Copy
View this email in your browser

 This third issue is rich of big news. And it could not be otherwise, in this complicated era due to the Covid-19 pandemic, that has forced us to postpone - and also redesign – most of our foreseen activities, in a crucial moment of the WORTHY project’s life.

Here, then, a 2020-2021 school year rich of opportunities for teachers who wants to know and experiment the WORTHY approach with their students, in order to thrill them to the study of history, thanks to the use of the modern technologies.

Therefore, we are sure you will take advantage of the chance to participate in the public launch of the project and its outputs, developed by the partnership in the last two years.

In fact we are scheduling in September-October 2020 a hands-on seminar for teachers in each country partner (the Italian event is already fixed in September 29 in Vicenza).

Meanwhile, in this issue, we give you a preview about the multilingual online platform Worldwars.eu, recently published, that enableas teachers and students to augment the history study experience with rich media content, and about the Lesson Plans, to give teachers examples and ideas on how to integrate the WORTHY methodologies into their classroom activities.

Our aim now is to engage as many teachers as possible in the experimentation phase during the next school year, after attending two training courses, with certificates of “Augmented teacher” and “Parent trainer”.

Finally we are glad to share with you the satisfaction of a honourable mention received by WORTHY on the occasion of an award promoted by the prestigious Polytechnic of Milan.

1. WorldWars.eu project platform launched



The project platform is now available
to students and teachers across Europe!
WorldWars.eu is a multilingual online platform enabling teachers and students to augment the history study experience with rich media content, increasing engagement in studying historical events and creating students own micro stories.

At the heart of the platform is the ability for students to share a variety of media about the First and Second World Wars. This can be media created by the students, individually or in groups, or curated from across the World Wide Web.
Students are encouraged to search for objects, photos and stories within their own family heirlooms and from local museums.

Alongside each piece of media, the students are asked to write a description and to categorise it with tags. Examples of the types of media which can be shared include:
  • historic photos from the family archive or comparative photos of places showing what a location looked like during the wars and now;
  • audio retelling of stories, discussions, audio documentaries;
  • 3D models of objects, digitally scanned or modelled;
  • video documentaries or students recreating stories through live action plays or animation;
  • virtual reality 360-degree views of locations as they are now;
  • augmented reality of 3D objects created or curated by students;
  • collaborative maps showing important places of importance locally or across Europe;
  • interactive timelines with individual media items recorded against important dates;
  • and more.
Students can also collect these ‘artefacts’ together into ‘Collections’, which are micro-projects curated by the students around a particular theme or idea.

The platform contains toolkits to show students and teachers how to use various online tools and apps to create the media artefacts. The platform is also home to all of the other project resources – Guidelines, Lesson Plans and Elearning.

In addition, there is a social community enabling teachers and pupils to connect with each other, in groups or individually, to share images, videos, project updates; and to receive virtual badges to reward them for their engagement.

WorldWars.eu is available to use now. All pupils and teachers can complete the simple registration form to start using the project resources and start sharing their World Wars artefacts and stories here: https://worldwars.eu/en/community/registration

2. Teachers' lessons on the WORTHY platform




The first lesson plans prepared by the WORTHY partners - Piovene Institute (Vicenza, Italy), Youth Association Breza (Osijek, Croatia), Kepler-Gymnasium (Pforzheim, Germany) and Gmina Niepolomice (Poland) - have been uploaded on the WorldWars.eu WORTHY platform (visible to anybody with a Teacher account, not to the public or to Student accounts).

This is one of the project’s planned results – to develop lesson plans and materials on the history of two World Wars and make them available to a wider public through the platform.

The lesson scenarios 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.

Students will benefit from the project and platform, as the new methods are supposed to arouse greater interest in learning history, especially the latest history.

Teachers can read and download the scenarios for use during classes – for free. They are encouraged to take advantage of this opportunity and to join the group of "extended" historians by registering to the platform and adding more materials. For the former, it will be a way to diversify the lessons and encourage students to work with the use of new technologies. For the latter it can be an interesting way of exploring knowledge and learn history in a more active way by creating and adding objects, pictures, scans and other materials.

The lesson plans proposed use various methods of learning and various 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 registering as Teacher at: WorldWars.eu

3. The public launch of the project’s outputs: 4 hands-on seminars (in Italy, Germany, Poland and Croatia)


In September-October 2020 there will be a hands-on seminar in each school partners’ country (Italy, Germany, Poland and Croatia) that will be the public launch of the main project’s outputs to all professional working in the school sector, such as teachers, school leaders, school staff responsible for school libraries management or for ICT integration.

The main target will be teachers willing to engage in the experimentation during the 2020-2021 school year.

The Italian event is already scheduled for 29 September 2020, at 3:30 pm, in the Piovene Institute (corso SS Felice e Fortunato 225 – Vicenza), one of the project’s partner.




The seminars will make use of interactive methodologies to engage the audience as much as possible and show the potentialities of the WORTHY approach.
  • After a preliminary session, during which participants will be introduced to the foundation and vision of WORTHY project and the methodological framework underlying its development, the event will carry on with mini-workshops that will include technology-based and hands-on activities in small groups to approach WORTHY main instructional tools and the WORTHY platform (WorldWars.eu).  
  • Participants, thanks to the support of facilitators, will familiarize and test the resources produced by the project, through simulation sessions of future working activities to be implemented with their students.
  • At the end of the seminar, an open session will be managed to share opinions, exchange ideas and insights on how to further improve the resources and how to integrate it in the school curricula.
  • Participants in Italy will also have the opportunity to take part to a Silent Play, a performance in which people take part personally in the action, playing and interpreting the proposed story with the help of audioguides.
For registrations to the Italian hands-on seminar (September 29, 2020 | 3:30 pm), interested parties are invited to fill out the form within September 22 at this link: https://bit.ly/WORTHY_Presentazione

4. A honourable mention for WORTHY at the "Gianluca Spina Award"

 



Last May WORTHY was awarded with an honourable mention at the “Gianluca Spina award for digital innovation in cultural heritage and activities”, a prize promoted by the prestigious Polytechnic of Milan, among the most outstanding European universities.

Since 2016 the Municipality of Vicenza is in fact a member of the Monitoring Centre on digital innovation of the Polytechnic in Milan which considered WORTHY a study case for the 2019/2020 edition. Especially impressive was WORTHY aim to trigger an effective approach to history, tantalizing young generations’ attitude towards digital technologies.

The mention says that WORTHY was awarded for “the experimentation of innovative ways of audience development, combining the use of digital tools and the involvement of teachers, parents and students on a topic of current interest with a great potential for development.

A source of great joy of the whole “WORTHY” partnership!
Twitter
Facebook
Website
Email
Copyright © 2020 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