The Story of Australia History Projects are teaching aids and student project resources for studying the history of Australia as set out in the Australian National Curriculum.

They are interactive computer based programs on CD-ROM and are suitable for use in school years 4 through 10.

The Programs are centred on a series of 12 to 15 minute audio-visual documentaries on Australian history. The documentaries are in chronological order and combine drawings, narration, music and sound effects to give a broad overview of the significant events in the history of Australia, and, when the programs are used as student project resources, they provide a springboard to more in-depth studies.

Each title of the series has a teachers' guide, program tutorials, student review sheets, further learning activities and an interactive review to reinforce student comprehension.

The titles of the programs are...

Volume 1 - DISCOVERY

Volume 2 - THE FIRST FLEET

Volume 3 - CONVICTS

Volume 4 - THE REIGN OF RUM

Volume 5 - THE MACQUARIE YEARS

Volume 6 - THE EARLY EXPLORERS

Volume 7 - THE SQUATTERS

Volume 8 - THE NEW COLONIES

Student Project Resource

The programs are comprehensive student project resources that challenge learners to create their own versions of the Story of Australia documentaries by replacing the drawings in the original movies with images that they have either drawn or painted themselves, or those that they have searched for and chosen as replacements, which depict their interpretation of that period in Australia’s history

For a limited time, Adkins Productions is offering The Story of Australia History Project CD-ROMs with a single computer site licence for installation on one computer for only $50.00 each.

Or, with an unlimited site licence for installation on a server network and/or any number of computers within the school, including personal computers of enrolled students for $100.00 each.

An unlimited site licence allows students to retain, and/or burn to CD-ROM, a working copy of their project for their personal record.

Develops Historical Thinking

The Australian Curriculum places an emphasis on the use of narratives as a strategy for developing young people's historical thinking.

Research on narrative-based approaches to teaching indicates that learners grapple with the past in much the same way as historians, making sense of it by analysing, ordering and linking events in storied form.

With this research in mind, the History Projects were designed as project resources that challenge students to 'do' and 'make' history in a manner that resembles the historian's craft.

Introduces Historical Methods and Procedures

The process of selecting and inserting the images into the program introduces learners to the use of historical methods and procedures, focusing on the interpretation of evidence and the use of narrative to construct accounts of the past, involving them as participants rather than spectators in the study of Australian history.

Develops Research Skills

The search for and selection of the images helps in developing student’s research skills and helps them learn how to reason historically with content and to understand that historical accounts and illustrations of the past may differ or conflict because people select and use evidence in different ways for different purposes.

Promotes Historical Reasoning

The program assists students to develop patterns of historical reasoning by encouraging them to ask questions, foster debate, use evidence to support a position and to communicate that position effectively. Each program contains an assessment page where teachers can communicate with the students during the production of the movie and provide an assessment of their work on completion of the project.

Easy Image Importation

The replacement of the original drawings in the documentaries with images of the student’s own choosing is a very easy process that requires students to simply prepare any images that they wish to import into the documentaries in jpeg format, and then load them into the images folders that are provided in the programs.

The names of the images will appear in the Image List in the import menu of the program and, when an image is selected a thumbnail of the image appears in the viewer window and, when the import button is clicked, the program imports the image and automatically resize it to fit.

The Story of Australia History Projects can be used by individual students, by students working together in groups, or by the entire class working on one project, i.e. with each student being allocated a section of the documentary for which to find replacement images. The process of producing the documentaries fosters debate among the participating students and enables them to exchange ideas, refine points of view, make and justify choices, and appreciate the ideas of others.

The production and completion of the History Projects gives students a feeling of accomplishment and builds a sense of pride in their achievements.