Project Educational Centre of Interactive Studies:

Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, Inc.

Rabi Izrael Miller Fund for Shoah Research, Documentation and Education

The project entitled Educational Centre of Interactive Studies is just about to be finished! This project started in 2007 and after almost two years of its implementation it is heading towards its end!

With kind financial support of Ministry of Culture and Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, we managed to built our Educational Centre and provide it with valuable education scenarios and programmes based on our digital archive!

By presenting interdisciplinary Shoah research results to the public through new quality of educational programs Educational Centre of Interactive Studies contributes to a better understanding of Shoah, political and racial persecution, as well as it contributes to better understanding of complexity of collections items and archive documents in Terezín Memorial and thanks to Information Communication Technologies (ICT) all around the world.

Educational Centre of Interactive Studies supports effective use of ICT that allows involving students and researchers into the specially prepared educational programmes focused on documentation of regional history, as well as its recent “trail of memory”.

Building on existing successes of Terezín Memorial, the project validates educational curriculum of the museum Educational Department, collaborating cultural institutions (Educational and Culture Centre of the Jewish Museum in Prague and Museum of Romany Culture in Brno), as well as visiting schools and students. By providing newly equipped space and enlarged digital museum databases, Educational Department of Terezín Memorial is able to prepare and implement into its curriculum new educational scenarios, based on the interactive retrieval of the information related to the study and research of Shoah, history of the Nazi repressive facilities both in the Czech milieu (Terezín and Litoměřice) and internationally.

Project draws upon the successful previous experience in stimulating children to create and post produce their own digital educational content based on local heritage, learning in the process how to work with different types of topic related databases, how to locate objects in the territory - and in encouraging teachers to use this material in lessons, as well as our staff to integrate the results into their educational and museum work.

• quantitative and qualitative enhancement of  museum educational programmes;
• enhancement of the use of the ICT enriching creative educational activities;
• support of the digitization of the collections and archives of Terezín Memorial and its effective interrelation with other databases;
• to build communities of creative, networking children and youth, generating their own cultural content and communicating with peer groups in other countries;
• to create a child’s living map of memory, based on geography, history and heritage, accessible through ICT, which can be continuously expanded as an important and rich content;
• to contribute to the growth of a community of teachers who are aware of the potential for change through ‘schools without walls’ and who exchange knowledge and experience through communication with other countries;
• to develop adaptable interactive tools  (primarily educational scenarios) with a target to deliver learning objectives and to integrate the use of ICT in the delivery of the school curriculum;
• to  establish processes and facilities for teachers and students to access relevant digital content available through existing databases of Terezín Memorial – and to wider eLearning context;

• To encourage pupils and their teachers to explore extensions of the curriculum, by providing memorable and vivid content in text, sound and images formats, all compatible with a map-based environment.

The target groups will include the evolving generation of teachers who appreciate the ways in which children interact with technology, as well as parents and other people working in the interdisciplinary community of librarians, museologists, voluntary groups etc. that support schools and learning and enrich its curriculum.

Scholars and researchers can experience new databases of the museum archival material, among which selected information will be publicly available via Internet, and complex database (incl. restricted information) is available for all scholars and researchers, not excluding any other national or international institution, at Terezín Memorial.

a) Digitisation (Digital database of Department of Collections and Digital database of Department of Documentation)

With the financial support we were able to speed up the digitization of the collection items, including archival material and books from the Department of Documentation and Collections, including photographs, recordings, audio and video material. Re-interpretation of the written material databases was initiated in 1998 and it contents 7.800 entries. During the duration of the project, more than 5000 new entries were made in the database of the Department of Collections and Department of Documentation.

b) Exposition in the secret prayer house of the ghetto period:

Exposition in the secret prayer house followed its reconstruction and is already opened to the public. Opening and further activities were supported by a number of events and by publishing the theme brochures in Czech and English for dissemination.

c) Educational centre:

The building of the centre with a prayer hall of the ghetto period is used after its partial reconstruction and restoration primarily for the educational activities enhancing the engagement of young people with technology, engaging e-Learning activities into the learning and educational curriculum, based on the direct link with research and effective interrelation with museum and international digital databases. Computer network, incl. 21 working stations with special software equipment and internet access has already been installed and exploited for that purpose. Special web site entitled “System and me” on influence of the internet on deny of Holocaust, anti-Semitism, racism and xenophobia. This web site will be used during our workshops. We managed to compile thematic videos with the records of witness’s testimony that will be used during education process. This material was lent from the Institute of Shoa Foundation and we also made draft references on the film material (33 records of 3 hours length).

d) Education scenarios:

Analysis of target groups was conducted by means of an assessment of all the research carried out by the Terezín Memorial over the last ten years, as a result of a one-day seminar organized by the Department of Education.

In 2008, work on special educational programmes for the Education Centre was commenced. Thus farm first application module for a seminar on Holocaust denial has been designed. More are to follow in coordination with the work under way at the Department of Documentation and Department of Collections (utilization of their databases for the educational programmes at the Education Centre). In connection with the creation of new educational premises, new educational materials are also being designed. The materials include special work sheets intended for independent work by students on the exhibition premises of the Terezín Memorial.