Teaching History in the Digital Age

It seems odd that the late 1990’s and the first few years of the 21^st century should seem so long ago in computer years yet this week’s readings illustrate just how far things have come.   The articles covered using new media in the class room, student web pages, online syllabi, websites, and course portfolios.  As the authors discussed the relative merits of each of these they highlighted issues that in some cases don’t seem as relevant today.  Hood and Spafford for example bemoaned the lack of computing facilities for undergraduates and the lack of web authoring software, while Pomerantz mentioned how members of the faculty still lacked Internet access at home.  Other’s cited a lack of email access for some students.  For instance Mulderink states: “at the outset of each quarter, I survey my students to find out how many are familiar with electronic mail and listservs, and, typically, about 10% of the students have had prior experience with these forms of communication and learning.”   While these issues have not been completely resolved on all campuses they have certainly become far less common.  Even Michael O’Malley’s useful article on building effective course sites utilizing good design mentions the use of tables as a means for page layout.  This has or should be replaced by cascading style sheets in order to improve accessibility for the disabled.  While it seemed that the readings were intended to show us some varied uses for new media in the teaching of history I was distracted by the many moot points raised as negative issues.  Of course this in no way detracts from the positive aspects of these varied projects.  In fact it shows how fortunate we are that so many issues have been corrected.

O’Malley’s’ plea to rethink the ways history professors do their jobs starts with the most basic application of new media by discussing online syllabi.  This varies from a basic digital reproduction of the paper syllabus to what he describes as hyper texts: a more fully integrated collection of assignments and course information.  His comments on design address some of the current changes in the way in which students learn and interact with new media.  For instance he points out how difficult it is for some to read long passages of text on screen and suggested that we need to be aware of the transition students are making from reading books in grades K-12 to more web based reading assignments.  I’m unaware of just how much screen reading is required in high school but my sense from watching my son is that it is still a small percentage of his total reading time.  That of course is changing and we may find students in the future making the transition at a much younger age.

Despite its age, Mulderink’s 1998 article does raise an interesting point regarding what he calls the “transformative power of technology in reshaping the nature of historical inquiry and analysis.” He uses various types of resources in his classes and so touches on the many types of learning experienced by his students.  He suggested that the most successful integration of technology in the course occurs outside of class in his student’s use of the web for research.  This is relevant today in my view because I believe we have explored the adaptation of sight and sound in the class room perhaps to its fullest extent.  DVD’s have replaced VHS tape, CD’s have replaced vinyl records, and power point projectors have replaced the overhead but those are primarily just content delivery mechanisms.  Bringing the web into the student’s classroom or dorm room is the true innovation.

The fully developed websites of Exploring the French Revolution and Who Killed William Robinson highlight two examples of more developed attempts at utilizing the power of the web to teach history in new ways. Students are presented with primary sources, opportunities to ask their own questions, and practice the skills of the historian in a controlled setting. These are exercises that new media is well suited to provide.  They are a far cry from merely presenting a digital copy of a course syllabus.

Drs Kelly and Cutler discussed the next step in the use of new media in the class room and it is perhaps the most important.  Does any of this technology actually make any difference?  Dr. Kelly’s attempts to study the impact of using new media coupled with his and Dr. Cutler’s open course portfolios provide opportunities for others to use these new teaching methods with confidence.  Through testing and peer review they move the successful use of new media out of the realm of anecdote and into the realm of scholarship thus advancing the state of teaching and learning.  I started this post by pointing out the dated nature of some of these articles. I’ll finish, however, by noting how the scholarship of teaching and learning and using new media in particular has advanced in its techniques and evaluation.  This is in no way meant to suggest we’ve gone as far as we can, far from it, but I believe we have reached a milestone wherein we can look at evidence that supports our desire to use new media.  Having passed that milestone however, we can not ignore the need to test future innovations and blindly rely on a “sense” that the methods we are using are working.  There should be no going back.