Teaching History in the Digital Age

Kornblith and Lasser’s article was informative but terribly outdated when it comes to technology.  They quote historian Elizabeth Perry “The Internet can be a wonderful resource, but I find that students do not use it wisely. They accept a great deal of what they see uncritically (the “As seen on TV” approach). And when they can’t find something on the Web, they often decide that it doesn’t exist and give up. Moreover, if they aren’t wired in from their rooms, they tend not to use Web-based resources. I use e-mail to communicate back and forth with students but, again, since some are not wired in, I can’t rely on such forms of communication without leaving students out.”  In the year 2006 college students are “wired in” from almost anywhere, and an email address is a life necessity.  Furthermore, as today’s reading assignment shows, with enough patience you can find almost anything on the web.  Kornblith and Lasser do draw some very good conclusions about teaching the American History survey, but in terms of using technology to enhance the student experience, their article came up short.

Gilbert Allardyce’s survey article on the legacy of the introductory college history course was by every definition extensive.  Collective education was a new term that Allardyce brought to my attention.  The existence of a set of historic principles and ideas that have somehow been deemed essential knowledge for the well-educated seems preposterous.  Although personally reared by a traditional “Atlantic Community” western civilization course Allardyce’s study has certainly made me skeptical of this base knowledge.  One thought that kept recurring while perusing this article was that the western civilization course has served as a roadblock to extending human mastery of history.  The elevation of European and North American history over that of other geographic areas may have served to funnel most people away from African, Latin American, or Asian studies.  Today with globalization shaping a new world order, and technology bringing the diverse peoples of the world ever closer together; the traditional western civilization course simply will not prepare young scholars well enough to compete in the larger world.

Patricia Seed’s article “Teaching History with the Web: Two Approaches” appears to understand the problems of the Western Civilization course.  Her notion that the internet has “democratized information” is essential to realizing the importance of conveying global ideas.  The internet is a wonderful source of information, but can also lead students dangerously astray.  Proper guidance and placing information in context must become the primary mission of educators.  Seed does appear to gloss over the difficulties of filling that role.  Learning a new language (HTML) and mastering the media/graphical capabilities of the web are no simple tasks.  Keeping up with technology will be a tall obstacle that must be overcome in order to teach history properly.