Juan Carlos

E-HELP : European History E-Learning Project (Proyecto Enseñanza de la Historia Europa mediante las tecnologías de la información y la comunicación e internet) El Proyecto Enseñanza de la Historia Europa mediante las TIC e internet (European History E-Learning Project E-HELP) es un proyecto Comenius 2.1 Project (Formación del Profesorado) iniciado en octubre del 2004. El objetivo general de E-HELP es alentar y mejorar el uso de las TIC e internet en la enseñanza de historia en Europa. El equipo de profesores que forma el proyecto E-HELP está formado: Richard Jones-Nerzic (Francia: International School of Toulouse) Juan Carlos Ocaña y Ramón Burgaleta (España: IES Parque de Lisboa, Alcorcón, Madrid) Vicente López-Brea Fernández (España: Centro de Profesores de Alcorcón, Madrid) Nico Zijlstra (Países Bajos: Sintermeerten College, Heerlen) Anders MacGregor-Thunell (Suecia: Hvitfeldtska Gymnasiet, Gothenburg) Dalibor Svoboda (Suecia: Fredrika Bremer Gymnasium, Stockholm) Terry Hadyn (Reino Unido: University of East Anglia) Alf Wilkinson (Reino Unido: Historical Association) Andy Walker (Reino Unido: Dartford Technology College) John Simkin (Reino Unido: Spartacus Educational) Durante los próximos tres años, estos serán los objetivos de E-HELP: (1) Investigar, evaluar y presentar ejemplos de buena práctica en la utilización de las TIC e Internet para la enseñanza de historia en las aulas europeas. (2) Producir y gestionar un sitio web multilingüe y un foro de debate para apoyar el proyecto y sus objetivos. (3) Crear recursos innovadores para la enseñanza de historia en los que se fomente la dimensión europea. Estos recursos se basarán en diferentes temas históricos que serán elaborados teniendo en cuenta su relevancia para entender el mundo actual. (4) Estos recursos tendrán en cuenta los aspectos específicos ligados a la enseñanza de la historia en lengua inglesa en un contexto lingüístico no anglohablante. (5) Impartir un curso presencial en julio del 2007 en la International School de Toulouse sobre el uso de las TIC e internet en las aulas de historia. E-HELP celebró su primera reunión en Toulouse dell 17 al 20 de febrero del 2005. A él acudieron los miembros del proyecto y diferentes profesores europeos expertos en el uso de las TIC e internet en el aula de historia. Se presentaron las siguientes ponencias: Richard Jones-Nerzic ¿Cuándo los ordenadores enseñarán realmente historia? (When are computers actually going to teach history?) Dan Lyndon Información no significa aprendizaje (Information is not Learning) Anders MacGregor-Thunell Trabajando en los archivos locales (Working with Local Archives) Dave Martin TIC y las capacidades de comunicación histórica de los alumnus (ICT and Students’ Historical Communication Skills) Dalibor Svoboda La Fundación Conocimiento (The Knowledge and Competent Foundation) Isabelle Voegeli – El uso de European Navigator en la clase de historia (The Use of ENA in the History Classroom) John Simkin La utilización de las TIC como medio para convertir a los alumnus en historiadores (Using ICT to Turn Students into Historians) Caterina Gasparini El aprendizaje mediante el conocimiento conectado y compartido (Learning by Shared Connected Knowledge) Nico Zijlstra Mantenimiento de un sitio web personal (Maintaining Your Own History Website) Doug Belshaw TIC y enseñanza y aprendizaje colaborativos (ICT and Collaborative Teaching and Learning) Janos Blasszauer TIC y la calidad de la enseñanza y el aprendizaje (ICT and the Quality of Teaching and Learning) Terry Hadyn La utilización de las TIC en la las clases de historia como medio para desarrollar el conocimiento politico (Using ICT in School History to Develop Political Literacy) José Luis de la Torre Educahistoria y la enseñanza de la historia (EducaHistoria and Teaching History) Alf Wilkinson Uso efectivo de la red para la investigación (Using the Web Effectively for Research) Andy Walker Uso de las TIC para romper las barreras en el proceso de aprendizaje (Using ICT to Break Down Barriers to Learning) Juan Carlos Ocaña Mirando al futuro (Looking to the Future) Andrew Field El pasado en el futuro (The Past in the Future) Todas las ponencias fueron filmadas y estarán disponibles en versión histórica en el sitio web de E-HELP en una fase posterior del proyecto. Para más información sobre estos seminarios, ver el archivo adjunto y el Foro Educativo Internacional (International Education Forum). To access the Seminars you will first need to go to: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?act=idx and then: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showforum=214

I also support John's idea.

Bonnie S. Anderson & Judith P. Zinsser A history of their own. Women in Europe from Prehistory to the Present: vol II 1991, Harper and Row, Publishers, New York Histoire de Femmes en Occident Edited by Georges Duby and Michelle Perrot (It has been surely translated into English) I have got the Spanish version of both books and, although not in thorough way, they deal with European women history. I thought about elaborating a general overview on Europe and then focus on Spain. I intended to work onWestern Mediterranean Europe (Italy, France, Portugal) as well. It will depend on the material I find. Spanish and Portuguese, with conditions or restrictions, women won the franchise in 1931, French and Italian in 1945. I will want to study women's condition under fascist regimes and the evolution from the 60s on.

I can imagine them... We need some pretty-looking members now!

I am translating John's text and send it to some educational and regular newspapers. I intend to send it to European schoolnet to be published in: Comenius Space newsletter MyEurope newsletter Spring Day in Europe newsletter I will post the translated text to Foros de Debate on Jose Luis de la Torre's web site (Educahistoria). This is the most important history teachers forum in Spain. I will inform about our project in Comenius course for European teachers and student teachers in Córdoba. This course is focused on European Citizenship and Multiculturalism and will take place next March. Conference on ICT applied to teaching History and Geography, organised by the Spanish History and Geography teachers Association. It will take place in September in Santiago de Compostela. Finally, I will try to get in touch with my regional educational authorities to find more and better ways to disseminate E-HELP.

I agree that this meeting (and remember that I am the Comenius expert ) has been one of most productive of the meetings I have been involved in. However, I propose to include some practical changes for the next meeting: 1. Participants (members and visitors) must send in advance a text summarizing their presentation. It should be, let's say, a couple of weeks before the meeting, so everybody has time to read it and reflect on it. 2. Presentations must be as short as possible to permit a longer debate. 3. Somebody should take notes during the debate (I am afraid this role has to be played by an English-speaking participant). These minutes will help to "digest" all the points of the presentations and debate. (I have the feeling that I am going to forget some important subjects raised in our meeting) 4. Andy, shouldn't we put together all the threads of EHELP together in a same section of the forum? Sometimes it is a bit difficult to find all the subsections of the project. I have no idea if it is technically complicated or time-consuming. If it is the case, forget it. 5. I have been thinking about the historical content I want to write on women's history... I feel really frightened at the translation work I will have to do. If we want that all the members take part in an equal way, we have to find a solution on translation. I don't mean to translate every product, but I, probably we (Nico, Anders, Dalibor, Vicente...)need some help. This is one of the main points of the sub-contracting issue.

Richard, I am struggling with this .doc document and I cannot use it properly. It consits of a series of images pasted on the document. Can you send it as "normal" Word document? P.S. All the requests for Richard are done taking into account his well deserved short vacation

Thanks from Spain as well. It was very interesting and thought-provoking.... The only fault was not being subtitled in Spanish

I just want to thank all our associate visitors for their presentations and for the nice time we spent together. We all are keen to get your feedback. Thanks Isabelle, Caterina, Janos, Dan, Dave, John, Doug, Jose Luis... Thanks Carole for your kindness and your cigarettes and remote thanks to Andrew.

Looking to the future So far, ICT and internet has brought about changes in the way history is taught. Teachers and students are able to obtain large amounts of historical contents in a very short time. A few years ago, to get the same information would have meant to peruse tens of books at home or in libraries. John Simkin's Spartacus Educational is an outstanding example. My web site Historiasiglo20.org may be included in this sort of resources. On top of that, we can get a much more diverse range of resources: texts, images, maps, videoclips, animations.... Teachers can also find lots of lesson plans to organise their work in the classroom. The great amount of resources available on internet and the abundance of low quality web sites made difficult for teachers and students to carry out a significant didactic sequence. Webquests were born to solve this problem. Their aim is to make students focus on using information rather than searching for it. Webquests also provide a model of collaborative work for the students. An example of webquest is Jean Monnet's life and European History However, in my view all those important new developments do not mean a dramatic change in the way history is taught. Teachers and students have at their disposal a huge number of resources that is available "one click away", but I do not think that we have extracted from ICT and internet all the advantages we can use for teaching history. I would like to point out two features that we intend to work out at my school in the framework of E-HELP project: Collaborative work Some of the participants of this meeting are in charge of some of the most successful examples of collaboration on the internet: The Education Forum Schoolhistory Forum and, in Spanish, Foros de Debate, on Jose Luis de la Torre's Educahistoria web site, are other illustrative samples of history teachers' forums. Some years ago, it would have been unthinkable to have a virtual meeting point where teachers may share ideas, resources, even some jokes. There are a growing number of initiatives that try to bring together schools, teachers and students from different countries. Web based projects are undoubtedly one of the most powerful teaching tools in the next future. Despite of recent Virtual School closure, European Schoolnet is one of the most successful European web based initiatives. MyEurope, E-Twinning or Spring Day in Europe are projects that try to promote the European dimension at the schools. Global Gateway is a British web site that tries to enable teachers and students to engage in partnerships. However, in the future, we have to go further. What about on line lessons prepared by teachers from different countries? How enriching would be to work with colleagues that come from different traditions and styles of teaching! Internet is globalising education and, therefore, students will learn in a new learning environment. This change will go beyond students forums and will be very positive for the most gifted and talented students. History, the subject we teach, is one of the areas of knowledge that will profit more by collaborative work. Traditionally, history has been a subject strongly biased by nationalism. Classrooms have been places where national prejudices and xenophobia were promoted amongst children and youngsters. Europe knows a lot about it. Students should listen to different voices and interpretations when studying the past. Collaborative web based work can be an excellent tool to improve our students' historical knowledge and critical thinking. We have just started our project, but I would strongly like to set up in the future a Comenius Network that created links between HELP and other Comenius projects focused in history teaching. A European history curriculum would be an excellent outcome of that future project. The Council of Europe has developed several interesting history teaching projects on this matter: Learning and teaching about the history of Europe in the 20th century Bilateral and regional Co-operation - Reform of History Teaching European Dimension in History Teaching Yet there is a serious lack of web resources to teach history from this new collaborative perspective. To fill this void will be one of history teachers' challenges in the next future. Interactive websites Ramón Burgaleta - PrincipiosdEconomia, Economics teacher at IES Parque de Lisboa, and I are working on setting up interactive resources by using Macromedia Flash. Instead of creating colourful and (too) imaginative new activities, we would like to bring the traditional history teaching activities on the internet, taking advantage of all the ICT potentials. Our activities are not very refined yet, but we hope that over our three years project we will manage to set up a sufficient number of useful resources that cover most of the typical history teaching activities. These are some of the activities we have been working on: Treinta años de la primera crisis del petróleo (Thirty years from the first oil crisis) This Flash animation can help us to introduce the topic and motivate students. Then, by putting links on it, we can create a didactic sequence that offers our student different activities (texts, images, maps, videoclips, mind maps) to study the theme in depth. Other examples are the following: Instituciones de la Unión Europe Cold War and Olympic Games Textual analysis is a very usual task in Spanish and other countries' schools. Here you can see a sample of a Flash animation which includes a text to analyse, some guidelines on the task and boxes for the students to write. The document can be printed. Textual Analysis Exercise This is just a preliminary version. Once refined, this resource can be used for analysing images, graphics, videoclips... We are aware that working with Flash Macromedia is far beyond most of European history teachers' technological abilities. Trying to cope with this problem, we have started creating some pdf files, far easier to elaborate and very useful to assess students' work. This sort of documents can be sent by e-mail to our students as home work. Their reply will merely consist of the data written by then, a very light file, easy to send back to the teacher, and then we can grade and comment it by e-mail or at the classroom. A visit to the Prado Museum We can embed in these .pdf documents all sort of files (texts, images, videoclips, graphics, statistitcs...

My presentation will focus on the future. I have already posted my view on the improvements I hope ICT will provide in history teaching. I want to highlight two points: • Setting up interactive resources that help students to use the tools, fulfil the tasks and acquire the abilities that have been traditionally linked to the art of teaching history. I have to admit that I do think that we are not going to change dramatically the foundations of history science and history teaching by using ICT. We are simply catching up with our students’ reality. And that’s a lot. ICT provide us the tools to make that analysing a text, commenting a historical map, graphics… become a quite more relevant, didactic and attractive task, helping our student to get to acquire a sort of critical thinking that only historical awareness can provide. As a consequence I will try to show some examples of what we are doing in our school. They are still a bit primitive but I hope that they will be more sophisticated in the next future. • Collaborative work That’s another of the main advantages of the internet. I don’t want to be too optimistic. There are serious barriers: language, different curricula, different teaching traditions… But the benefits are very important. Different didactical approaches, different points of view, getting used to working together with other teachers and students… I will try again to show some projects that are going on now in Europe.

Sometimes I think that we are not aware of the power of history teaching. One of the reasons that explain my will of using ICT and internet in my daily work is because I want to entice my students into thinking history. I need new tools that can fight against the overwhelming influence of the media. Can I fight against Hollywood films? Probably not, but I will do my best. Mike, I love the rich diversity of cultures. I am "very Spanish". I like very much flamenco, Spanish food, Spanish wines, the tragic paintings of Goya, the smell of the orange tree flowers in the Spring, even, that is a secret, I was very fond of bullfighting But I absolutely hate Spanish nationalism. I cannot be proud of being born in Madrid. I don't regret it at all, but I am not proud of. That's nonsense. I am sorry to insist on this point. But, as a European history teacher, I think it is my duty to defuse too strong national feelings in my students.

I absolutely agree with Terry on the idea that sometimes "the eye-catching features of multimedia" can be a nuisance. Fortunately, as time goes by it is more and more difficult to come across those unbearable web sites with gaudy colours and spasmodic things moving around. On the contrary, multimedia and ICT can be very powerful to implement "connections" in students' minds. I think this is one the most important challenges in the future. Mind maps, adequate sequences of different sort of activities that imply diverse mental abilities... can be extremely positive for our teaching history. As Andy says, teaching and learning are human activities. Men and women use different resources to achieve their goals. ICT is only a tool. Nothing more than that. The point is why most of the teachers go on using so ancient tools to teach in the 21st century. We, teachers willing to use ICT in the classroom, are to discover the best way to use ICT to achieve the same goals that teaching has tried to fulfil at least from the Enlightenment.

There is an excellent book by Gabriel García Marquez titled "Historia de una muerte anunciada" (History of an announced death). VS has gone through a long agony. There was no point in prolonging it. My Educational authorities (Madrid region) never cared about funding its activities. Actually, my expenses were always paid for by the Swedish government. I think that John summarizes perfectly the lessons we can learn from VS experience. This is one of the reasons that makes me prefer EU funding for international projects. I believe that this was "the" problem. There was a lot of wasting money: travelling around for doing nothing. I agree with that. There is no need of further comments. I also hope that HELP project will work better. Actually, I am sure.

Doug, sorry for not being able to convey properly what I meant to. Why don’t the members of this forum learn Spanish? I am not very sure of what is my exact situation in the political map, but after trying the simple and childish ‘The World’s shortest political quiz’ (www.self-gov.org), I realized (again) that I am a solid leftist liberal (in the American version of this Spanish originated word). I cannot see the relation between promoting a European identity and “distorting the past to fit in with the world's current penchant for postmodernism.” Although every research shows that most of our students’ notion of history comes from TV, I still believe that we can use our teaching to promote certain values and to attack other ones. I do believe that nationalism is one of the main roots of evil in world history. I like European identity because is not an identity built against anybody and because it is a quite “soft” identity. Frankly speaking, I do not like identities. Is it a remainder of the old socialist internationalism? Quite probably. In the Le Monde’s article I quoted it is claimed that those teachers coming from immigration are the French teachers that most firmly try to transmit the Republican values. I am very interested in getting to know the point of view of these teachers about the recent European history. Does it mean that I want to integrate all sorts of points of view on our recent history? No, I don’t care about Le Pen or Haider’s point of view. I don’t care about a fundamentalist Muslin mullah’s opinion. I try to teach my students to getting to know and then fight against those political stances. I do not think that history is a mere discourse. I do not believe that every argument is valid. But, coming back to the topic, I consider internet and ICT a splendid way of collaborative work that can help us to build a new curriculum far away from national feats. ICT and internet is not only about how to teach, it can facilitate a new approach to the core problem for history teachers: what should we teach? What topics and problems should we select from years and years of mankind's evolution?

I would like that working with ICT in the classroom will provide these improvements on history teaching, currently these advances are not impossible but difficult to achieve: Interactivity History web sites should provide in an interactive way the main tools that history teachers use in the classroom: •Historical Maps •Timelines •Statistics and Graphics •Text analysis •Quizzes (texts, images) •Multimedia (videoclips, audios…) … Students could be able to interact on the web page by carrying out different tasks on composing their own products (maps, statistics…). These products could be printed out, sent by e-mail to the teacher or other students to complete a collaborative assignment. ICT also provides the ways of altering maps (different points of view), changing the scale of the graphics, analysing texts or videoclips. All these activities can be crucial to promote critical thinking amongst our students. Analysing commercial movies, the way that most of our students received a great part of their historical knowledge, is an activity that every history teacher should do nowadays. Flexibility ICT enhance the scope of students’ autonomous work. We have to elaborate web sites where teachers and students can find a broad range of “learning objects” (pedagogical denomination that I don’t like much but is growingly used) to combine in different didactic sequences. This possibility provides different benefits: •Adapting our teaching practice to meet the differing learning needs of the students. We know in Spanish this process as “atención a la diversidad” (Differentation in English?) Probably, this is one of the most difficult challenges for teachers (getting to know the previous situation of the students, applying different teaching strategies…) As far as differentiation is concerned, I do think that ICT can bring about a radical change in the old art of teaching. •Motivating students (sometimes I did quite successfully a sort of “choose your own didactic sequence”), it also means evidently to work with more engaged students with a higher self-esteem. Role plays on line can be a good example of this sort of motivation. •Tackling different historical themes from different approaches. It will depend on teachers’ goals, on students’ interests and abilities… Use of “primary sources” ICT give us the potential of bringing ”virtual reality” into the classroom. When students see an (exact copy of a) document, a picture, a video… they emphatise with human beings who lived in the past and, therefore, they are closer to understand their challenges, the causes that brought about those problems… Sometimes I have heard some of my students asking me to visit an archive to see the “real thing”. Collaborative work This Forum is one of the best examples of what can be done. Another example in Spain is Foro de Educahistoria. However, in the future, we have to go further. What about on line lessons prepared by teachers from different countries? How enriching would be to work with colleagues that come from different traditions and styles of teaching! Internet is globalising education and, therefore, students will learn in a new learning environment. This change will go beyond students forums and will be very positive for the most gifted and talented students. European (Western, Global…) History curriculum History and history teaching is a very serious political weapon. Sometimes, if misused, it can be a real weapon of mass destruction (of freedom and tolerance destruction). I do think that we need a European history curriculum to build up a certain European identity. An identity that is not based on myths, battles, victories or defeats, but in other values that stem from the best European tradition. We have to eliminate the old national histories built on remembering battles and wars, and, at the same time, we have to integrate the view of the “new Europeans”. I read last 9th January an article in the French newspaper À l'école de la République on the growing role in the French educational system of young teachers who come from the immigration. I do think that they can help us to understand the real history of Europe in the last decades. Internet and ICT can be very useful to achieve this goal.

This point has to be discussed in Toulouse. Although English is the "lingua franca", if we elaborate materials or products only in English we are actually leaving behind a lot of teachers and students in European countries. Probably in the Netherlands or Sweden most of them can get by in English, but, it is not the case in most of Europe. I am thinking in Latin countries: Spain, France, Portugal or Italy... and we are a lot of people down here in the South.

I got to know this web site long time ago and I have always considered it as the most complete database on European Union history. I have been working on European Union and European Citizenship for several years and I do think that elaborating some webquests or other sort of didactic sequences with the material you provide can be an excellent idea to work with upper secondary education students all over Europe. Isabelle, have you thought of translating all or some of ENA documents into other European languages? Spanish, German, Italian?

I have just started doing it using Pinnacle PCTV. I intend to transfer all my old VHS video clips into digital files and set up interactive activities on line with some short clips. It is one of my objectives for the future.

As far as my teaching by using ICT is concerned, I agree with Andy's post, although I am not so optimistic and I would not dare to say "Pupils have become independent learners". However, using internet and ICT make them more independent. That's enough. I have been using my (and other else's) web site in different ways: a/ The most simple: to help me when I am lecturing on some topic. It means no revolution in teaching but to be one click away from a fine map, an expressive picture, a propaganda poster, a text or a video clip is very helpful. b/ To design didactic sequences (is this expression used in English?) by selecting some resources (texts, maps, pictures, statistics...), asigning tasks to the students and make them produce some Power point presentation or some web sites. I have specially used Historia de las Relaciones Internacionales durante el siglo XX or Historia de la Unión Europea y la Ciudadanía Europea I have found very interesting the fact of allowing students to choose their activity: map, statistics... Although the teacher must intervene (most of them try to escape from long texts), it is quite motivating for them to feel free for opting for a task. Historia de la Mujer en España or Personajes, Acontecimientos y Problemas de la Historia Europea are some examples of web sites set up by our students. 3/ I have elaborated some webquests as Jean Monnet's life and European History although I have to admit that my students' lack of proficiency in English has prevented me from using it usually. 4/ I have used some Hot Potatoes activities. Last year my students started elaborating their own Hot Potatoes tests after finishing a lesson. I think it is very useful for their understanding of the topic. 5/ Finally, a couple of questions that I will deal with when writing about future: collaborative projects (with other Spanish or European schools) and interactive Flash animations.

Don't worry Mike. I was born in Madrid, both of my parents are Spanish, I have been living here all of my life, 45 years, and I wouldn't understand him either! By the way, do you understand easily Glasgow dialect?

Both opinions highlight two points that I think are very interesting: Mike affirms something that we have to bear always in mind: the final product of this project will be a course thought for "real" history teachers. We have to be at the same time on the vanguard but taking into account the majority of European history teachers (Doesn' it sound a bit like a Lenin's sentence? ) John talks about English speaking web sites and he asks for a number of teachers producing a big number of web resources to be used by students. I don't know exactly but probably more than 60% of all the web sites on the internet are written in Shakespeare's language. As we are working on a European project, we have to think from a European perspective. We badly need a "critical mass" of web history resources in other languages: Spanish, French, German, Swedish, Dutch, Italian and so on. What I would like to see in the future is European governments hiring expert teachers to produce a broad database of history resources, adapted to our National curriculums, that could be used by history teachers that have no time to start learning to produce their own resources. Furthermore, what we need is to produce web resources focused on the most important moments or European and World history designed from a European point of view and translated into most of the European languages.

Excellent idea. I think that we could obtain some funding from National Socrates Agencies or Socrates in Brussels to publish the book. We should also foster all sort of internet ways of dissemination. I think that different platforms such as MyEurope, Comenius Space or Spring Day in Europe and their respective newsletters will be very interesting.

I am Ramón Burgaleta. I am Head of Department of Economics in IES Parque de Lisboa in Alcorcón. I have set up a web page Principios de Economia and I am very interested in teaching Economics and History by using Flash animations. I collaborate with Juan Carlos Ocaña in this project. As you can see I am using Juan Carlos log in. I will send a more beautiful picture when I am registered

The eTwinning Initiative is part of the European Commission's eLearning programme and is organised by European Schoolnet. There is a Central Support Service Helpdesk whose tasks are: To set up regular chat sessions for live interaction with participating schools. To help schools with concrete guidelines, tips, ideas, scenarios and eTwinning modules To propose an extensive Frequently Asked Questions section from all the requests collected every day To identify examples of successful projects to inspire current or future participants To update schools on news from all European countries via an eTwinning newsletter eTwinning Launching Conference will take place on January 2005 in Brussels.