Report of the Comenius 1 History Project Meeting

Edinburgh, 4 - 9 May 2004

Wednesday 5 May

The meeting was attended by teachers from all the partner schools, but also, for the first time, by some of the students who had been participating in its activities. These students (three male, two female) were from Cattaneo and Pomezia in Rome.

The meeting followed the agenda very closely. Day one began with an evaluation of work to date:

Evaluation of work

Italy - reported that the forum was 'very successful, and better than had been expected.' It offered 'the first real possibility of strong student involvement.' It was felt that if there was a weakness in the forum it was that contact with other students was necessarily indirect and there was no immediate response to postings.

The positive viewpoint was backed up by the students themselves. One of them argued that not only did the forum assist with history, but was valuable in his learning of IT skills and English. Another said that he had not been interested in history before getting involved with the forum, but that it had changed his viewpoint. Other students, from both schools, described a range of experiences about working on the forum questions - all of them positive.

Work on the theme of immigration/emigration had been done, but it lacked the immediacy of the forum because of lower student involvement. The idea of making terrorism a theme for next year was supported.

Spain - Here they had concentrated more on disseminating what the project had done, but less on the forum itself. The issue of war, which was one of the forum questions, was a very important one. Lots of work had been done on the Israel/Palestine question and the website had been a vehicle for this. So IT and history had come together. There had, however, been problems with fitting into the timetable set for the forum. This was always an area of difficulty. The meeting looked at examples of the students' work on the Spanish website.

It was felt that the most important aspect of the project's work was not the content but the methodology - the fact that it involved a variety of aspects and ways of working. An issue that was raised was how to measure success. Should be it in terms of what we, the partners are able to do together, or what we are able to do in our individual schools.

Portugal - reported that many of their students did not like history, and this meant that the numbers involved in work around the project were limited. Class discussions on the forum questions had been good, but it had been more difficult to translate this into written answers that were posted. Their students were vocationally orientated and so not used to writing. However, they were interested to see how much the answers written in different countries had in common.

Romania - only a few students had been involved at a serious level. Some answers to the forum questions had been obtained but there had been technical problems in posting them, related to the limited number of computers available at the schools. However, the students were very keen to see the views and ideas of students in other countries.

Work was being done on immigration, and material would soon be forthcoming.

Scotland - the project had been a success since the last meeting in two areas. 27 students had gone on a visit to Paris to see sites related to the 1789 revolution and the Paris Commune. This had been inspired by the project's aim of developing new ways of teaching. Although school trips are not a new idea, such a trip for history students was completely new at Stevenson.

The forum had also been successful and a much larger number of students had been able to become involved and discuss general questions outside the rigid framework of the curriculum to which they were usually bound.

Comeniad Prizes

The meeting then went on to vote for the winners of the Comeniad prizes. A short list was drawn up and the eventual results were as follows:

The prizes consisted of contributions of typical produce from each of the countries. Stevenson would provide certificates to the winners in due course.

In the afternoon the project teachers and students went to one of Stevenson's history classes and there was a brief discussion about how work had gone on the forum. Although students from both Italy and Scotland were nervous about speaking, those that did made interesting points about their experience of the forum and its questions.

Thursday 6 May

The focus of the second day was discussion of possible new themes for the project to work on. It was agreed very quickly that the most appropriate would be related to terrorism. The meeting watched an impressive CD-Rom on the subject that had been prepared by the Spanish partners and which dealt with the recent terrorist attacks in Madrid.

Although there was full agreement that terrorism would be an appropriate theme, it was generally felt that it had to be handled carefully as it is a sensitive topic. There was considerable discussion about this aspect.

One discussion concerned whether all terrorist acts are fundamentally equal - examples of a general phenomenon. According to this view it is not important to look at the motivation behind the act or the context. Another view would be that each act should be looked at individually with motivation and context taken into account. The final result - an act of political violence - might be terrorism, but not all examples of terrorism should be treated as the same. A third perspective – the issue of what should be defined as terrorism – was also raised. It was agreed that teachers had to be careful not to try and impose their views upon the students, and that it was important to take into account the feelings of the students about this issue

Discussion forum on terrorism

It was eventually decided that there should be a new set of forum questions/discussion points around the issue of terrorism and that they should be considered in this order:

• How do you feel about terrorism?
  
  
• How does the media treat terrorism?
  
  
• 'One man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter. '(One person might consider an act of violence to be an example of terrorism, another person might see it as part of a struggle for freedom). Is this true or false? Choose one example from your own country's history and one from abroad to discuss this issue.

These issues would be developed through the forum and be part of the final material to be presented at the end of the project.

The timetable for the forum on terrorism was agreed as follows:

• answers to the first question before the next meeting in Portugal
  
  
• answers to questions 2 and 3 by 21 December

There would be Comeniad prizes awarded again. The decision on winners would be taken at the Rome meeting.

Friday 7 May

European unification

While the topic of terrorism was returned to on the final day of discussions, the meeting then went on to consider proposals from Claudio Federico (sent by email). He suggested that European unification should be a theme for the third and final year of the project. The accession of the new countries and the history of EU could be looked at. Other issues that arose out of this topic could be Europe and current conflicts and how will a unified Europe work?

After discussion it was felt by those present that while this might be suitable for some students, it was unlikely to engage the interests of all. It was recognised that our project is a European project and therefore the subject of European integration and the workings of the EU are important. However, it was agreed that while perhaps not suitable for all the different schools to work on, there was no problem with individual schools choosing to work on this for the project and making it part of their contribution to the final event.

The meeting then turned to preparations for next year and means of working the theme of terrorism into the final meeting in Rome. The idea of a videoconference, which had been agreed at previous meetings was also brought into the discussion.

Videoconferencing

Although the forum was an undoubted success, it had shown difficulties that might be presented for a videoconference.

1. Technical - do the different schools have the technology that would make videoconferencing a possibility?
   
   
2. Educational - the point of the project is to find ways of improving the educational experience of the students by getting them involved. The format of a videoconference may alienate students. We saw when the Italian and Scottish students met on Wednesday that even though there were no technical barriers to communication and there were only 2 countries involved, sitting in the same classroom - that only one or two students from each country were ready to speak.
   
   
3. Linguistic - we saw with the forum that it was difficult to overcome the language barriers
   
   
4. Organisational - it might be hard to find the resources and a time where all the different partners can operate a videoconference.

This means that while a full-scale videoconference involving the students would be desirable, it may not be possible.

The theme of terrorism

Due to these difficulties, it was decided to take a gradual approach and to see, over the next year, how far we could move towards a fully interactive event with full student participation. The method would be for different partners to prepare different kinds of material around the theme of terrorism which could be presented at the end. When all of these were brought together the result would be a more complete 'product' than the individual countries could create for themselves.

All of this material would be brought together in Rome and copies given to each of the schools. It could then be taken home and presented to the students. We could ask the students for their opinions of the different aspects. This feedback from the students would then form the basis for a videoconference (or other interactive format) for the teachers. The aim of this, which would take place after the Rome meeting, would be to evaluate the project as a whole.

After discussion the following division of tasks was agreed:

• Opinion poll/interviews/questionnaire - Students will conduct an opinion poll about terrorism. This might mean the students themselves creating a questionnaire - with perhaps 10-20 questions (does terrorism affect your daily life, why do you think people commit acts of terrorism, can terrorism be avoided by the forces of law and order or do the causes of terrorism need to be addressed etc.). This questionnaire would be administered in the home country and sent via the web to all the partners. - Schools involved - Cattaneo/Romania
  
  
• CD-Rom presentation on terrorism - School involved - Spain
  
  
• Essays on terrorism in history - School involved - Scotland
  
  
• Photographic exhibition - School involved - Pomezia
  
  
• Web pages on terrorism - (with interactive elements) School involved - Portugal
  
  
• Multimedia study of the media on terrorism - School involved - Romania
  
  
• Forum questions - everyone

Of course it is not ruled out that a school will do more than this list says.

If some of these materials were ready for Portugal it would help for preparations for Rome.

Technical issues

The meeting then discussed technical issues associated with the forum and a potential videoconference.

• Each partner must have an IT expert who can assist with the project. The names of these experts should be sent to Harry Kogon or posted on the discussion forum.
  
  
• The requirement for students to logon and enter email addresses had been lifted because it had proved too complicated. Now that we were more familiar with the forum and how it works it was agreed that this system be put back into place. This would enable students to write to each other and make it much easier to keep track of postings.
  
  
• So all students must have or get email addresses (for example hotmail).
  
  
• All students should register with the forum

NEXT MEETING

The Edinburgh meeting concluded by reaffirming that its next meeting would be:

• Cortegaça, 19 October - 24 October 2004

The final meeting will be in Rome, date to be decided at the Cortegaça meeting.