The Second World War
“Legacy. What is a legacy? It’s planting seeds in a garden you’ll never get to see” -Lin Manuel Miranda, Hamilton
In 1939, the Second World War began.
It left behind a legacy. In our latest humanities unit, we have been looking to answer the driving question;
We have done this, by creating a 17 episode podcast that includes interviews with WWII veterans and people affected by the war.
For anyone who doesn’t know, a podcast is like a radio show that has been recorded and edited. It’s audio only, no visuals. A change for our class.
This was our first attempt at Podcasts, and I think we all did quite a fair job at it.
THE LEARNING–
We learnt all about WWII for this unit. From the beginning until D-Day, we learnt it all.
The war started in 1939, and ended in 1945.
With the empowerment of Adolf Hitler, the barley made peace of the world after WWI was broken. The world became engaged in the Second World War. So there goes WWI’s nickname of “The War To End All Wars”.
Even before the war started however, the world was in a bad era. The Great Depression. After WWI ended, the world fell into pieces economic-wise. The world was struggling, and then a very unhappy man known as Hitler, came into power in Germany. Hitler was very unhappy with the way Germany had been treated after the end of the First World War, he believed they deserved better.
Unfortunately, he had such strong beliefs, that he managed to begin a Second World War.
We learnt all about the war, its turning points, and how it ended.
THE PROJECT–
After going over many important pieces of the War, it was time to start creating. It was time to figure out the answer to our driving question.
Podcast time.
We were very lucky to come in contact with The Memory Project, an organization that put our class in contact with 5 veterans and survivors of the war.
Our class split up into groups to interview the veterans. I personally didn’t interview one, however I was lucky enough to meet Helmut Lemke when he came to our class for a visit.
My episode [see beginning of post] is actually the finale, where I had the chance to talk and expand on exactly what the legacy of WWII is. It includes an interview with my grandpa, Leslie Soltys, and even a Hamilton quote.
Our podcast is 17 episodes, and I was lucky enough to be allowed to conclude it. I am quite proud of my work, especially since it was the first time I had ever made a podcast.
Check out our full Podcast on SoundCloud:
What Is The Legacy Of WWII- Podcast
THE CREATION–
For the first time in our PLP careers we created podcasts this unit. Which means there was a lot of learning involved.
In the past two years we have worked a lot with video editing, visuals, and only voiceover/music audio. So taking out the familiarity of visual and iMovie editing aspects was a sudden and new challenge.
The apps I used to create this podcast included-
Voice memo [APPLE]
Garage Band [APPLE]
iMovie [APPLE]
The first draft of this podcast is actually a video, because due to technical difficulties (yay), I couldn’t upload it to SoundCloud.
On top of that, the music that we had for the beginning and ending of the podcast wouldn’t download, so it’s musicless (ew).
My second draft was a bit better, a little uneven and needed just a few small changes.
Finally, my last draft includes all the changes, the music, and even sound control on the music (volume wise).
I am quite happy with the product I made. A good start to the introduction of Podcasts in my life.
REFLECTION–
This unit was extremely interesting to me. I am forever a History Nerd/Geek. Not just because of Hamilton, but also interest in (Greek/Roman) Myths. Time before myself is interesting to me.
Learning about what happened to get the world to where it is now interest me. WWII is a bog part of that. As I say in the podcast, “The legacy of WWII is the freedom that was fought for, and how we use it” (or something along those lines). And to keep the memory of how we got here alive, we have to learn and share knowledge.
I learnt a lot about the war in our unit and project, and I really enjoyed it. War is an awful thing, we have to learn from our mistakes. I hope that is what we’re doing, in Canada, and all over the world.
Thanks for reading,
Until next time.