USING TECHNOLOGY TO TEACH WORLD WAR II

Kevin Brown

EDU504

www.angelfire.com/planet/krbrown

6/13/06

INTRODUCTION History can be boring if all the student does is

memorize names and dates! Technology allows students to hear from

people who actually participated in history. True stories from history help students make a

more personal connection to the material.

THE HOLOCAUST• At www.HolocaustSurvivors.org

students can watch interviews with six different people who escaped the Nazis.

• Transcripts of the interviews contain hyperlinked pictures and vocabulary which lead to additional information.

Scanned example of hyperlink!

Kevin Brown

EDU504

Sample Text Scan from www.HolocaustSurvivors.org

Holocaust Survivors: Photo Gallery - “Entrance to Crematorium I, Auschwitz I”

Page 1 of 1

Photo 6alkry

The Commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Hoss, was hung just outside of this crematorium on April 16, 1947. The building was originaly an ammunition depot. It was adapted for use as a crematorium, but only to burn the bodies of prisoners who had died in confinement. Later it was re-adapted into a gas chamber and crematorium combination.

The victims would enter this door, which would be hermetically sealed. The victims would then be in the gas chamber. There was no undressing room, and the victims had to be paraded in sight of the whole camp, which had a demoralizing effect. These defects would be corrected in crematoria II, Ill, IV and V, which were located in remote areas of Birkenau camp.

After the war this building was partially reconstruted- including rebuilding the chimney and installing 3 ovens that were built for another camp. The headquarters building can be seen to the left.

Photo Credit: John Menszer

I l

I I I

Questions, comments, suggestions? Contact

© 1999-2006, John Menszer

web site designed by

Entrance to crematorium I, Auschwitz I

Hoioau Su rvivor

http://www.holocaustsurvivors.org/data. show.php?di=record&da=photos&sf=file name&s... 6/14/2006

D-DAY INVASIONAt PBS’ D-Day site, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/dday/tguide/index.html students can read first hand accounts of the invasion.

PEARL HARBOR• At the website for the movie Pearl Harbor students

can watch interviews from WWII veterans who were there on December 7, 1941.

• Students can watch an interactive multimedia film about the Pearl Harbor attack at National Geographic’s website:

http://plasma.nationalgeographic.com/pearlharbor/

THE ATOMIC BOMB

At this Scholastic website, http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/wwii/hiroshima/index.htm students will meet Francis Tomosawa, who watched the atomic bomb fall on his home city of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.

IN THE END . . .

By fostering a more personal connection to history, teachers challenge students to think more deeply about their own character, compelling them to look inward and make decisions about what they would do if placed in similar circumstances (click the student to hear Kevin).