Stéphane Lévesque

“Terrorism plus Canada in the 1960’s equals hell frozen over”: Learning about the October Crisis with computer technology in the Canadian classroom

This study investigated the role and impact of a digital history program (the Virtual Historian©) on students’ historical thinking and reasoning about a controversial episode in Canadian history. The purpose was to examine whether the use of the Virtual Historian©, a web-based inquiry program to teach Canadian history, improves the learning of a key episode in the school curriculum (French-English relations and the October Crisis, 1970). Using a quasi-experimental design, two Ontario Grade 10 classes were assigned to a treatment group (Virtual Historian©) and comparison group (classroom lessons) on the topic. Findings indicate that using the Virtual Historian© can significantly increase students’ understanding of the subject-matter and their ability to think and write historically more than classroom inquiry-based lessons. Resume : Cet article presente les resultats d’une etude quasi-experimentale menee aupres de deux groupes d’eleves ontariens de la 10e annee inscrit au cours d’histoire du Canada. L’etude avait pour but d’examiner le role et l’impact des technologies de l’information et des communications (TIC), et plus particulierement d’un nouveau didacticiel en histoire canadienne, l’historien virtuel©, sur l’apprentissage d’un episode marquant de l’histoire scolaire (la Crise d’octobre, 1970). Les resultats de l’etude indiquent que les eleves du groupe experimental (l’historien virtuel©) ont developpe une meilleure comprehension de l’histoire et de la Crise d’octobre que ceux du groupe de comparaison (enseignement en classe).