Thoughts on teaching & educational technology

Here’s a plug for the “Last Flight Home,” a documentary I just had the privilege of seeing. It’s about ongoing efforts to recover the remains of American servicemen lost in the Pacific — specifically the Palau Islands. That may sound a little esoteric, but it’s not. It’s probably the most compassionate, human story I’ve heard about WW2, combining solid history with family interviews and footage of recovery expeditions launched over the last 10 years.

If you teach the war form a traditional big picture view, and need a way to make it more personal — more alive at the individual level — this could be it. If you’re more interested in the human/social history aspects of the war, this is perfect, and would provide a means to tie that side of the war to the military events that comprised it.

It’s just over an hour, and covers three different sub-stories, each focused on efforts to find the remains of one aircraft and its crew, so you could easily show only parts of it in order to fit into your bell schedule.

I met the directors and the guy who is behind the recovery expeditions (doing it out of his own pocket) when they screened the film at the Pima Air and Space Museum in September. The screening coincided with the annual reunion of VMF-114, a USMC fighter squadron that operated off of Peleliu, in the Palau Islands, from 1944-45. They all thought it was outstanding, and I figure that if a group of veterans put their stamp on it, it’s worth seeing.

jdg