Helping to keep history relevant : mulitmedia and authentic learning

The subject based curriculum attracts lively debate in many countries being accused of fragmenting teaching and learning, erecting artificial barriers and failing to teach the skills required in the twenty first century (Hazlewood 2005). Cross-curricular rich tasks are increasingly seen as the means to develop relevant knowledge, understanding and skills. Over the past fourteen years we have developed and evaluated a series of interactive multi-media resources for primary and secondary schools on themes within Scottish History. The generally positive evaluation given to these resources by pupils and teachers points to some ways in which subjects such as history can remain challenging and relevant. The relevance has largely stemmed, in the case of the multi-media resources, from combining the historian's traditional role of problemising the past, with a wide range of primary and secondary sources, new technologies and learning tasks encompassing critical skills/authentic learning. Consequently, we argue that subjects must in future embrace new technologies and authentic learning to maintain their place in the school curriculum

Exploring how authentic learning and multimedia can enhance teaching and learning, history

The impact of ICT on education has become a highly contentious area with both its theoretical base and impact increasingly questioned. Rather than discussing the actual impact on teaching and learning, educational administrators and politicians now increasingly refer to the potential to transform. However, the focus of attention has moved towards the learning tasks rather than the technology and here critical skills/authentic learning play a central role. When ICT and authentic learning combine, the potential of new technologies is realise

Barnhill

Multimedia CD ROM examining Barnhill, Scotland's largest poorhouse

Auld Reekie and the Dear Green Place: contrasting lifestyles in Victorian Edinburgh and Glasgow

Multimedia CD ROM examining life in Victorian Edinburgh and Glasgow. An analysis of life for working-class and middle-class families in Edinburgh and Glasgow within the period 1850-1900. This program supports investigations into urban life with maps for selected middle and working class areas of each city linking to further information including profiles of heads of family, photographs and 1851 and 1891 census information. Contained within a database, this census information can be searched to investigate a range of themes such as employment and migration. The following five figures come from this project

Changing Scotland, Scottish Society 1880-1939

Multimedia CD ROM examining the impact of urbanisation and industrialisation on Scotland

Authentic learning and multimedia in history education

A brief narrative description of the journal article, document, or resource. The momentum gathering behind authentic learning/critical skills raises fundamental issues concerning teaching and learning. This article discusses some of the more general arguments surrounding authentic learning with particular reference to an in-depth evaluation of its impact on schools in one part of Great Britain. It then moves on to describe how this approach to teaching and learning influenced the design of a multimedia CD-ROM examining attitudes and policies towards poverty in the nineteenth century Glasgow. The article concludes by arguing that authentic learning and multimedia together create a powerful medium for learning by mirroring the methodology and sources used by historians

Ruled by the seasons

Multimedia CD ROM allowing pupils to investigate life in rural Scotland in the nineteenth century. CD-ROM focusing on industrialisation, urbanisation and migration providing the historical context for life in rural Scotland under radical transformation in the nineteenth century.Uses the Journal kept between 1879 and 1892 by James Wilson, a farmer in Banffshire, north-east Scotland, to illustrate life in rural society. Ruled by the Seasons contains the 1881 census for Banffshire allowing students to trace the people and places described by James Wilson, analyse socio-economic profiles of farms, villages and towns while also studying their local area