Poland’s Cultural Identity and the East
The Baroque era (1562 – 1764) was Poland’s Golden Age. It was a time when Poland was the largest nation in Europe. Its geography lent to a crossroads of East and West; a place where Slavs, Russians, Jews, Tartars, and Ottomans influenced a culturally diverse landscape. Artistic highlights from this period include royal wares, liturgical objects, paintings of nobility and religious images, rugs and textiles including pillaged Ottoman tents, decorative glassware and ceramics, equestrian items, and Hussar armor. (more…)
Posting Update – Third time must be a charm — Ammon,on my second attempt to post the site was completely down from (7:00 PM – 8:43 PM)
I chose to evaluate two websites from a design perspective. By doing so, I hoped to learn the material of the sites, as well as discover ease of use and if the sites provided creative elements that want me to explore what information and tools are contained within each site.
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Before I start addressing the readings for this week, I must note the importance of reminding me that technology is ever-changing and that the readings are tools that present guidelines on how to use digital media within a course. Technology is a discipline that changes rapidly and just as I use it in the business world; it is up to me to take the initiative to seek out what technology is at my disposal.
Sara Horton’s Web Teaching Guide: A Practical Approach to Creating Course Web Sites provides an interesting argument – course websites facilitate face-to-face teaching. She uses the five chapters to provide steps in developing a course web site. I like that she teaches with example; providing interviews with experienced website creators, as well as summaries and references. Even though some of the technology has since advanced since Horton wrote this book she offers valued direction on the creation, implementation, and assessment of a course website; as well as highlighting the importance of re-tooling the website based on the various assessments of the website. (more…)
Reading the articles for this week as well as viewing “Exploring the French Revolution” and “Who Killed William Robinson” makes one realize that the digital age is rapidly changing. The articles set forth, although varying in their relevance to digital media today, prompt questions of how to properly use digital media. Each article and website (with abstract) had me noting various layers necessary to “properly” incorporate new technologies in the classroom.
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The last article I chose to read this week was “Beyond Best Practices: Taking Seriously the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning” by Kornblith and Lasser and I feel it encompasses the meaning(s) of what the scholarship of teaching and learning is. “The scholarship of teaching and learning, then, not only encourages us to bring our skills as researchers into our work as teachers; it also asks us to articulate the core substance and significance of our distinctive expertise as historians.” This excerpt is an excellent point, but the question is how to remedy the predicament of the K-12 system, which does not seem to have a universal standard of ensuring that American high school graduates posses a working knowledge of history by the time the enter the university environment. Because of this, it is the responsibility of the college and university professors to compensate. How can a system be created that involves the scholarship of teaching and learning history at all levels of education and not leave it to the collegiate level to ensure students are not just continuing to learn facts, but creating strategies for which the students can build confidence in, as Pace states, “evaluate claims critically, to see complex questions from more than one perspective, to understand how different groups can view the same situation in different ways, to recognize the long-term consequences of actions, and to master dozens of other subtle mental operations that are absolutely necessary for their success as individuals…”?
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My name is Gretchen Beasley and I would like to discuss the following this semester:
- How to take traditional sources and integrate them into non-traditional sources
- From an art history stand point – the importance of introducing multi-media
- Creating websites that are appealing to students while maintaining the scholarly purpose of the website.