site that has nothing to do with the topic, they can loose priviledges. For instance, if a student wants to check out the scores of last nights football game, or check the news.

I am very interested in learning about how you deal with these types of issues. In my mind they are trivial. If the student does not do his work, he will not receive a passing grade.

[Doug Belshaw]

I am very interested in learning about how you deal with these types of issues.  In my mind they are trivial.  If the student does not do his work, he will not receive a passing grade.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I visited Richard's school last week and met a couple of his pupils. One of them said that whilst initially pupils would mess about on other sites, it soon settled down. I think this is probably down to two factors. The first is novelty value: being able to access the Internet at any time is amazing at first, but as it becomes more 'everyday', pupils are more likely to remain on-task. The second is that pupils realize they are going to have to do the work sooner or later. They might as well do it in the lesson when they've got support.

Given the above considerations I'd be strict, but not overly-so. Is the pupil looking at another website really that much different from the one gazing out of the window?

Doug