[andrew c]

**NEW FREE ON-LINE KS3 HISTORY RESOURCE LAUNCHED**

I’m delighted to alert the Forum to a free resource for KS3 History. It’s a thousand year timeline of British history, loaded with five hours’ worth of video content. The site address is www.timelines.tv - please check it out.

The material on the site comes from “Timelines”, my most recent series for the BBC, which won the BAFTA last year for the best educational resource for Secondary Schools. It offers a broad chronological overview of British history. Chris Culpin was the series consultant.

We’ve taken this linear TV resource and made it immeasurably more useful by breaking it into clips, and arranging those clips on three parallel interactive timelines, from 1066 to the present. The first (purple) timeline is full of content relating to social history; the second (brown) is political; the third (green) is national / imperial.

Once you’ve explored the timeline, click on “index” at the top of the homepage to get a full breakdown of what’s available. It’s a massive resource: there are 50 chapter headings, each with about 8 minutes of video, broken into user-friendly clips.

We’ve provided downloadable transcripts. And we’ve constructed a series of links to and from each module, so that students can explore thematic connections either between the parallel timelines, or backwards and forwards over time.

This is an entirely free resource. I hope you find it useful, and that it’s something that you can recommend to your students for home use. Please let me know what you think, by using the ‘contact’ function. Please discuss it here on the forum, and spread the word if you find it useful.

We’re hoping to expand the resource as and when funding becomes available. Feedback will influence the future of the resource.

Best wishes,

Andrew Chater

(ex BBC, History File, Nazi Germany, the “Geordie Brownshirt”, American Voices, Seven Journeys in the American West, etc – more info on my website www.andrewchater.co.uk)

[Dan Moorhouse]

FANTASTIC.

[ahrenfelt]

Simply...brilliant.

/ Johannes

[Gorbash]

It takes a lot to impress me but I'd like to say that this looks amazingly great!

Well done...and thank you!

[Lesley Ann]

A fabulous resource...a HUGE thank you!



The timeline also slots brilliantly into the new KS3 PoS with everyday lives, power and democracy and Empires.

[Tony Fox]

Lesley Ann, on Mar 25 2008, 09:45 AM, said:

A fabulous resource...a HUGE thank you!

The timeline also slots brilliantly into the new KS3 PoS with everyday lives, power and democracy and Empires.

just to say I agree, wonderful spot, thanks.

[Derek Bos]

A brilliant resource, thanks a million. I have just been flicking through the sections and they fit perfectly with so many topics we cover. I am now going to have to re think a lot of lessons to make use of the resource.

[bobspeight]

This is absolute genius.

I've been trying to track down the series but keep missing the overnight showings - and now I don't need to!

Thanks a lot, Andrew. And while we're on, all your shows are brilliant, especially the Nazi Germany series which is getting a good viewing with all my Year 9s and 11s at the moment!

Can you let us into the real reason why the brownshirts are Geordies?

[Joel Thorpe]

You are a superstar!!

Cheers me up whilst so many of my colleges up and down the country are on holiday and we have still got two weeks!!

Brilliant!!

[andrew c]

Thanks for these encouraging posts - I'm really glad the resource is going down well.

Do let me have more feedback once you've found ways to put the site to use. I've had a couple of people asking, for instance, whether the video image can increase in size, or come full screen - to which the answer, at least for the moment, is 'no' (but we're working on it). That sort of practical feedback is really useful - how well it can be used in the classroom, on whiteboards etc etc.



PS - Bob - re your question about the Geordie Brownshirts...:

That's the one question I've been asked in my career more than any other! Do I regret the decision? Not at all - although when the series first went out I had a lot of letters with a Newcastle postcode demanding my attention!
So - to answer your question:
The original Fritz Meuhlebach, whose testimony I adapted, was a working class lad from Hamburg - a northern dock town with high unemployment. My intention had always been to cast British actors using British accents - because I wanted to humanize, not demonize, the Nazis, to show they were ordinary people making decisions that we, in their place, might also have made - for good or ill. I didn't want him RP - because class was clearly an issue here. I didn't want him working class London - because I wanted to steer clear of any connotations of boot-boy skinhead Eastenders, which was a more common cultural stereotype when I made the programme in the mid-90s than it is now. So that left me with the option of Geordie, Mancunian, Brummie etc etc. The connection between Newcastle and Hamburg appealed - the northern dock town. But the clincher was that I've always found the Geordie accent deeply sympathetic. And I wanted the audience to like this guy - despite his uniform.
So - Geordie it was.
If nothing else, that one creative decision has generated a lot of classroom discussion over the years - which can't be a bad thing!
But how extraordinary - and gratifying - that a dozen years later the programme is still being used and generating comment!

[Dafydd Humphreys]

The Geordie Nazis programme as its affectionately known is a legendary piece of schools broadcasting. Andrew, I too would like the option for full-screen enlargement for use on projector screens.

Can we make requests for your next topic of production? I nominate Crime and Punishment!

[Tony Fox]

Andrew
I do Nazi Germany as a depth study and the Jarrow Crusade as Coursework, my students found the programme a wonderful link, in fact it developed their understanding on both topics! Many thanks
Tony

[Lesley Ann]

andrew c, on Mar 26 2008, 03:12 PM, said:

Thanks for these encouraging posts - I'm really glad the resource is going down well.

Do let me have more feedback once you've found ways to put the site to use. I've had a couple of people asking, for instance, whether the video image can increase in size, or come full screen - to which the answer, at least for the moment, is 'no' (but we're working on it). That sort of practical feedback is really useful - how well it can be used in the classroom, on whiteboards etc etc.

I used the clips on the Civil War and what next? Oliver Cromwell today with Y8 today. The students really appreciated the short clips which led to lots of classroom discussion in-between.
For my starter I used the Cromwell graveyard puzzle....and the students where hooked....they gave some really interesting suggestions. The students really connected to the series and several noted the website down to use at home.

To make the video image larger I right clicked on the video show and zoomed in once....it does not make it whole screen but it makes it big enough for the whole class to see on the IWB.

I'm going to write the clips into the SoW and lesson plans for the department! Thanks again!

[JaneMoore]

What a fantastic resource - thank you so much!

I will need more time to work them into our new SoW but what an enjoyable task to look forward to

Thanks again

Jane

[Nick Dennis]

I've come to this a bit late but I thought the timelines series, when it came out on DVD from the BBC, was genius - short clips that served as a taster/summary for a topic. I'm glad it is now available on the web and I also look forward to a full screen option for the IWB!