Copy
View this email in your browser
The WORTHY project is about to end, but don't worry! All the resources developed during the last three years will remain available for teachers and students on the multilingual web platform worldwars.eu for at least other three years.

Around 800 students - aged 13 to 19 - across Europe have already been involved in the WORTHY activities - with the support of their relatives -, thanks to their teachers, who experimented the WORTHY innovative pedagogical approach, in order to digitally augment the experience of their pupils while studying history, by combining the recovery of micro family stories of the period between the First and Second World Wars.
  • The WORTHY approach was developed in the last three years by an European partnership, that, despite difficulties due to the Coronavirus pandemic, managed to organize 8 events (online or in-presence) to promote the WORTHY outputs and thus to involve external teachers (more than 60) in the courses organized in Italy, Germany, Poland and Croatia.
The lessons introduced them to the resources developed:
  • the WORTHY methodological guidelines;
  • the multilingual web platform WorldWars.eu, where students can create, upload and share digital documents on the basis of what they find at home recovering their relatives’ stories during WWI or WWII;
  • several lesson plans developed by the school partner teachers (on the WorldWars.eu platform - registration required);
  • the online modules of the "Augmented Teachers" training course, to develop knowledge and skills in teaching and learning using the WORTHY approach (on the WorldWars.eu platform - registration required);
  • the online training "Working with parents", to foster the recovery of dialogue between generations (on the WorldWars.eu platform - registration required).
On the basis of the experience of the European teachers who created and used with their students the WORTHY lesson plans, the partnership also released 10 WORTHY Tips for teachers to develop a passion for history.
  • Students of partner schools also managed to produce 11 videos as part of the online course "Augmented Teachers", with direct testimonials, explanations on how to create a timeline or tell war stories through objects recovered in the family, and texts written, performed and accompanied by images by pupils themselves.
Many other activites have been done in the last months in Poland, Germany, Croatia and Italy in the frame of the WORTHY project. In this last newsletter we report the most relevant.

Thanking and greeting you for having followed us so far, we hope you appreciated our effort to make the study of history more attractive for young students.

And... if you haven’t done it yet, follow on WorldWars.eu the suggestions of WORTHY teachers and use the project’s resources to enrich your teaching experience!

1. Instructional toolkits to help you to create rich media artefacts

 

The WorldWars.eu platform has an archive of rich media artefacts which you can add to by creating an account and logging in. But how do you create and share the media? What apps or websites can you use? The Toolkits will help!

  • We have a collection of 8 toolkits which will show you how to use a mobile phone to 3D scan something, create a timeline, search for and share 3D objects, create a collaborative map, create comparative photos and more!
  • Each toolkit contains a description of the app/website, how to use it to create media, instructional videos, details on how to share the media to the WorldWars.eu archive, and links to the app/website. They also contain QR codes so you can scan the code on screen and open the app automatically on your mobile device. 
Apps / Websites explained in the toolkits include: Go to the Toolkits now to learn more about using apps to create media about the World Wars.

Don’t forget to share your media to the WorldWars.eu archive!  
 

2. Teachers' lessons on the WORTHY platform

 

 

19 lesson plans have been created and uploaded to WorldWars.eu multilingual web platform, as one of the intellectual outputs of the WORTHY project.

The WORTHY partnership was expected to create eight history lesson scenarios, two by each of the partners. Then they have been translated into English, Italian, Croatian, Polish and German.
  • Some of them deal with the history of the World War I, others with the World War II. Some look at the events from a very local perspective. Nevertheless, they still can be useful in other regions or countries as templates for more interesting lessons.
This is one of the project’s planned results – to develop lesson plans and materials on the two world wars and make them available to a wider public through the platform.
  • Everyone can read and download the scenarios for use – for free. Teachers are encouraged to take part in this project and to join the group of "extended" historians. It’s easy: all you need is to register to the platform and… now you can add more materials.
By now, additional 11 plans were created. They use various methods of learning tools, such as: quest, timeline, registering voice and video testimonies, investigation in city archives, visits to museum or memorial sites, gamification, interactive maps and many others.

You can access the lesson plans at: www.worldwars.eu

3. WORTHY virtual pupils’ exchanges
                    


More than 40 teachers and students participated in online pupils’ exchanges organized as part of the WORTHY project. They were carried out online due to pandemic situation across Europe.
  • At the beginning, they got to know each other and talked about with what they associate the countries and cities of the partners. They also presented their schools and towns.
  • Then they talked about the traces of World War I and II in their territories, about military operations, fights, but also about the everyday life of ordinary people.
During one of the meetings, workshops were held. It was a preparation of a so-called a slider showing photos of a given place in the past and now. Links to the created sliders were placed on the Worldwars.eu multilingual web platform.
  • The youngsters also had the opportunity to discuss the impact of wars on the fate of their families and towns. They underlined that they learned a lot of new and interesting things during the project, as well as during online exchanges. 
  • They had the opportunity to talk to their peers from other countries and to listen to their opinions about wars, patriotism, but also everyday life.

4. History Alive - An Arts project with 10th grade students from Pforzheim, Germany

               

Within the framework of the Erasmus+ project WORTHY, Kepler Gymnasium Pforzheim's teachers were tackling the task of how to create personal involvement among the students dealing with historical topics.

  • With the help of being touched emotionally, facts about wars in general and the World Wars in particular can be brought to life and the view of the fates of families, companies and even the city of Pforzheim can be sensitized, even across several generations.

The students should realize that wars have a much greater destructive effect, as it is commonly read in history books or seen or heard in reports. The very private view of personal fate, which inevitably reverberates in war families over many generations, had to be artistically reconstructed in a creative process.

  • In the first step, teachers and students consulted the city archives. This resulted in various historical starting points, such as the fate of the Reutlinger family from Kronprinzenstraße in Pforzheim or the fate of the Kollmar & Jourdan company in Bleichstraße. For this purpose, the students researched the backgrounds and fates of six different "places" in connection with the Second World War in the city archive under the guidance of the archive educator, Ms. Post-Hafner.

The students photographed facades, details, street signs, etc. at the selected six "places" and then interwove these with the findings from their research work in the style of Urban Art. This was the basis for the artistic confrontation, which was deliberately chosen to be contemporary, in order to transfer the past into the present through the art form - Urban Art.

  • Works in mixed media, overpainted photographs, in various forms of expression of Urban Art, such as stencils, stickers or tape art, were created. They are presented as large-format posters.

The students‘ works were then exhibited to the public in Pforzheim Town Hall.

5. WORTHY Polish Short Mobile Films Competition - Results
              

We already know the results of competition for the WORTHY Short Mobile Movie "Traces of the WWI and WWII in the municipality of Niepołomice", announced by the Town and Commune Office along with the School Compound Holy Father John Paul II.

The competition was aimed at students from schools in the Niepołomice commune. Its main goals were:
  • encouraging to look for traces of World War I and II in the Niepołomice commune
  • deepening the knowledge of World War I and II, getting to know interesting places and people related to those events
  • encouraging research of the family history
  • acquiring the ability to document traces of history using film recordings
  • build a dialogue between generations and create a new perspectives for the study of history through new technologies.
Participants could choose one of five topics:
  • Heroes of everyday life
  • Traces of the war in the Niepołomice commune
  • Residents and their everyday life in the Niepołomice commune during World War I or II
  • Memorial sites
  • The Niepołomice Forest “a witness to the war”.
The submitted works showed a lot of work put into the preparation of materials and their assembly by the students. Some of them appeared in front of the camera themselves, others told or read a given story from behind. 

One of the films was based on an interview with two elderly women. Most of the movies contained historical photos, video clips, maps. Music played an important role in some of them. 

The jury emphasized that it was not easy to choose the best films.

Here are the winners: Distinctions: The winners received electronic equipment. The official award ceremony took place during the meeting “WORTHY for all” held on June 15 at the Royal Castle. The prizes were funded by the Niepołomice Commune and the European Union Erasmus+ program as part of the WORTHY project.

All the films are available also on the WORTHY YouTube Channel.

6. Peeking into the past with VR glasses

 


Breza, the Croatian youth association based in Osijek, held a VR glasses workshop with students.

The workshop was attended by 12 students from 7th and 8th classes who were provided an interesting experience of time travel through virtual reality glasses.
  • In an instant, they switched from the modern world to piloting a warplane or to a battlefield, where they could experience some of the great historical moments or scenes while turning 360 degrees around themselves and seeing every detail.
  • Students were divided into groups and experimented a couple of historical themed videos.
Before showing the videos, students were introduced to the historical stories prepared for them. To begin with, they were asked if they could tell something about the topics and then a short presentation in which the themes were put from the video in a historical context.

Students were divided into groups of four after which they took turns. They were so excited that they could hardly wait for their turn to try. They were very interested and said that so far they have not had such an experience of looking through VR glasses and experiencing history from a different, more real view.
  • After watching the videos, a short discussion was held with the students through which they shared their impressions and experiences.
  • At the end of the discussion, the educational conclusion of the whole workshop was worked out by the educators and the historical data were repetead.
It was very important to get feedback from them, which was more than positive - the students seemed very interested and said that they would definitely repeat such a workshop and that VR glasses could be a great tool for teaching history.

7. “WORTHY” on the International Journal of Museum Management and Curatorship

 

Another important showcase for “Worthy” is the publication of the following scientific article: "Camilla Marini and Deborah Agostino (2021): Humanized museums. How digital technologies become relational tools, Museum Management and Curatorship, DOI:10.1080/09647775.2021.1969677".

  • The research was developed by the Osservatorio Innovazione Digitale nei Beni e Attività Culturali and the Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering of Politecnico di Milano. The collaboration between Politecnico di Milano and Municipality of Vicenza has really been an added value for “Worthy” throughout the three-year project duration.

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/09647775.2021.1969677

Thanks for joing us!
 

Copyright © 2021 WORTHY - Comune di Vicenza, All rights reserved.


Want to change how you receive these emails?
You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

Email Marketing Powered by Mailchimp