Teaching History in the Digital Age

I first examined the World History Matters and History Matters projects sponsored by the Center for History and New Media looking for shortcomings. Although failing in this initial endeavor, as I found no glaring deficiencies, I learned to appreciate these projects as models for incorporating technology not just into learning history, but teaching as well. From these two model databases I have decided that three essential requirements must be met in order to have a useful digital history project. Firstly, as in all good academic history primary sources must form the backbone of your project. They must be available for students and other site visitors to interact with, by listening, reading or watching. Secondly, there must be a mechanism through which site visitors are guided to historical thought. This mechanism could be as complex as an interactive game or as primitive as simply posting a few samples of how historians think about sources. Lastly, a good project will emphasize teaching as well as learning. Well developed sites will supply teachers with exercises, assignments or questions to pose to their students. Recognizing that educators provide the historical context for student learning makes this requirement all the more important in creating a successful digital history project.

The digital history project I selected as my non CHNM/GMU sponsored site is entitled The New Yorker 1900-1920. This site was sponsored by Brown University and has received some acclaim from an article printed in the August 6^th, 2001 issue of U.S. News and World Report. According to the site, this project was headed up by Dr. John Logan, with support by research assistants, the National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Hosted by the Brown University server, the digitized version of the project represents only a small portion of the larger work. While Logan is a sociologist rather than a historian, the site is still very useful as it presents a simple model of a digital history project. The project claims that its “purpose is to learn how members of different groups were incorporated into the city during this period, especially where they lived, the composition of their families, whom they married, and what were their occupations.”

The biggest shortcomings of the project were that it did not provide primary sources directly to site visitors, it offered little in the way of promoting historical thought, and offered no suggestions for teachers hoping to put this information to use in the classroom. The project simply gave viewers a final product based on the analysis of Logan and his fellow sociologists. This can probably be attributed to Logan’s non-history background rather than any larger problem. Despite these glaring deficiencies, this project does give insight into some very important questions about New York society, but on the whole is a great example for how not to build a small scale digital teaching and learning apparatus.