Context & Background The context of the ”Walking our Way through HIstory” project is to turn street names into interesting, interactive, history lessons. There is knowledge hidden in the humble street nameplates and the proposed project aims to create tools to encourage and inspire students as well as locals to discover it, e.g. as the project description says: Learn history from street names in a fun and digital way! By making learning fun, the project answers back to the increasing problem of early school leaving. It also fights individualism by making students more aware of their European context and mutual points in history to see that they are a part of something bigger. Participants: The project involves six partners from four countries. The students are from diverse backgrounds with different learning styles which will serve the project well. The coordinator is a primary-secondary school from Sweden and the partners a secondary school from Greece, a vocational school from Spain and a special needs school from Romania. The other two partners are an adult training organization and an organization with expertise in multimedia and mobile applications from Greece. Th Methodology; The proposed system is consisting of an IT application of a geospatial database and a local initiative among school students to feed it with historical data. A mobile application will be able, using GPS technology and reverse lookup, to identify the street name, access the database and inform the user about the historical figure or event that the street was named after. In this way, the whole city is turned into a multimedia history book, that someone can “read” when going through the town as a part of everyday activities. In order to help the teachers use the mobile application in their lessons, the local LTT events and history work will enrich the online database with all the necessary information and tools e.g. the theory of ICT in history lessons, lesson plans, guidelines, tutorials, etc. Objectives: The main goal of the project is to stimulate students to gather information about historical persons and facts. This way, they will find their local environment much more interesting. The fact that the data collected will be available through an innovative mobile application will make not only the students that take part, but also their friends and families, and of course the local community, more interested in the historical facts and persons that are being mentioned in street names. The above methodology could be used in various lessons like history, literature and social science education. The application will emphasize on representing historical facts and persons that showcase the common history and culture of EU member states. In that way, the users will be able to understand that the common identity, history, and culture of EU states, are true - depicted by the street names of their neighbour. The application's usefulness is transnational and the multitude of perspectives enables and enriches the diversity of activities. The target groups of this project are students aged 6-18, included the special needs students. However, the produced outcomes will be tested and used by adult students as well in order to maximize the benefit. The main result of the project will be four Intellectual Outputs: • Output O1: The geospatial database to store the historical data by the students, in text and narration, translated in all partner languages. Moreover, it will include guides and tutorials on how to store and use the information in the database and a tutorial video with audio will be available to help students with disabilities. • Output O2: A mobile application for smartphones and tablets connected with the online database from O1 to identify the street name, access the database and inform the user about the historical figure or event that the street was named after in text or as narrative. The content will be available in English and all partner languages. • Output O3: An online platform containing educational activities helping students aged 6-18 from diverse backgrounds and learning styles to learn history via street names. It will also include a companion handbook supporting trainers in implementing and extending the activities successfully. Components for special needs students will be also included. • Output O4: A Train-the-Trainer Course which will help the partner organizations and organizations outside the partnerships to train their staff on how to use the produced material and it will increase the multiplier effect of the partnership. Potential longer-term benefits: A more long-term goal is to help establish a citizen involvement attitude. By getting to know more about their hometown's history and urban organization, the students will start seeing their living space as something with more value, that has to be respected and taken care of. A person that knows more about his/her city, cares more about it too.
The project engaged teachers and their students aged 6-18, including special needs students. The result was also tested and used by adult students in order to maximize the project's beneficiary target groups. The aim of the project activities was to provide students, from diverse backgrounds and with different educational challenges, innovative and efficient ways to learn with the use of new digital tools and a mobile application. By gathering information about historical persons and facts and entering the information into the database, the students would find their local environment much more interesting. Using the mobile application will also engage students' friends and families and make the local community more interested in the street names' historical facts and persons. We wanted teachers to gain knowledge and skills to use the mobile application & education platform and find arenas for active learning outside of the classroom. The transnational use and the multitude of perspectives enables and enriches the diversity of activities.The education material and methodology can be applied also for lessons in literature and social science and will make users understand more of the common identity, history and culture of EU states.
The aim of the ”Walking our Way through HIstory” project was to turn street names into interesting, interactive, history lessons. We wanted to create accessible and user-friendly tools to encourage and inspire students - and as a result also their families and the town’s inhabitants - to discover the local history, i.e. the historical events and persons behind the street names. Like the project description said: Learn history from street names in a fun and digital way! In most countries/cities in Europe, students learn about their local area and their hometown. By combining a pedagogical city walk with a mobile application and lesson plans, we wanted to create a more active approach to learning about history. It also inspired students to learn actively outside the classroom as the application makes you move around and hence activate the brain more in the learning process. By making learning fun and interactive the project answered back to the increasing problem of early school leaving. We also wanted to fight the increasing sense of individualism and promote European values by making students more aware of their European context and mutual points in history for them to see that they are a part of something bigger.