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Information for Teachers
Contents and Purpose of this Site
Looking, i.e. visual analyses, and reading assignments help students to
familiarise themselves with the most important characteristics of love emblems
from the Dutch Golden Age. The actual goal is for students to gain some insight
in the concept of northern Dutch love emblems; that is to say, the development of the emblematic
concept, the altering portrayals of the figures (now and again, figures took on other forms),
its importance in the society of that time,
its popularity, and its intended purpose will pass in review.
A broader historical and cultural account on the aspects of the Golden Age will, to
a large extent, fall outside the scope of this project.
The context of the emblem books will only be referred to there where it is relevant
to the discussed aspects of the love emblems.
The seventeenth century and Latin texts have been respelled and transliterated, the punctuation has been
modernised, and explanations of words are provided where needed.
This educational site is connected to a research project that is currently being
carried out at the University of Utrecht, the Netherlands; the
Emblem Project Utrecht.
The purpose of this project is to take 25 books on love emblems, secular
as well as religious ones, and digitalise them in a systematic manner so
that users are allowed to view and investigate the material according to
their own preferences and interests. In other words, by means of a systematic encoding
we try to offer maximum use of search options and accessiblity to the data.
The corpus of the EPU includes both northern Dutch and southern Dutch emblem books.
However, for the time being, this educational site is comprised of northern Dutch emblem
books only.
Didactic principles
This site is constructed in such a way that it allows students to work independently.
After a brief introduction to the emblematic genre, alternating screens of
looking and reading assignments follow. This information is divided in seven
subjects: (1) the love emblem in general; (2) the history of the development of the
love emblem; (3) Explanations for the Development of the Love Emblem; (4) conjugal ethics;
(5) male-female relations; (6) the market of the love emblem; (7) the game of love.
After completing all the questions, the students receive their total score. This score
is not meant as a grade, since digital tests are still too unreliable. The actual
test is a writing assignment. The students are asked to independently study and analyse
an undiscussed aspect of the love emblem, namely the erotic undercurrent, by means
of an additional emblem and an article. Together with the total score from the website,
the writing assignment can be handed in to the teacher for evaluation.
Educational Modelling Language
This site is developed in EML (Educational Modelling Language), a 'dialect'
of the more general XML (eXtensible Markup Language). EML is currently in development
at the Open University of the Netherlands. It is, therefore, not (yet) a world standard
in the field of educational mark-up languages.
In order to facilitate a connection to the Emblem Project Utrecht, which is entirely
being developed in XML, an experimental approach in EML was chosen for this educational site.
Additional information on EML experiences can be requested from the
editorial staff (also see 'Colophon').
Manual for Navigation
All questions can be answered once. After completing all the questions, students
will receive their total score. In case students would like to go back to previous
screens before giving their answers, they can do so by using the 'Back' button of
their browser. They can also navigate through the site by using the options 'Home',
'Literature' and 'EPU' on the menu bar. When clicking on 'Home', the default page
appears - the page that loads automatically when the site is entered.
The option 'Literature' provides a bibliography of the used books and websites.
When the mouse cursor is moved over the illustrations, a text box will appear which
provides the source of the illustration in question.
Finally, 'EPU' provides information on the research project to which this site
belongs to: Emblem Project Utrecht.
Here students can find more emblems, more literature and more background information.
System Requirements
This site is viewable on both Apple and Windows computers, with Netscape Navigator or
Internet Explorer (version 4.0 or higher) and a preferred resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels.
For students to change the resolution, they simply have to run 'Start' -> 'Settings'
-> 'Control Panel' -> 'Display' -> 'Settings' and click 'OK' to save their new settings.
To receive a total score, the 'per-session' cookies need to be set to 'Enable'.
To enable cookies in Internet Explorer:
Windows:
- Select 'Tools | Internet Options'
- Change to the 'Security' tab
- Click 'Custom Level'
- Scroll down to the 'Cookies' section
- Set 'Allow per-session cookies (not stored)' to 'Enable'
Mac:
- Select 'Edit | Preferences'
- Click on 'Receiving Files | Cookies'
- 'When receiving cookies' choose 'never ask'
- Click on 'OK' to save
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