In the scope of the conference with high-class participants, which deals with the topic “History and Edutainment”, the Augsburg EU LLP Comenius project EHISTO (European History Crossroads as Pathways to Intercultural and Media Education) is invited to present its results from the two-year project in three sections to a broad international expert audience in Wrocław (Poland).
Augsburg/Wrocław –The rationale for the EHISTO project was to explore how commercialized history – especially in form of popular history magazines – can be used in history teaching in schools, in history teacher education and in continuing professional development for teachers as well as in adult education in order to develop critical media literacy in the field of historical culture – closely related to an intercultural understanding of national history in Europe. For this purpose, the comparative research firstly served to identify relevant history topics throughout Europe ( “European History Crossroads”) in the different national magazines, whereby a contribution to researching transnational dimensions of national historical cultures in Europe was aimed at. Secondly, empirical studies were carried out on history teachers’ use of history magazines in teaching within the partner countries. This formed the foundation for the development of interactive online modules (Learning Objects) for teaching as well as the initial and further training of teachers.
The EHISTO project, which was supported by the EU-LLP-programme and coordinated by Prof . Dr. Susanne Popp, Department of History Didactics (University of Augsburg), started in November 2013 and lasts until the end of October 2014. The project team includes: the University of East Anglia (United Kingdom), the Academy of Management / University of Social Sciences Łodz (Poland), the Universidad de Salamanca (Spain), the Dalarna University (Sweden) and the FWU-Institute for Film and Pictures in Science and Education (Munich, Germany). All university partners worked closely together with local “EHISTO partner schools”. Eleven history teachers and more than 300 pupils contributed to the development of the interactive online modules (learning objects) and tested their practical suitability. The team was supported by an international research network consisting of experts in history didactics and media studies, which reaches from Augsburg to Shanghai, as well as by international networks such as e.g. the International Society for History Didactics (ISHD), EUROCLIO (European Association of History Educators) and DVV International, the Institute for the International Cooperation of the German Association of Adult Education.
Intercultural and media-critical teaching and learning material for history education
- transnational teaching material (secondary level) with teacher manuals on European historical topics that are covered from national magazines and syllabi of all partnering countries (“European History Crossroads”). The materials consist of history- and media-didactically edited content in English (project language) as well as in the national languages of all partners, serving to induce media-critical and intercultural competences. The teacher manuals contain explanations of the learning objects along with didactic handouts;
- a project seminar with a module guide to be used for initial teacher training, which integrates the new approach along with activating methods;
- a teacher course with a handbook to be used in in-service teacher training, which puts the project results into classroom practice;
- an interactive project website which presents all project results and work materials (for teaching in the classroom, initial teacher training and in-service teacher training), facilitating the exchange between teachers and pupils.
All results can be downloaded in the project languages English, German, Spanish, Polish, and Swedish on the project homepage free of charge.
International history didactics conference in Wrocław
In the scope of the conference of the International Society for History Didactics in Wrocław EHISTO will present the current state of research on popular history magazines in three sessions with a total of ten talks. Some of the topics, to name but a few, address how the relevant market is represented in Sweden, Germany, England or even in PR China, what the recipients demand from history magazines, how the quality of the magazines is to be evaluated from the perspective of history didactics or which returns the EHISTO learning objects may bring when used in school. At the same time, both Polish partners from the University of Social Sciences in Łodz, Joanna Szczecińska and Katarzyna Czekaj-Kotynia, will present the EHISTO project at the national conference of the Polish history teachers with this year's title: “Education – Culture – Society”, which is also held at the University of Wrocław.
For the sustainable dissemination of the project results an English language publication is developed, which especially addresses university teachers and students and therewith wants to strengthen the discussion of commercialised history presentations and the popular historical culture as well as the enhancement of media literacy and the national comparative perspective on Europe’s “shared history” in the history classroom. This publication will be available by the end of 2014 both as printed version and as open access online version.
For further information on the project as well as all project results published so far visit the project homepage at: URL: http://www.european-crossroads.de
The conference programme for the final conference is available at: URL: http://www.european-crossroads.de/category/news/
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