This post was originally intended as a comment on Michelle’s post, which was very amusing and honest about her method. It can be illuminating to toss in a search term just to see what comes up. The Tax Museum piece was very funny, though I was not excited enough to visit. How about looking for a Death Museum? Then it got too long. I intended to share my experience looking for a very definite item to use in teaching (objective: give students quick and representative access to the actual sites to supplement the texts’ generalizations about the Neolithic period), namely Neolithic sites. This would satisfy the objectives of illustrating specific examples from history, illuminating “how do we know” about the period, and investigating “how do historians/archeologists find out about the past?”) I started with two important, far-flung neolithic sites, namely Catal Huyuk (Turkey) and Skara Brae (Orkney Islands, Scotland). (more…)
October 15, 2006
The 2 questions on Digital People’s contributions to knowledge and its communication
We were left with two questions at the end of the last class: (1) Whether the experience of working with digital archival sources is “the same” as working directly with the real thing in archives. (2) Assuming that competence in the digital realm has attained for its adepts the status of members of a sort of sub-culture, what can these adepts contribute to the scholarship of teaching and learning that ordinary mortals from the “analog community” cannot. (1b or 2b)There is another possibility in this question, namely, can people who are competent in creating effective digital means of expression give voice to groups of people, or to objects and “voices” from the past that can make them speak, and hence bring them to the awareness of others who lack this competence.
The alternative extension of the question may illuminate the link between the two. (more…)
The Mystery of History: Teaching through Detective Work
Many of us have examined the Who Killed William Robinson website to see the way a real murder mystery from the 19th century is being used to introduce students to the practice of historical research. What many may not know is that that site is only one part of a much larger initiative involving five other sites and a series of smaller exercises. They are all part of a website called Great Unsolved Mysteries in Canadian History.
The William Robinson site was the first in this series created in 1997. Additional mysteries were added in 2003 and 2005. A fourth phase of work for the site was just approved in June of this year. The project is currently housed at the University of Victoria and receives funding from the Department Canadian Heritage.
October 13, 2006
Those “more” tags.
I really tried to use that “insert ‘more’ tag” function and I’m not getting it right. Sorry to use up lots of page space. The big blank areas were supposed to be where the “more” tag was to go. I’ll have to ask someone how to do it right.
Week 8: Easier said than done.
At first, I thought that this assignment would not be so hard. I decided to try a stab in the dark and type “teaching” into Google. Number one on the list was a site authored by Honolulu Community College designed for faculty development. It has sections, or subpages on topics from “the first ten minutes of class” to how to deal with stress. Great! My job is done! No, wait – this isn’t a teaching project; it’s a how to teach project. (read on…)
Now what? My next attempt was to try typing in various events and places which interest me and see if anyone is working on a project about any of them. The closest I came to success using this tactic was to peruse the History Channel’s site at www.history.com for something which was teaching – not just an advertisement to buy DVDs. There is a link to a nice site about Teddy Roosevelt, titled TR: An American Lion. It has various video clips and is supposedly being used by New York City schools for teaching. I decided that this falls into the category where a teacher is offered a catalog of available videos and chooses what fits into their curriculum of the moment. It didn’t seem like a true teaching project as much as textbooks on TV.
More stumbling. Sometimes wandering around (let’s not call it surfing, because that implies that there is purposeful direction involved) the internet is very frustrating. If you don’t know the right question to ask (or who to ask it of) and you can feel like you are just a bit lost. I eventually discovered the American Social History Project, of the Center for Media and Learning at CUNY. The address is www.ashp.cuny.edu. It’s a page similar to projects undertaken by our own CHNM. The content is similar in nature to our Week 7 assignments. However, it isn’t geared toward students. If it is supposed to be, I didn’t get that impression; and it therefore wouldn’t be doing an effective job.
My impression of this assignment was to find an online project geared toward students, in that students can use it as a learning tool…a supplement to books, periodicals, etc… I was staying away from sites like the Smithsonian and National Historical Site sites; because while they do teach, they are designed for a broader population than students.
I finally stopped at www.taxhistory.org. This site is sponsored by Taxanalysts, which is a .com entity with some commercial purpose I suppose. I decided to ignore that and stick to their apparent non-profit arm. The page is titled the Tax History Project and is designed to give an overview of the history of taxation in America. One part of the page is the “virtual museum of taxation.” I think it needs to be virtual, because no one would visit it in person. Brick and mortar museums require a lot of upkeep. Everyone hates taxes, can you imagine getting donations for the tax museum??? It would be a fundraising nightmare. That said, there are reasons you might want to know about the history of taxation. This may be the place to find it.
This site also has the problem of audience. I’m not sure who their target audience is. The layout is fine, easy to read, and colorful. Could that be because the site is managed by what appears to be a corporate entity? Unlimited time, manpower, and maybe lots of money too? Even so, I got the feeling from scanning around the site that they were serious in their endeavor to document the history of taxes in America. It has a place. You don’t have to go to the library. Because it’s not authored by an educational institution, I’m suspect of it; but I’m sure that what’s there is verifiable.
In then end, I’m not sure if I completed the assignment or not. I’m anxious to see what everyone else will bring to class and how they found it. I find lots of personal pages about historical stuff of all sorts, created by people who are passionate about their interests, but not educators. Some are nicely annotated and informative – some are the ramblings of idiots. Google doesn’t differentiate. Not many which make Google’s top ten for any search are authored by professional historians.
I think that I may have had trouble with this because of the method I used to find what I was looking for. I hope others either had the same problems or did much better than me and can enlighten me.
Week 7: CHNM sites
When considering which sites from the list to evaluate, I wanted to try and use examples that centered on American History – my preferred focus. History Matters and Historical Thinking Matters fit the bill nicely.
By name, these sites seem like they would be very similar; and they are in some ways. Both are designed to provide a starting point or hints to educators about teaching history. They are also both utilitarian, not terribly flashy. Each has a “how to use this site” function as well. This link is quite useful. It shows a reader that this site is not going to be an encyclopedic source of information, but rather clues about doing research. I think, however, that their differences are more significant.
History Matters’ (HM) main page, which appears when you first log in is chock full of links. The print and few pictures are small and a little hard to read on a 15” monitor. In contrast, Historical Thinking Matters (HTM) has slightly larger images and larger type. HTM also has a less crowded front page and is a little more intuitive in how one might use it. From the point of the consumer of information, the HM page is almost too much to digest. It does however have some features which HTM does not. HM has some neat links to resources which describe certain types of primary sources, where HTM concentrates on specific historic incidents and the types of sources which are available for them. I think HM might be very attractive to people who hate to go to the library.
In a perfect world, I could use both sites for inspiration if I were a teacher. I would have to know about them though. I wonder how educators find out about sites like this. I might use HTM to get ideas on how to approach a subject in a broad sense, and search HM to get ideas about specific sources like using maps. Since the information on the sites is intended for use in planning classroom instruction, not to be the primary way someone learns about a subject; the lack of slick images and graphics is not really a big drawback. These sites aren’t designed to catch the attention of distracted students and reel them in to a subject about which they may feel ambivalent.
October 11, 2006
Web Project Review Week 7
I reviewed three web projects on the CHNM website: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity; History Matters; and DoHistory. All three we well-designed projects that evidenced significant forethought and consideration of the potential users, yet their primary audience and intent differed.
History Matters contains a lot of good practices that any institution of learning should consider before designing a web project. The History Matters project has a variety of uses for students and teachers at the secondary and university level. History Matters provides access to primary and secondary sources that have been reviewed by professional historians, an important aspect for K-12 teachers that want to be able to direct students to trusted, reliable web sources with breadth and depth of data covering over 1,000 web sites. (more…)
October 9, 2006
School teacher fired over showing art to class?
Hi everybody:
I ran across this article while reading The Virginian-Pilot this morning. I have to say that I am a little appalled at this school system in Frisco, Texas.
Here is the link to a Dallas newspaper that covered the story back in August:
Is it just me, or does anybody else have a problem with this teacher losing her job over some angry parent’s decision to make a big deal out of this? It’s called ART for heaven’s sake….I really don’t want to lose faith in the public education system, but stories like this one make me wonder…
My mom is a middle school art teacher who has taught in the Virginia Beach School System for over 30 years. I just can’t help but think that something like this could easily happen to her.
I feel extremely sorry for this teacher whose only crime was taking her students to an art museum.
October 7, 2006
From Local to Global: Resources and Lessons on the Net
For this week’s blog entry I selected World History Sources and DoHistory both of which are currently managed by the Center for History and New Media. They represent opposite ends of the historical spectrum. DoHistory focuses on the use of primary sources to study the lives of ordinary individuals while World History Sources literally covers the world and contacts between cultures. (more…)