Teaching History in the Digital Age

World History Sources

Just a minor formatting issue, but the homepage does not fit entirely onto my screen, and there seems to be a great deal of empty space which could be used more effeciently.

This is a remarkable site. There is very little about which I can be critical. The scholarly reviews about the online primary sources alone is an incredible resource. Well organized and sorted by both geographic region, and chronology, I only wish I knew about this site during my undergrad degree! But there is so much more on this website. A guide to unpacking evidence from various types of sources, examples of historians analysing sources, and case studies on how 16 teachers have taught with primary sources. This an amazing resource for both teacher of history, and students, although perhaps below the university level, but then again, it is available to anyone, and that is one of the benefits of the internet.

One comment though, if this is world history, where is North America? Perhaps the purpose of this website is to focus on less-studied parts of history, but if the title of the website indicates that world history matters, why conspicuously leave out a part of the world? Just a thought.

Liberty, Equality and Fraternity – Exploring the French Revolution

Starting at the introductory page, it looks a little jumbled. Everything is there, and I can find all of the functions, but it seems jumbled. Particularly the “Search” “Explore” “Browse” buttons. They are not really aligned with anything on the page. This is just a quibble, I know, but it does feel jumbled. Aside from my initial feeling about the layout of the opening page, this site is a wonderfully designed resource for French Revolutionary sources. The search function is excellent, and the list of search results, with the brief description of the source and an icon identifying the type of source is very helpful.

There are a couple of elements I feel could be handled a little differently. Under the subtitle “Exploring the French Revolution” it mentions that the site contains 12 topical essays. I wanted to find these essays, so I clicked under “Browse” to look for them, and could not find them listed. I then clicked “Explore”, wondering what exactly it meant, found the list, counted up 12 items, clicked on one, read a little, and then determined that those were the 12 topical essays. I feel that the button “Explore”, while it does tie in with the sub-heading of the webpage, is too ambiguous, and this user, anyway, first tried to find the topical essays with the “Browse” function. I would remove the “Explore” button, and shift the 12 topical essays to a heading titled “Topical Essays” in the “Browse” menu.

Also with regards to the “Browse” menu, navigation of this section could be improved. For example, if one wants to browse through all of the images on the database, you must browse in groups of 30. With 245 images, that his nine clicks to get through the entire list. An option to change the number of records per page, as well as a navigation bar which would allow browsing by first letter might be of assistance. The way it is organised at present, wading through the voluminous list of images and texts 30 records at a time, is rather daunting.

Women in World History

Edit: This was a mistake. I searched Women in World History on Google and this was the first website that came up. It was only after I finished my critique that I realised I had looked at the wrong website. Nevertheless, I thought it might be pertinent to our class discussions so I have left it in.

URL: http://www.womeninworldhistory.com/

Too long. The introductory page is too long. Two full screens in height. The main body should be seperated and have a separate scroll button, so you always have the navigation sidebar right beside what you are looking at. Rather spartan design for the site, however at first glance it does seem functional.

The Online Store is spartan but functional as well. I like how they have the Table of Contents and a Sample Activity for each curriculum unit for sale. All payment options are listed at the top of the store page, and they give an option to online payment. No sidebar navigation on the store page though. Must scroll to the bottom of the page.

Going back to the homepage and looking at the meat of the page. Under the section titled “Today’s Heroes” a list of links is given. Clicking on the first link about Nobel Peace Prize recipient Wangari Maahtai takes me to a page that gives a brief biography and picture with links to related topics at the bottom of the page. Hearkening back to Horton’s book, it seems that this was done to avoid sprinkling distracting links in the body of the text. But clicking on these links leads to a confusing maze of related pages, with no button to bring you back to the original page, save the browser functions. Some of the items linked to are external to the site, and this is not described. This is a jumbled mess. Good information, but terribly difficult to navigate as a result of poor organisation.

On the page for Wangari Maahti, there is also no navigation button with takes you to the next page dealing with a recent woman Nobel Prize Winner. On the Classroom Lesson Series of pages on this site, there is a navigation function at the top of the page which will take you to the previous activity or the next activity. There is no such navigation function on the biographies of the individuals however, which seems an odd ommission. In fact, clicking on the bottom navigation link on the page for Wangari Maahti takes you to a list of women Nobel Prize winners, but it is a dead end – there are no links to any of the women on the list, despite the fact that there are biographies for these women on this website!

On the series of “Biographies” pages there is a “Previous BIO” and “Next Bio” navigation function, but this button moves! This is endlessly frustrating when trying to quickly cycle through the biographies because the button will move an inch to the left, leaving you clicking on the icon for the homepage. It would be such a simple issue of formatting to fix, but this hasn’t been dealt with.

On the whole, this website does have some useful historical information but the poor organization of the website makes it almost un-usable. The website seems not to have been designed with any thought given to user-interface, and it shows. Navigation buttons move around, if they are there at all. Links at the bottom of the page to do link back to themselves, and send the user off a number of different tangents. A complete overhaul of the website I feel is in order to make it workable. A sidebar navigation on every page, with drop-down menus would allow users to access all parts of the website without having to rely on their browser history, or the jumbled sets of links provided by the website.

Valley of the Shadow

URL: http://valley.vcdh.virginia.edu/

The navigation for this site is the most striking thing about it when you first get to the homepage. Instead of a sidebar navigation system, or a simple list of links, the navigation bar is set up in a floor-plan of a building. The archive deals with the history of two counties, Augusta Co., VA, and Franklin Co., PA from the time of John Brown’s raid to Reconstruction. The areas of the site are therefore divded into three sections – immediately prior to the war, the war years, and reconstruction. For those who do not want to use the floor-plan style navigation system, a site map is readily provided.

Clicking on “Maps and Images” on the “Eve of the War” section takes you to a page where you are given a list of sections. There is a section for Augusta Co. maps and another for Franklin Co. maps. What is perhaps most helpful is the inclusion of a set of comparative maps. Churches, schools, soil type, railroads, elevation are all detailed in maps that appear side-by-side on the screen. This has clearly been structured to facilitate comparison by the user.

An additional sign of care and thought that went into the web design is the navigation floor-plan for the “Eve of the War” appears at the side of the screen on the “Maps and Images” screen. This allows the user to be able to navigate the rest of the sections covering the same time period with greater ease. However, there are some ommissions. While there are some categories that only exist in one of the chronological subdivisions, some, like “Newspapers” are in all three, yet the floor-plan navigation is only for the individual subdivision, such as “Eve of the War” or “War Years” etc. This is a moot point, as none of the search or browse functions for either the newspapers or the letters and diaries limit you to searching either prior to, during, or after the war.

The search engine for the newspaper database is particularly well done. All of the newspaper articles are full-text searchable, and you can search individual newspapers, or all of them, and you can also narrow the dates of the search. Alternatively, the user can browse the database as all of the newspaper articles have been indexed by topic.

The website has been updated in the past few years, and some paths will lead a user to the older version; if you click on individual buildings in a pen and ink drawing of the town of Staunton, it will take you to the older version. But each of these older pages contains a link to the newer version of the sight. This slight slip-up really does little to detract from the quality of the site.