Teaching History in the Digital Age

Sara Horton’s Web Teaching Guide: A Practical Approach to Creating Course Web Sites, and the Bass-Rosenzweig article “Rewiring the History and Social Studies Classroom: Needs, Frameworks, Dangers, and Proposals,” provide a handy framework, set of guidelines, and best practices for using new media as part of the interaction with the students. These two works show that there is no one formula or recipe — design and content really depend on the teacher’s goals and objectives, the students, and facility resources (h/w, s/w, it support staff, availability of computer facilities).

Horton’s reference to shovelware (p. xi) and Kelly’s warning in his article “Using New Media to Teach East European History” not to use new media for the sake of it are spot on. I would guess that all of us have experienced several courses or training where the presenter feels they have done their job of being “with it” by incorporating new media in their course by dumping a bunch of website links in the students’ lap, basically pointing to web and saying “There is it, go get it,” with no thought, organization or purpose. So if just using new media to use is not the answer, then what is, or should be the purpose of goal of using new media. Should it just be easy to use with information easy to find at the fingertips of the student, a mechanism for instilling enjoyment or amusement, or can it, should it be more, a medium to enhances learning?

While I was reading Horton’s book and the articles, the concerns mentioned by many of the writers got me wondering how we can deal with the student’s culture and expectation of everything at their fingertips through cell phones and computers. They don’t want or see the need to go to the library. When students are on the internet, if they can’t get it easily and quickly, they are not as likely to be interested. How do teachers overcome the plug and play expectation of today’s computer users? The authors of the reading for this week counsel teachers that they cannot expect to just insert technology, new media into classroom and expect enhanced student experiences and increased learning. Instead, the teacher must put some serious thought into the class design and ways to incorporate new media. Fortunately, as several of the articles demonstrate, new media can be more that just a cool, trendy, contemporary fad.

Yes, it will take time, and not a smidgen of time, to incorporate new media in courses, but based on the feedback from the authors and students is that, at a minimum, learning has been more enjoyable and interesting, the additional time will be worth the sacrifice. Students are actually “doing history.” Just as important, as we are in the transition stage of incorporating new media into the classroom and courses, teacher and student efforts and results need to be shared. Weis and Kobrin discussed how valuable it was to have websites that could help students act as historians by using the History Matters website at GMU. When the students “do history,” they are learning critical thinking skills, assessing where the data is trustworthy and accurate. With sites like History Matters, the students can perceive what good data looks like so they will have a working definition, or at least examples to provide general guidelines to assess the reliability of data on other websites.

There were many good experiences shared by the authors in the assigned readings. Per Kobrin, data must be accurate, organized, and accessible. Teachers need to have a handle on the kinds of information that is available and be able to help guide the students to information sites that can be trusted. Kobrin and Schrum cited using the History Matters website as a trustworthy site. Horton, Kelly and other mentioned setting goals. Kelly discussed reverse or backward design mentioned when considering goals. Considering how the information is organized and flows, and the question of how much of the course activities will be student-directed activities are important issues for any teacher when considering incorporation of new media into the classroom. Will the activities be centered on individual activities, collaborative learning, or some combination of the two? The teacher must consider website design when construct the activities; however, as some of the authors shared in their experiences, students may deviate from the intended design; for instance, design intent may be linear, but student might look at images and maps first, then, maybe read the text, if at all (Daniel Ringrose “Beyond Amusement”).  The findings above are just a small portion of lessons learned and best practices.

Many teachers cited learning from their initial offerings and shared their missteps, how they chose to address the issues, and results of corrective action; e.g., assessment of work done using new media, assessment issues, teaching critical thinking skills. Weis cited three times when her students’ thought process faltered: 1) critical thinking ability with respect to the need to consider content and intent of the author, 2) presentism misunderstood by teacher and students, and 3) inability to synthesize their analysis. Weis then discussed her learning process in modifying and adjusting the course to improve the teaching effectiveness and learning experience, thus demonstrating the value of new media in the course curriculum.

Ringrose’s suggestion in “Beyond Amusement: Reflections on Multimedia, Pedagogy, and Digital Literacy in the History Seminar,” of adding a history lab is intriguing (do some web research to see if any others are doing this or have done this). Could tie in this concept with Cohen/Rosenzweig No Computer Left Behind concept of allowing students to use web to find answers to tests, quizzes, and problems, e.g., H-Bot; students would also learn how to assess credibility of sources?

In the end, a recurring theme for teachers and students, but especially teachers is time. Teachers need to develop competency in new media, sometimes catching up to students as Kelly suggests. Planning time for a website is, right now, in addition to the time teachers used to spend on planning an designing a course. New media does not necessarily replace another element of the planning and designing process. Teachers must consider how to balance time to incorporate new media with the time given to coverage/content. Naturally, teachers may ask themselves if using new media is worth the time invested, which gives support for the need to continue and grow the scholarship of teaching and learning. We need to find if new media’s gift is restricted to more enjoyable learning or does it also improve to quality of learning? Or is it enough to just have more fun learning?