To leave you with something particularly fun to try out over the long weekend. Lots of teachers are doing more with computer games in the classroom. You need only check out one of last year's Governor-General award winning teachers, Lindsay Hall, to get some ideas.

One set of games you might want to take a look at is the warfare series from armour games. Warfare 1917 and Warfare 1944 are two simple flash games that give a surprisingly quick and realistic look at what warfare was like. In particular, the 1917 version, shows a variety of different units, the effects of gas, mortars, and many of the more gruesome aspects of trench warfare.

Now to be clear, I'm not suggesting you sit your entire class down in front of a computer to have them play these games for a hour. But you might want to use them as a 20 minute introduction to trench warfare and what it looked like, as well as getting your students to talk about the things that either aren't included or seem less realistic.

It's another way to look at the Great War, and with the right approach it might be fun starting point.