2ºBritish: Magellan & Elcano (Stage II): The travels through America

The expedition of Magellan was full of risks even from the start. To begin with, they could not stop for many days in the coast of Brazil and refill their provisions properly enough because it was a Portuguese territory and someone could discover Magellan’s plans and steal the idea.

Secondly: pirates! With the demise of Spanish power (specially in the Caribbean) and the rise of other European powers there was a vacuum of power that would be filled with pirates and privateers. The Golden Age of Piracy (1650–1730) ranged from the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean. Most pirates had served in the navy and were familiar with naval warfare and for years had been underpaid and survived poor conditions. Do you want to learn more? Watch this 7 minutes video from It’s History.

The most famous English pirates in the times of Magellan’s expedition were James Alday, James Logan and William Cooke. Be aware of them! In any moment you could suffer an unpleasant surprise... ha ha ha!

Extra! Pirates attack (theme song)

2ºBritish: Magellan & Elcano (Stage I): Preparation of the adventure

Sailing the oceans is not easy, specially if you do not know yet what you will find on the other side... Because of that, you have to prepare very carefully your expedition and your vessels.

There is a first worksheet you have to complete (on your on board scrap diary). If you need some extra help for answering the questions, there is plenty of information on the IAPH dossier (in Spanish), with wonderful illustrations about what is needed on board or the different parts of an exploration ship; and also the mariners museum web, including a complete guide of the Health measures on board that will be quite useful for your task.

Ready? Steady? Go!

4º British: Russian Revolution on Twitter

You are about to start the 7th edition of your favourite historical activity... twitter in class! 

This year it will be all about the Russian Revolution, a topic that we have never performanced before; you must create a special twitter account as you were one Russian character, that can be a famous or an anonymous one (choose your character from this file). With this “historical account” you become follower of @auladeadriana.

Specifically, you can find some extra useful info from Russian women in this links from British Library and Bolsheviks.

The application period will start THIS WEDNESDAY (12th February), at 15:00. Just send me an email with your chosen character and I will answer you back with the confirmation. Once that you have the confirmation (but not before), you can start making your character back to life :) You will have several days for creating the twitter account; the more “realistic” that you do it (portrait, biographic info, etc.), the better for your final mark.

The debate will start Monday 17th and finish Friday 21th, February.  You have to create a minimum of 20 tweets (12 of them base on real primary sources: texts, photos...) in the name of your chosen character. Try not to be independent, but “talk” with the others. I will help you with some clues for the timeline, so you will not be lost in the process.

I would also recommend you to use the hastag #HistoryatVasco in your tweets, to facilitate its reading.

The previous years, this experiment was a total success and your partners really did good performances, so you will have to work hard for leading them...

This work is individual and mandatory and will be part of the score at the end of the term. If you fail to finish it, do it out of date, or just copy&paste from a webpage, the mark will be a 0 for this work.

Be creative and enjoy it! 

2ºBritish: Spanish America TV News

Here we go with another special task: filming an historical TV News programme! Today, with the daily-use technology is quite easy to do, and that could be a great educational activity, don’t you think so? 

This work should be done in groups. Cooperation and the use of appropriate vocabulary would be also keep in mind.

It’s 8th June 1494. Yesterday, Queen Isabella I of Castilla and King Joao II of Portugal signed the “Treaty of Tordesillas”, with an agreement about the division of the newly discovered lands of America between both kingdoms.

News that you HAVE TO include:

• Opening with the “International News section”: explaining what is the “Treaty of Tordesillas”. Besides the theoretical explanation, you have to include a picture of the authentic document and a map with the division line. It would be also a great idea to include an image of Queen Isabella I giving a brief speech about how happy she is because this positive agreement… Even more, Pope Alexander VI Borgia awarded Isabella and Ferdinand with the official title of “Catholic Monarchs”.

• More news about America: the first European city (under the name of “La Isabella”) was created in the island of “La Española” (now a days, Dominican Republic). And Columbus discovered a new island: Jamaica (name that, in the native language means: “blessed gold”). You can mention both things, including the image of a map and a quote from Columbus.

• Interview with an historical character: one of the members of the team has to impersonate a real historical character (eg. Queen Isabella or Columbus) and answer 3 questions to a journalist

• Culture: Antonio de Nebrija, professor of University of Salamanca and author of the first “Gramática del español” published a complete dictionary of Spanish-Latin. If you want, you can also mention that the German writer Ieronimus Munzer published the first part of his book “Travel through Iberian Peninsula”

• If possible, try to film ONE exterior scene, filmed in front of Avila’s medieval wall.

• The final product should last between 4 and 8 minutes. After those minutes, you should include the author’s credits

• The video MUST be in .avi or .mp4 format.

Besides all those things, you can also include some other things (in the appropriate section), such as the result of the last Mayan ball game; the end of the Medina del Campo commercial fair (with important economical benefits this year) or the new painting of  Hieronymus Bosch for the Isabella’s royal collection (“Jardín de las Delicias”). Do you need more ideas and info? Here you have a full list of usefull links:

• Find out: Facts about the Mayans
• The Maya writting system
• Find out: Facts about the Aztecs
• The Aztec pictogramns (writting system)
• Aztec food (including chocolate & recipes!)
• Find out: Facts about the Incas

Let’s start with some help... In the following document you can learn about the steps of filming a movie and its technical aspects, such as types of shoots (planos) and camera’s angles.

When finish, send the video (and any extra material that you have created) to acarriles@educa.jcyl.es (if the file is too big, remember that you can use wetransfer.com).

As usual, this activity is mandatory; remember that if you don’t do it, or you do it out of time, the mark for this activity will be 0.

Be creative and enjoy the activity. Good luck! :)

1º British: Historical comic!

Yes! This is your opportunity to show your creativity because the task for this term is... making an historical comic! In can be done individually or in pairs.

You can choose any historical topic related with the syllabus of this year. The story must be "original" and have at least 12 cartoon panels (viñetas). To do this there are several programs, but I recommend Comic Life.

Comic Life is a very simple program to manage: just select one of the templates (pages with cartoon panels already prepared) and start including photos. And where can you get the photos? Here there are many possibilities: you can search on the Internet images, video games or drawings that are appropriate to the subject; or you can take your own photos by using playmobil... or even dress up yourself!

Once that the photos are in, it is only necessary to insert the balloons (bocadillos) that will collect the texts of the characters: dialogues, screams, thoughts...

You can download the program from softonic, but as it is a demo version it will only be available 30 days. In case you need it, you can rewatch the youtube’s tutorial.

When finish, you must save your comic in .pdf format and send that file to acarriles@educa.jcyl.es. As usual, this work is mandatory and you will have the opportunity or earning an extra mark (1 mark) in your final score.  

After correcting and evaluating your "works of art", I will upload them to the blog so that you can all enjoy them. Ready? Steady? Go! :)

4º British: Spain in the 19th century. Travellers and magazines

In the following link from Instituto Cervantes, you can learn about the vision and impressions that many foreign travellers got though their holidays in Spain. Those authors were mainly from the UK, US, Ireland, Canada and Australia and wrote their works between 1750 and 1950. Maybe it can help you for illustrating your twitter activity... They talked about art, popular culture, costumes, stereotypes, territories, etc. 

Besides, you can also visit the archives website from "El Museo Universal" or "La ilustración española y americana", Spanish magazines published between the second half of the 19th and very first years of 20th centuries, that were sold as "Journal of science, art, literature, industry and useful knowledge" and were full of illustrations depicting various aspects of everyday life in Spain and Latin American countries.

4º British: Industrial Revolution - Video Review

Studying the Industrial Revolution?  Do you need a good video review? If so, check out this 7-minute clip from the CUNY School of Professional Studies called "The Making of Industrial Society", Part 1 that reviews the development of the industrial revolution, meanwhile Part 2 examines Marxism and capitalism.

Sources by WorldHistoryEducatorsBlog