The Past Their Learning Activities
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Nyirubugara This books discusses one of the most frequently discussed subjects in history education during Surfin the last two decades, namely how secondary g school pupils use the World Wide Web for the past their learning activities. Based on two case studies in two Dutch schools, the book shows some ways in which the use of the Web has changed history education in at least three respects: first, the findings of the two case studies show that the Web has a huge potential to turn the history class – previously described as boring and too abstract – into a livelier and more attractive environment, where concepts, events, phenomena and processes of the past almost always have textual and/or Surfing the past [audio]visual representations; second, strong indications were observed showing that the Web fosters historical understanding, not only by triggering thinking processes that take pupils beyond the shown contents, but also by prompting them to evaluate sources and sample relevant fragments for their assignments; third, the Web has brought into history education sources that were previously excluded, including those described as unconventional. This book shows, among other things, that convergence is underway on both the user side – since pupils use both conventional and unconventional online sources – and the content-production side, where heritage institutions are increasingly getting involved in unconventional platforms like Wikipedia. The latter emerged from the two case studies as the most popular source of historical information, while the websites of heritage institutions tended to appear at the bottom of the list of references. Unlike personal sites, which also scored better, heritage sites face some obstacles, including the still dominant desire to preserve institutions’ identity and uniqueness, conservatism – which often prevents the redefinition of collection management tasks –, and the tax-payers’ dilemma. For that Surfin reason, collections are not hyperlinked and, therefore, remain invisible and g not easy to find online. the past Sidestone digital learners in the ISBN 978-90-8890-081-5 Sidestone Press history class ISBN: 978-90-8890-081-5 Bestelnummer: SSP86460001 693172712 Olivier Nyirubugara 9 789088 900815 Surfin the pastg Sidestone Press Surfin the pastg digital learners in the history class ACADEMISCH PROEFSCHRIFT ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam op gezag van de Rector Magnificus prof. dr. D.C. van den Boom ten overstaan van een door het college voor promoties ingestelde commissie, in het openbaar te verdedigen in de Agnietenkapel op dinsdag 10 januari 2012, te 10:00 uur door Olivier Nyirubugara geboren te Byumba-Ville, Rwanda Promotiecommissie Promotores: Prof. dr. F.P.I.M. van Vree Prof. dr. F.J.M. Huysmans Overige leden: Dr. P. Alkhoven Prof. dr. C.A.M. van Boxtel Prof. dr. J.F.T.M. van Dijck Prof. dr. F.C.J. Ketelaar Prof. dr. T.H.P.M. Thomassen Faculteit der Geesteswetenschappen To my father Charles and my brother François who won’t be able to hold and read this book. © 2012 O. Nyirubugara Published by Sidestone Press, Leiden www.sidestone.com Sidestone registration number: SSP86460001 ISBN 978-90-8890-081-5 Illustration cover: Mikael Damkier / Dreamstime.com Cover design: K. Wentink, Sidestone Press Lay-out: P.C. van Woerdekom, Sidestone Press The publication of this book was supported by the NOT Fonds, the J.E. Jurriaanse Stichting, and the Stichting entoen.nu Contents Acknowledgements 9 0 Introduction 11 0.1 History Education as Communication 12 0.2 Why This Subject Now? 13 0.3 The Research Approach 14 0.4 The Structure of the Book 16 1 Acquaintance With the Past: Which Past and Why? 21 1.1 Understanding the World 22 1.2 Historical Knowledge and Historical Awareness 29 1.3 World History and Local History 35 1.4 Summary 41 2 A New Medium, a New Generation 43 2.1 The Early Days of the Web 43 2.2 Getting Education Connected: Official Policies 48 2.3 The Internet Generation 55 2.4 History Teachers and Their Embracing of the Web 64 2.5 Summary 68 3 Digitising the Cultural Heritage for History Education 71 3.1 Why Digitise? Motives and Policies 72 3.2 Selection Criteria 81 3.3 Beyond Scanning: Enhancing Objects’ Pedagogical Value 89 3.4 Taking Digital Heritage Into Web 2.0 99 3.5 Summary 110 4 Methodological Introduction to Field Research 113 4.1 Research Questions 114 4.2 The Case Study Approach 117 4.3 Ethnographic Perspective on the History Class 118 4.4 Observing while Attending 119 4.5 Interviews 122 4.6 Content Analysis 123 4.7 Data Recording 126 4.8 Summary 128 5 Case Study One: the Baarnsch Lyceum 129 5.1 The System, the Place, and the People 130 5.2 Attractiveness 133 5.3 Historical Thinking 140 5.4 Sources 152 5.5 Summary 159 6 Case Study Two: The Helen Parkhurst Dalton School 161 6.1 The Dalton Approach 162 6.2 Attractiveness 175 6.3 Historical Thinking 181 6.4 Sources 192 6.5 Summary 200 7 Analytical Understanding of the Findings 203 7.1 Attractiveness Means Historical Thinking 203 7.2 Variety of Sources Fosters Historical Thinking 211 7.3 Convergence: The Conventional Joins the Unconventional 219 7.4 Findings in Broader Discussions 231 7.5 Summary 239 8 Conclusions 243 8.1 What Digital Learners Do with the Web 243 8.2 Digitised Heritage in Digital Learners’ Eyes 248 8.3 The Web and History Education Targets 252 General Summary 257 Samenvatting in het Nederlands 267 Bibliographic References 279 Acknowledgements Thanking after more than three years of research conducted in many places with the help of many people and institutions is not an easy task, not because one wants to claim a single-handed achievement, but rather because of the risk of forgetting those who contributed in one way or another to the achieved work. For this reason, I would like first to thank all those I will forget or will not be able to men- tion in the lines below. Their support was highly appreciated. Having said that, I would like to thank my promotors, prof. dr. Frank van Vree and prof. dr. Frank Huysmans, for their invaluable guidance during the completion of this research. I am profoundly indebted to history teachers Antheun Janse at the Baarnsch Lyceum, David le Clercq and Lisanne Beekman at the Helen Parkhurst Dalton School, for opening wide the doors to their classrooms, thereby allowing me to see how new media work in the history class. I can’t of course forget their respective pupils for warmly welcoming and integrating me into their environment and sharing their experience with digital media. I owe much to Reinier van Deinum, Cor den Ridder and Huibert Crijns of het Geheugen van Nederland; Judith Moortgat and Toos Kruithof of the National Archives of the Netherlands; Hanneke Vroegindeweij and Irene Haan of the Eye Film Institute; Ineke Huysman of the Huygens Institute for the History of the Netherlands; Lammert Zwaagstra of the National Library’s Databank of Digital Daily Newspapers project; Ynze Alkema of the Breda City Archives; and Paul Vermeulen of the LES 2.0 project. By openheartedly open- ing the doors into their institutions and offering their insights into their respective digitisation projects, I was able to have invaluable first-hand details crucial to the research presented in this book. I am grateful to those who provided their critical comments for some of the chapters, namely dr. Arie Wilschut for Chapter 1, dr. Geert Lovink for Chapter 2, dr. Karel Dibbets and dr. Peter Horsman for Chapter 3. Their comments and suggestions were useful in refin- ing some of the ideas presented in this book. I want also to thank my office mates, dr. Tjeerd Schiphof, Trilce Navarrete, Nina Köll and Zeynep Gündüz for the many and fruitful discussions about our respective research. I would like to express my profound gratitude to the Amsterdam University’s Institute for Culture and History, the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis, the Media Studies Department and the Huizinga Institute, for offering an inspiring and motivating re- acknowledgements 9 search environment that made the completion of this dissertation both enjoyable and possible. I cannot forget my sister Marie-Généreuse, whose insight into child psychology was of great help; my brother Jean-Valéry and his wife Anita, with whom I have had frequent, informal talks about my research, and whose opinions on digital media and child psychology were illuminating; my brother Philippe, my sister Epiphanie and her husband Claude, my mother Madeleine, my aunt Françoise and her husband Juvénal, and my cousin André and his wife Thérèse for their constant moral encouragement. Finally, special thanks to my wife Assumpta and my lovely daughters Fidelis and Regina, who, better than any other person, provided the affection and moral support that kept me working as hard as I could, even though my long hours of work sometimes meant sacrifice to them. It’s over now. Their support and sacrifice have paid off. 10 surfing the past Chapter 0 INTRODUCTION -Canon clip narrator [showing William V in his office, read- ing a book and then walking around]: Two hundred years ago, the Netherlands was a Republic. A country without a king. Instead, it had a State Holder [Governor]. He is the forefather of our Queen, thus a member of the Orange House. He was not, however, a king. Together with other important citizens he governed the Republic. William V was such a State Holder. He lived in a beautiful palace and acted as if he were a king. Actually he himself had the feeling that he was a king.