1. Making the Old New Again: History and the Millennium Learner
Dr Paul Sendziuk
School of History and Politics
The University of Adelaide

9. Workshop Overview High school history reflected in university students
student attributes and deficiencies
Digital Natives vs. Digital Immigrants
History on film
Threshold concepts
Avoiding repetition
- making the ‘old’ new again

10. Student Attributes and Deficiencies
Good: analysis of images; images as ‘text’’

11. Student Attributes and Deficiencies
Good: analysis of images; image as ‘text’
Not-so-good: chronology and context
Good: recognition of historians’ biases
Not-so-good: understanding or articulating how/why bias occurs
Good: understanding value of ‘primary sources’ of evidence
Not-so-good: finding and using primary sources
Not-so-good: political history... ‘it’s boring!’

12. Political History

13. Digital Natives? ‘Digital Natives’ - born after 1980
computers an extension of self
Wikipedia replaces library; screen replaces paper
double clicks and flash animations replace attention spans...
‘Digital Immigrants’ – the rest of us! 
brains ‘wired differently’ (Prensky, 2001)

14. T&L Formats: Student Perceptions
Students rank 4 different tutorial styles against each other, 1 to 4
large (entire) class discussions
small group discussions
role-play
online threaded discussions (i.e. discussion board)
2008 evaluation
n = 75 students

21. NB: remember that over 20% of students rated ‘role-play’ as the most enjoyable format

24. History on Film
Use of film to teach and learn about history remains more influential than other ICT-based methods (ICT = information & computer technology)
Is film an effective medium to convey history? Can the roles of film-maker and historian be effectively combined?
Are there characteristics of the film-making process (such as the need to attract a wide audience to justify the production costs), which compromise the integrity of the story (i.e. history)?

25. Threshold Concepts The past as a foreign country...
History is relevant...
History as guide for solving present-day dilemmas:
Asian and Muslim migrants
saying ‘sorry’ and making appropriate reparations
treaty
asylum-seeker policy
nuclear past, nuclear future

26. Avoiding Repetition by Making the Old New Again
Students bored and discouraged by repetition of topics – new National History Curriculum designed to limit (if not eliminate)
Need to find new ways to tell old stories; or find deeper significance of stories long overlooked...
Revel in the quirky and not-so-trivial