A Kōrero with Local Dunedin History Teachers

Author: Professor Lachy Paterson, Trustee

One of the trust’s key aims is signalled in its title: The Preserving Local History and Educational Trust, that is, to preserve digitised local newspaper content that will be of use in schools and other educational settings. Although newspapers on sites such as Papers Past are accessed by all manner of people, they are a valuable resource for teachers and are often the first place school students look when researching New Zealand’s past. 

As a newly co-opted trust board member, I met up with some Dunedin high-school history teachers last month for a kōrero, first about what the trust was doing, and then to get some data on how the teachers and their students use online sources in their teaching and learning practice. Although not all history teachers in the city could make it, we had eight teachers from Bayfield High School, Columba College, John McGlashen College, Kaikorai Valley College, Logan Park High School, Otago Girls High School and Queens High School.

I gave a short presentation on the Trust’s aims and our new Memorandum of Understanding with the National Library, one of our strategic partners, who will eventually host the newspapers we digitise on their Papers Past site. I discussed our achievements so far in preserving at-risk local papers, and our Recollect website where our material is placed when it becomes available.

What I knew would get the teachers excited was the Trust’s work in digitising new versions of images from the Otago Witness, a Dunedin newspaper published between 1851 and 1932, effectively a local resource for these teachers.  The newspaper text and images are currently available on Papers Past, but the latter are rather indistinct, with many of the details barely perceptible.  In comparison, the Trust’s newly digitised versions of these images, which will be accessible soon through our Recollect site, are of a much higher quality, as shown by the two versions of the same photograph below.  The teachers were very impressed with the new images, one of them saying that a student of theirs had been interested in an Otago Witness image, and had had to go to the Hocken Collections to get a scan from the original newspaper. This would not be necessary if good-quality images were available online.

A rail disaster near Kaiapoi. Otago Witness, July 5 1905.

The same image, newly digitised.

The teachers then had a round-table discussion of how they used digital resources. It is clear that they really appreciate the digitised newspapers in Papers Past as a means of introducing students to primary sources, giving them a sense of the past so it feels “more real” to them. One teacher gives a random page to students so they get a sense of the resource, and can then go on to follow a topic that interests them. Another stated that looking at the newspapers allows for the “serendipitous finding” of new information. At the senior levels, teachers generally decide on what resources to use based on the NCEA topics they are required to teach. For example, Level 1 NCEA (Year 11, or the old “fifth-form”) requires students to find 25 pieces of primary material for their first assignment, and digitised newspapers are a great start for this. Papers Past was by far the most accessed site for historical primary sources, mainly due to its ease of use.

While they were talking, the teachers also filled out a questionnaire to provide some more quantitive data on what online platforms they access, how they and their students use them, and how they might use the community newspapers the Trust is working to digitise. While eight teachers may not be a definitive sample, the results do provide a snapshot of how these Dunedin teachers and their students use digitised resources. One teacher teaches Years 9 to 11, three teach Years 10-13, and four teach all secondary levels, i.e., Years 9-13. Most of the survey questions use a six-point rating scale from 0 for “not at all”, 1 for “a little” up to 5 for “very often/much”.

A question asking them to rate their use of online primary sources shows significant use by most of the teachers. One noted that the use of these resources increased with more senior students.

When asked what websites they look at, all of the teachers access Papers Past (with seven of the eight teachers choosing a high 4 or 5 rating indicating significant use) and Digital NZ (with six choosing the 4 or 5 rating).  Five used Early New Zealand Books and Electronic Text Centre, but in both cases only two teachers rated these at 4 or 5. Other online sites for primary sources are used even less.

When asked “In your teaching practice, how do you or your students use online primary sources?”, we can see that these resources feature in a number of different activities depending on the teacher’s teaching practice.

For “What regional focus do you use online primary sources in your teaching?” the teachers used these resources for local, provincial, national, and international topics, although New Zealand “national” material was most popular.

Similarly the teachers used online primary sources across a wide time period from the nineteenth century to the present, with the twentieth century being marginally more popular than the nineteenth.

When asked about using smaller community papers, all the teachers rated them at 3 or higher, feeling that they had value in schooling, but also for other researchers.  As to whether the teachers would use them themselves in their teaching practice as they come online, they were very open to this possibility, even when the papers come from other regions.  This shows that the teachers are aware of the value of “local” newspapers from across the country to help tell national stories.

If more of the smaller, community Dunedin/Otago newspapers became available online, would you consider using these in your teaching? (tick one)

If more of the smaller, community newspapers from other regions became available online, would you consider using these in your teaching?

I feel that the teachers’ responses vindicate the work the Trust is doing to advance the cause of newspaper digitisation in New Zealand in conjunction with the National Library.  Teachers and their students definitely use digitised newspapers, and would gladly see more online.

Finally, a big thank you to Felicity Speight (Otago Girls) for inviting me to their local History Teachers Association meeting, and to Stephanie Meronek (Queens) for hosting us in her classroom.