Hi-Story Lessons: Teaching and Learning about Europe

From November 2015 to September 2016, the team working on the project ‘Hi-Story Lessons: Teaching and Learning about Europe in the 20th Century – Timelines’ developed six interactive timelines about each of the participating countries (Germany, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic, and Romania). Interactive infographics add depth to important moments and far-reaching events in the 20th century histories of these six Central European countries, helping to explain complex historical connections and relationships. Integrating primary-source material, the historical narratives of the participating countries are presented in a broader European context. The timelines offer interesting insights – often neglected in the history classroom – that demonstrate how closely the individual memories and stories about historical events are entwined with experiences in neighbouring countries.

In cooperation with its Central and Eastern European partners, the Leibniz Institute for Educational Media | Georg Eckert Institute, a recognised name in the field of school media research, regards this project as an important contribution to the development of complex digital education tools.

The project’s results, in the form of six interactive timelines and infographics on historical events in Germany, Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Romania, can be accessed under https://hi-storylessons.eu/events/.

• Duration: 01.11.2015 to 30.09.2016
• Project leader: Dr Robert Maier
• Associate: Dr Marcin Wiatr
• Results: Research for and online publication of six interactive timelines and infographics on historical events in Germany, Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Romania for teachers and pupils to download.

This part of the project ran from November 2016 to March 2017 and its goal was to expand the hi-storylessons.eu web platform, in particular through the addition of innovative animated and audio-visual material.

Two audio-visual animations were added to the digital products addressing history education:

• First World War (1914-1918) available at https://hi-storylessons.eu/events/28_july_first_world_war_also_known_as_the_great_war 
• Great Economic Crisis (1929–1933) available at https://hi-storylessons.eu/events/24_october_beginning_of_the_great_crisis 

Specific target audiences, such as pupils and teachers as well as the general public, are thereby granted access to new, high quality products. An animation with voice-over and acoustic material describes the mounting panic among shareholders and documents the concerns of migrant workers and others seeking work following the stock market crash in New York, and outlines the global scale of the economic crisis.

The project took advantage of past approaches followed by the Leibniz Institute for Educational Media | Georg Eckert Institute to encourage the use of sensory perception and to incorporate acoustic effects in the communication of the ‘sound of history’ within digital educational media products and to reflect upon the extent to which the collective recollections of societies and generations are shaped by acoustic memories. The material strives to include pupils with disabilities and special educational needs. The acoustically enriched aminations also cater for pupils with visual disabilities by making open-access educational online resources that are suitable for them to use and therefore allow them to more fully participate in the mediation of complex historical issues. This material therefore stimulates lessons that actively seize upon and implement the potential offered by digital media, in order to achieve better learning outcomes – especially in the target groups named. These innovative, digital and audio-visual methods for communicating history lend our project a truly ground-breaking significance, demonstrated through its goal of using the potential of digital teaching material for inclusive lessons.

• Duration: 01.11.2016 to 30.03.2017
• Project head: Dr Marcin Wiatr
• Results: Addition of acoustic material and audio-visual animations to the six interactive timelines detailing events in Germany, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Romania.

The goal of this project, which ran during the final quarter of 2017, was to further expand the audio-visual animations and acoustic material on the multi-lingual web platform hi-storylessons.eu.

The project implements interactive teaching methods and focuses particularly on how historical processes are presented to and adopted by pupils between the ages of 14 and 18. One of the project’s main aims in this respect is to stimulate a discourse on European history that reaches beyond national perspectives. For this reason the animations focus on historic turning points of the twentieth century; looking at their significance at the time and their consequences for Europe today.

Three animated narratives have been added to the digital products for history education; on subjects that all have current significance within the memory cultures of 2017 and 2018:

1. The social and political revolution that took place in Russia in 1917 and its impact on Europe’s political and historical landscape. See: https://hi-storylessons.eu/events/bolshevik-revolution-in-petrograd
2. The Marshall Plan and the start of the Cold War. See: https://hi-storylessons.eu/events/marshall_plan,
3. The protest and reform movements of 1968. Se: https://hi-storylessons.eu/events/peak_of_the_sexual_revolution_in_the_west_and_the_end_of_prague_spring

All three animations are available in seven languages: English, Polish, German, Hungarian, Slovakian, Czech and Romanian. Each is accompanied by an MP3 audio file containing selected historical material related to the individual events. This enables the material to be used by those with visual impairments or, for a change of emphasis, the images can be used as background material supplementing the audio tracks.

The use of images and pictograms, the reduction of text and the increased integration of sound and tone all reflect recent tendencies in education and in lesson practice when teaching history and developing historical awareness; a shift that requires innovative educational media. Sequences of specifically commissioned illustrations are used in the animations and synchronised with professionally edited scripts. This allows important historical events to be brought to life, both visually and aurally.

• Duration: 31.08.2017 to 31.12.2018
• Project head: Dr Marcin Wiatr
• Results: Development of six interactive timelines and infographics depicting historical events in Germany, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Romania using additional sound files and audio-visual aminations.

The aim of this project, which was launched in December 2017, is to create further sound files, audio-visual content and animations for the multi-lingual web platform hi-storylessons.eu.

This project clearly, understandably and attractively presents connections between historic events and cultural movements of the twentieth century. Pupils (aged 14–18) and teachers will be able to trace the cultural context of historic events within wider culture through appropriate material, which will also illustrate the cultural determinants of active political agents. The content of the project is founded on knowledge relevant to an academic context, namely that far-reaching historic events arise from complex interrelationships within which cultural factors play a not insignificant role, and that those events, in turn, are often reflected within the cultural realm. It is therefore important to convey the sense of culture as a historical element that penetrates society, politics and economics. Considering individual historic events from a cultural history standpoint can frequently result in a more comprehensive and rational representation.

The project’s key methodological approach is to chronologically depict selected currents within twentieth century European culture. The countries selected include Germany, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Romania, but the project also incorporates a more comprehensive international context. Particular attention is also paid to political and social motives and to the inspiration and limitations of those working in the creative arts. The project examines painters, authors, poets, philosophers, architects and composers. Important cultural movements are discussed, such as art nouveau/German Youth Movement, the Decadent movement, expressionism, surrealism, modernism, fascist cultural forms, socialist realism, pop art, consumerism and post-modernism.

Relevant graphics and source material will be added to the texts, which will then be available in seven languages: English, Polish, German, Hungarian, Slovakian, Czech and Romanian. The texts will be published on the www.hi-storylessons.eu website, accompanied by information on the historic events they address. They will also be available in a separate location dedicated to their individual topics.

• Duration: 01.12.2017 to 31.08.2018
• Project head: Dr Marcin Wiatr
• Results: Development of interactive timelines and info-graphics covering interlinked historical events in selected European cultural movements of the twentieth century in Germany, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Romania.

The aim of this project, which began in November 2019, is to expand the multilingual web platform hi-storylessons.eu through the creation and implementation of new content. This should increase interest in digital history lessons and expand the basic knowledge of history among pupils (aged 14 - 18) and teachers through high-quality and user-friendly digital teaching materials. The project‘s primary methodological approach is to stimulate discourse about European history that is independent of respective national perspectives and to make an innovative contribution to freely available educational resources covering the history of Central and Eastern European countries. The interim results from the project are based on the awareness, relevant to the school context, that decisive historical events arise from complex contexts, among which the lives of the most influential protagonists play a not insignificant role, and that these events are in turn also reflected in other concrete historical events. Therefore, disseminating information about the lives of influential people in politics and society is an important aspect of historical knowledge and teaching. An examination of historical events that includes relevant biographical factors relating to the protagonists can often help create a complete and comprehensible picture.

The infographics created through the project about the conferences of the ‘Big Three’ not only describe the primary issues discussed at the conferences, their general framework and their progression but also provide information on their influence on the political and territorial reshaping of Europe and the far-reaching social and economic effects for the continent. Two new sections outline the conferences’ political protagonists and influential figures. In addition the teaching materials provide a special search function, based on the user (teacher, student etc.), which makes the material more accessible.

The aim of this project, started in November 2020, is to expand the multilingual web platform hi-storylessons.eu through the creation and implementation of new content. During the project, two animations have been created that address the collapse of the Soviet Union. In the 1970s and 1980s the Soviet Union was characterised by the peaceful coexistence of many different ethnic groups, but also by economic stagnation.  The war in Afghanistan, which had started in 1979, was becoming an increasing burden for the country. In 1985 Mikhail Gorbachev became general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and introduced significant changes to Soviet domestic and foreign policy with his revolutionary reforms (perestroika, glasnost) and disarmament negotiations with the USA.

The social and political upheavals, both in the Soviet Union itself and in the Eastern Bloc countries, continue to be significant topics for history education. In this context, depending on national historical policies or historical resentment towards Russia, the events in the individual countries in Central and Eastern Europe are often emphasised as the decisive moments that led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991. The fact that these events were far more complex and that those involved did not act alone but were significantly dependant on the reforms introduced by Gorbachev, is often downplayed and frequently not covered in history lessons. The animations covering the dissolution of the Soviet Union fill this gap and provide digitally underpinned lesson plans that are expanded to include multiple perspectives and transnational approaches. They illuminate the diverse political, social and economic reasons for these unique historic events from a number of different perspectives and clearly illustrate that this is a topic that involves complex interwoven European histories and is very much relevant to current European integration, and therefore deserves reappraisal and suitable dissemination in schools. It is particularly important, when many in international politics are fundamentally questioning the level-headed and coordinated approach of all those involved, to address the complex interrelationships of revolutionary historical events and the importance of multilateral agreements in history teaching practice with the help of innovative  teaching materials that take a multi-perspective approach. 

All the prepared animations will be available in seven languages: English, Polish, German, Hungarian, Slovakian, Czech and Romanian.

• Project duration: 15.11.2020 to 31.03.2021
• Project head: Dr Marcin Wiatr
• Link to website: https://hi-storylessons.eu