eTwinning Seminar: Making Historical Thinking Explicit to Students Using Online Tools

Language:          English
Costs:                   Free

In this eTwinning seminar, trainers from EuroClio – Inspiring History and Citizenship Educators, will demonstrate how educators can create their own eLearning Activities with historical sources from the Europeana Collections.

The participants will work with the Historiana e-activity builder which has been designed to promote historical thinking. The e-Activity Builder enables users to develop enquiry questions, to set up a sequence of learning using digital tools designed by other history teachers, and to get your students to respond to the question in a way that you can assess. The eLearning Activities can be created in any language, and the Historiana eLearning Environment is and will remain free to use for teachers and students.

How to register?
In case you are already part of the eTwinning Community, in order to join, you just need to enter the platform, click on Professional Development, and join 15 minutes before the starting time. If you are not yet registered, you need to create an account first. This is free for staff (teachers, head teachers, librarians, etc.) working in a school in one of the European countries involved and can be done here.

More information

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[su_spoiler title=”eTwinning”]eTwinning offers a platform for staff (teachers, head teachers, librarians, etc.), working in a school in one of the European countries involved, to communicate, collaborate, develop projects, share and, in short, feel and be part of a learning community. eTwinning promotes school collaboration in Europe through the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) by providing support, tools and services for schools. eTwinning also offers opportunities for free and continuing online Professional Development for educators. You can join the eTwinning Community for free here.[/su_spoiler][/su_accordion]

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[su_spoiler title=”Europeana”]Europeana Europeana works with thousands of European archives, libraries and museums to share cultural heritage for enjoyment, education and research. The Europeana Collections provides access to over 50 million digitised items – books, music, artworks and more – with sophisticated search and filter tools to help you find what you’re looking for. There are also dedicated thematic collections on art, fashion, music, photography and World War I that contain galleries, blogs and exhibitions. The webportal is accessible via www.europeana.eu.[/su_spoiler][/su_accordion]

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Historiana.eu is an online resource for history educators in Europe and beyond. It offers free historical content, ready to use learning activities, and innovative digital tools made by and for history educators across Europe. Historiana’s development is informed by the EuroClio manifesto and it seeks to provide material that is complex and multi-perspective in order to promote critical thinking.

The site is constantly being added to and updated. On it you will find material that is rich in subject knowledge. This can be particularly useful for trainee teachers and teachers moving to a new topic, who feel that their own subject knowledge needs improving before they can plan how to teach a topic. The historical content can also be used directly by students. There are also copyright free source collections, including from Europeana. These are chosen carefully to present a variety of perspectives and to engage students of all abilities. You will find blogs about existing online resources that can be adapted for use in the history classroom, and also blogs about different teaching strategies with ideas about how to use them. In addition to the rich historical content, there is a teaching and learning section. Historical thinking, teaching methods and teaching challenges are explained and exemplified with learning activities. All learning activities are provided as Word documents, with a teachers’ guide, so that you can adapt and change them for the needs of your own students.[/su_spoiler][/su_accordion]

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The historiana.eu site has an e-activity builder. The e-activity builder has been designed to promote historical thinking and be easy to use. It is neither a resource that is just more up-to-the-minute than the same idea on paper, nor a resource for the technologically very confident teacher. It enables you to develop enquiry questions, to set up a sequence of learning using digital tools designed by other history teachers, and to get your students to respond to the question in a way that you can assess. You can either build your own activities for students to use in class or at home by importing material from historiana.eu or elsewhere, or you can adapt and use e-activities already developed by others. A simple sign in process creates your e-activity builder area where you can organise your own activities, save your favourite sources and keep lists of students. This can, of course, be in any language.[/su_spoiler][/su_accordion]

How to stay up to date?
To stay up to date with the latest developments related to Historiana, including announcements for more free online trainings, you can:

• Register for the EuroClio Newsletter
• Join the Historiana Facebook Group
• Follow Historiana on Twitter

This eTwinning Seminar is part of the Europeana DSI3 project