Digital technology was gaining importance in teaching even before 2020, and the pandemic has accelerated this trend. In addition to digital teaching materials and e-learning, the Zentralbibliothek Zürich put together an extensive offering of courses and events for secondary school teachers as part of Digital Day 2021. Participants learned about the library’s digitisation process and how easy it is to search digital source material. A workshop was held to showcase a wide range of digital tools for virtual and hybrid teaching, and a podium discussion took a broader look at the topic. 

The project falls within the Zentralbibliothek Zürich’s strategic focus area of citizen science.

Digital history – from archive to web (guided tour)

The Zentralbibliothek Zürich has six special collections containing valuable books, manuscripts, sheet music, maps and pictures. Many of the originals are kept hidden behind the thick walls of a vault, but digitisation opens up new opportunities to make these treasures accessible to the general public as source material for research, for teaching or purely for personal interest.  

We took those who attended the event on 2 October 2021 on an hour-long guided tour of the ZB’s digitisation process. Which documents are digitised, and why? What challenges arise when digitising valuable cultural artefacts? What happens to the digitised documents, and how can they be found?

A summary of the documents, platforms and catalogues presented can be found here.

Digital tools in teaching (workshop)

Computers and tablets alone do not make for multimedia teaching. They need to be used with the right tools. At a two-hour workshop on 2 October 2021, Guido Knaus showed how digital tools can be used to add value in teaching. We developed learning scenarios that others can adapt to help with their own teaching.

Guido Knaus lectures in multimedia teaching at the St. Gallen University of Teacher Education.

10 November 2021: digitalisation in teaching (podium discussion)

From digital teaching tools to hybrid teaching forms and purely digital lessons via Zoom, secondary schools have embraced the digital revolution. A podium discussion took a broader look at the topic. What influence has the coronavirus pandemic had, and what will the long-term impact be? Where do Swiss secondary schools and teachers currently stand? What works, and where is there room for improvement? What are the pros and cons of digitalisation? And how is it affecting the day-to-day work of teachers and their students?

Radio Stadtfilter covered the events, highlighting the key findings and interviewing the participants in the podium discussion. 

The participants were:

  • Moderator: Florian Schoop, NZZ 
  • Prof. Dominik Petko, Institute of Education, University of Zurich
  • Katarina Gromova, teacher, KZO Wetzikon 
  • Julia Tschudi, student