Advisor(s)
Abstract(s)
“Remembering the Past, Learning for the Future: Research-Based Digital Learning from Testimonies of Survivors and Rescuers of the Holocaust” [ID 740639658] was funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology. Via the international partnership (USC Shoah Foundation, Zachor Foundation, Eötvös Loránd Tudományegyetem, and the University of Luxembourg), the CEAUL team developed a suite of materials for educators and the general public using testimony from witnesses and survivors of the Holocaust through digital tools, with an innovative pedagogical methodology. As stated by the Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Centre (online), “Survivor testimonies are first-hand accounts from individuals who had lived through the Holocaust or genocide and their stories help students to understand and empathise more deeply with the human (and inhuman) aspects of mass atrocities”.
The project aimed to achieve seven objectives, of which we highlight the following: 1) the research in the Visual History Archive of the University of Southern California’s Shoah Foundation (an archive that contains 54,975 video testimonies of survivors and rescuers of the Holocaust – 563 in Portuguese); 2) the creation of a Portuguese language microsite on the IWitness platform for the resources developed; and 3) the development of 6 digital, testimony-based educational materials on the IWitness platform in Portuguese. The assumption of such a project consisted of effectively integrating ICT into education materials to improve students’ skills, namely what has come to be known as 21st century skills (e.g., critical thinking, creativity, communication and collaboration). Despite the seemingly historical emphasis of the project’s resources, their main goal has been to stir discussion in the History and Portuguese Language classrooms, to name a few, and encourage empathy based on historical events that regrettably are still up-to-date.
Therefore, we intend to present one of the six activities created within this project that target the Portuguese compulsory secondary education and Higher Education levels, where we sought to build a story around the topic “The Rescuers”. By using the strategy of storytelling (cf. Schallié & Spaar, 2021, online), each activity intertwined excerpts of different testimonies that ultimately enabled the construction of a/the bigger picture. We also wish to account on the manner students received this particular activity, by retrieving information from teachers and students’ reports.
Description
Keywords
Holocaust Genocide Survivor testimonies Digital resources 21st skills Research Subject Categories::SOCIAL SCIENCES::Social sciences::Education
Citation
Martins, Cláudia; Gómbar, Zsófia; Fernandes, Ana Raquel; Xavier, Catarina; Pieta, Hanna; Valdez, Susana; Ferro, Maria João (2022). Past history through technology: digital resources based on the Holocaust survivor testimonies. In XVII CercleS International Conference 2022: The Future of Language Education in an Increasingly Digital World: Embracing Change: Book of Abstracts. Porto
Publisher
Universidade do Porto