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.