Report from National Education Coordinator, Jan 2013

Educational activities that occur within the regions are not part of this report. I am expecting those to be part of regional reports.

Teachers Zone

• Ready for preliminary review by the BOD: http://www.hkvca.ca/tztrans/index.htm
• A detailed status on the translation of the Teachers Zone can be found at the bottom of this report
• The Training Guide and Question Book have been translated and returned to me for review. The invoice has been sent to Barry Mitchell.
• NEW: Added a link to the War Amps video “I am Remembered” on the resources page.
• NEW: I thought that it was appropriate to include the Commitment to Remember in both languages on the home pages. I have also found it difficult to find this text in the past and hopefully this will make it easier to find for anyone searching for it.
• NEW BUSINESS: I believe we need an Editorial Board to verify the historical accuracy and terminology of the content of the material. For example, there is a question in mind about the correct use of the word “bushido” vs “senjinko” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senjinkun_military_code

The newsletter

• While the P&P for my position talks about an annual edition of the newsletter that is devoted to the theme of education, I believe that it would be better to demonstrate an ongoing level of activity in this activity and therefore every edition should have an article on this topic.
• I will ask each region to provide a short submission in turn.
• Last edition had an article from me hoping to encourage new volunteers to assist in small ways. No response yet.

Education Budget

• I have been asked to prepare an annual Education budget. I have thought about it and I think the best way to proceed is first to identify the actual spending from the previous two years.
• To understand the total spending on education activity as a percentage of total income, I am using this report to ask each Regional Director to send me the actuals. I will add it all up to provide a national “look”.

Making connections with regional education chairs

• No progress this month

Thinking about the future - January 2013:

• Social media – find a younger (grandchild?) member to manage a twitter account. Each veteran’s birthday, date of death, battle events, etc can all be tweeted on their anniversaries with links to our website or veterans stories in particular.

Thinking about the future – no change from past report – kept here for history.

• Adding the Opening Protocol text to the TZ as a way to encourage students to hold their own “ceremony”. The actual ceremony needs to be revised, according to Derrill, so that will wait until the revised text is available.
• Like all sites, the TZ needs new content added regularly. I’ve asked Lee to send me his audio-visual display with video clips so that I might think about how it could be added, either in part or in whole.
• The audience of the TZ is high school history teachers. The next evolution of the TZ needs to broaden its audience to include other non-traditional instructors, like homeschools, or private tutors.
• Personal connections are always compelling. When I hand a package to my children’s history teachers and explain a bit about the battle, my family story, and the contents of the package (always includes the writing contest and the DVD), it’s well-received. I want to write about this experience in the next newsletter to encourage all members to do this same thing via children in their families.

Teachers Zone – Detailed progress report

Each file was personally reviewed at each stage for quality control and consistency.

Complete: Website structure (design, coding, testing)

1. Page created for English-only material (not yet translated, or cannot be translated
2. Page created for French-only material (to provide a home for such material should we have any)
3. Tabs, Headers and footers now showing in (translated) French
4. Added static 'Home' tab on English and French home pages.
5. Updated Ten Lessons page (English only, French still to do) to put page numbers in text and removed 2nd link in each row.

Already in both languages

1. About the Teacher’s Zone
2. Writing Contest, all material
3.  “Telling the Story” DVD description
4. Canada in Hong Kong 1931-1945: The Forgotten Heroes (aka the Ten Lessons)

Posted

5. Teacher Contributions main page
6. Biographies of 4 teachers
7. Descriptions of all 4 contributions
8. Hamer-Stahl’s contribution
9. Main page for Canada in Hong Kong 1931-1945: The Forgotten Heroes (aka the Ten Lessons)
10. Resources and Related Links main page (revised and translated)
11. Little Known Facts resource
12. Resource: Human Rights in Asia Pacific – I found this was available in French from the Province of BC by special order for $20 so I wrote the information and provided the link. No need to translate it ourselves.

Translated but not posted

13. Fung’s “A Guide to POW Camps"
14. Fung’s “A Guide to POW Camps: Question Book" – work on the puzzles is needed before it can be posted.

Edited; upon final review will go to translation

15. Discussion Notes for Savage Christmas – needs to go to Graeme to answer questions

Reviewed and will be removed from the Teachers Zone website or remain English-only

1. Links from the resources list to the main HKVCA site (eg. Battle of Hong Kong Background and Battlefield Tour) cannot be used in a French environment. They have been removed from the resources list. Perhaps one day they can be edited for focused use in the classroom and then translated.
2. Ancillary material from Stacey (2 documents) will be kept English-only until we have time and resources for translation and site design.
3. The classroom presentation “War in the Pacific” by Stacey cannot be translated because it contains maps and other graphics that contain English words. It would need to be recreated in French using different graphics, maps, etc. Stacey was unable to provide his list of sources when I requested them because he created this almost 5 years ago.

Incomplete: Website structure (design, coding, testing)

6. Testing of each link in each language
7. Testing of language toggle (English to French and back again)

Phase Two: New Brunswick review - not part of original scope

1.    Incorporate known feedback from NB

o      Move veterans stories for the Writing Contest into the Writing Contest. A French teacher in NB will not accept moving from a French sub-site into an English main site. We need to contain all the French in one area.

1.    Solicit review from NB Ministry of Education

o      I can confirm all English edits have addressed any areas of concern regarding inaccurate or insensitive use of “Japanese”

o      Expect commentary on “Ten Lessons” because of questionable content that may need to be revised by Nick upon completion of their review

Phase Three: Best Practices

1.    Apply basic accessibility features to website (screen readers for the blind, colour-blindness, low-vision)

2.    Review material already translated and optimize text for online use

3.    Review flow of links and logical presentation

4.    Remove redundancy