European Virtual School History Department
Toulouse Meeting Report (Draft)
June 6-9 June 2003
Item / ActionPresentation of new member (Nico Zijlstra)
Nico presented two online history projects that he has been involved in:
A propaganda project an ICT/History assignment based on interpretations of cartoons and
an international project involving schools in the Netherlands and Germany, examining the local history of protest during the Second World War. Nico to write a teacher's guideline of how the project had been set up. The site 'Protest' then serves as an example of what can come out of the project.
Nico and Richard to look at the possibility of hosting the propaganda project on our local servers. Richard and Nico to look at the possibility of reworking the language content of the propaganda project. (Deadline 15th September) / Nico/Richard
Olympic Games a new project of the Virtual School, year 2004.
Olympic Games, or Education Through Sports project was discussed. It seems that the Virtual School will make an application to receive funds for this project which will take place during the year 2004. The History department will provide historical background and try to inspire European students to interview and write biographies of participating sportsmen. Dalibor Svoboda took a responsibility to co-ordinate this project if the funding becomes available. / Dalibor
The future of Virtual school (Dalibor) and Comenius project alternative (Juan Carlos).
The future of Virtual school was largely unknown during the Toulouse meeting due to absences at a spring meeting of Swedish part of Virtual school in May. Since the Toulouse meeting Dalibor received the following information from Magnus Saemundsson on 11 June:
- From 1st of July the responsibility for Virtual School will be passed to EUN office in Brussels
- Anne Gilleran will be in charge of Virtual School.
- Anne Gilleran will be writing an application for funding of "Olympic Games".
- On Friday 13th of June a new Virtual School Board will be elected
- Magnus and Angela will help the EUN office initially with the daily tasks within the Virtual School
Juan Carlos gave a presentation about Comenius as a possible source of funding.
Further details about Comenius at
One possible source of funding was identified: Comenius 2 ‘European cooperation projects for the training of school education staff’
comenius/activities/comenius2_en.html#projects
Comenius 2 requires the participation of at least one teacher-training institution in one of the (at least) three countries involved. All team members agreed to pursue their own national contacts in this area. / ALL
ICT and History Digital Video Interviews
This is a new project possibility that could be tied in with a future Comenius bid. With the internet now moving towards broadband possibilities, video interviews with established practitioners within the field of history and ICT become an interesting possibility. Trial interviews were conducted with John Simkin and Juan Carlos Ocaña. These will be edited and hosted by the IST website, with a link page hosted on the EUN server. If funding were available, future History Department meetings could involve an invited guest ‘expert’ who will would be expected to make a presentation, work with the team on new and existing projects and be interviewed as part of the digital interview project. / Richard, Juan Carlos and John
Using online forums
Richard Jones-Nerzic gave a presentation about the educational possibilities of using online forums in the history classroom. Richard has written an article about the experience to be placed on the EUN server at the earliest possibility. A draft of the article is available at / Richard
Medieval Pilgrimage Project next phase
Richard to improve the current activities section of the site. There will three levels of school participation in the project.
(i)Quizzes and games. There are two currently on the site; one needs minor changes (see above link). New activities are to be added for each of the topics: motives, journey, church, relics, sites, and legends.
(ii)Schemes of work for a series of lessons. Richard has already trialed these at
(iii)Schools generating their own resources about a local pilgrimage site. Richard is producing a site with his students about St Sernin in Toulouse to act as an example for other schools. Nico to look into a contribution from the Dutch Pilgrim path (using a class of 12 year olds)
Other changes to be made by Richard: pictures to be added to the Olav section, interactive maps to be added to each of the national sites pages with links to materials which currently exist. A version of the website for English second language students (ESL) is to be produced.
Kjell to produce a Swedish translation of the site that Richard will format and host. Juan Carlos to produce a Spanish version of the shorter ESL version. Richard to change all historio del siglo 20 logos. / Richard, Kjell, Juan Carlos
Spanish Civil War Project next phase
Juan Carlos to include the project logo as a hyperlink in his quiz hosted at Juan Carlos to include ‘partnership links’ (with small logos) with other websites about the Spanish Civil War at
Richard to change all historio del siglo 20 logos. Richard to overhaul all national pages with text immediately on entry pages.
Dalibor to contact Russell Tarr at with a proposal to create a ‘dating game’ activity on the Active History website with the Europe and the Spanish Civil War logo. / Richard, Juan Carlos, Dalibor
Raising the profile of the Virtual School History Department
Dalibor to take responsibility for updating the notices section of the VS site on a regular basis with relevant material taken from the Teaching History Online and Education on the Internet newsletters.
Teaching History Online and Education on the Internet newsletters to include regular information about our projects and articles over the next few months to raise our profile and traffic to the EUN site. The History Teachers’ forum is also a good way of spreading information about our projects. / ALL
AOB
Richard Jones-Nerzic offered to make his Reichstag Fire activity an official VS History Department project. This will require consultation with John D Clare who owns the copyright of the role-play activity. Andrew Field has already agreed to the forum the student forum p?s=662ea0c05166f31b35322c11cb8a204d&act=SF&f=8 being used in this way. / Richard