I think the History Engine is a great tool for engaging students into different areas of History. It also eases the load a bit and allows the student to focus on one idea or “episode” in time and create a historical interpretation based on that single experience they researched. It seems that the History Engine is geared or targeted more towards college students but I think it would be a really neat tool to at any grade level, with some modifications that would cater to that specific age group/g… Continue
Reading about attempts to convey history in spatial terms, I was reminded of this map: http://tipstrategies.com/archive/geography-of-jobs/" target="_blank"> which I had come across some time ago. It illustrates the progression of job gains and losses in the United States from 2004 onward, depicting the decline of the automobile industry in Detroit, the decimation of civic life in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and the boom and then bust in the… Continue
Added by Michael Dykema on November 9, 2009 at 4:00pm —
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Technology is changing that way that history is presented. With the ability to make history interactive like it has never been before you are able to engage many more people. With the expanding use of online digital collections more and more people are being exposed and engaged in a way that had never been conceived previously. With more and more students going to the internet for information websites and digital collections that are more interactive might be more appealing than just reading som… Continue
Added by Shannon Hines on November 9, 2009 at 12:51am —
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As a student I never liked the essay. They always seemed like busy work to me. But that was from the perspective of someone who would have rather been doing just about anything else that get the essay done. Now that I am more informed and much wiser then I was in high school, I appreciate the skills that are needed for the essay. There is something to be said for a person that can successfully prove a position on a question with only five paragraphs. It is a skill that is important to all studen… Continue
Added by Shannon Hines on November 3, 2009 at 3:33pm —
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In any relationship of power, there is resistance. One of the major trends in history in the later half of the 20th century was locating and valuing resistance to power. Guilds, factories, armies, colonies, and every other organized structure for exerting power faced resistance to power. The most successful organizations designed outlets for this resistance that did not challenge the status quo, but provided the oppressed an opportunity for relief. Whether through legal rights, customs, or tacit… Continue
Added by Cliff Haley on November 2, 2009 at 3:12pm —
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I want to teach social studies and history because I am fascinated by the past. I enjoyed history in middle and high school but in college I was exposed to a type of instruction I had not had much experience with. My first US history professor in college colored his lectures with real stories. He introduced us to the actual people we were studying. We went to the Southern Historical Collection, which was housed on campus, we were able to read letters, decipher ledgers, examine hand drawn maps fr… Continue
Added by Lindsey Dowling on November 2, 2009 at 3:06pm —
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A decade in United States history that I find particularly interesting is the 1960’s. The 1960’s changed the face of America in every aspect, social, political, civil, military, etc. The 1960’s were a departure from the more conservative, social conformists 1950’s. The counterculture led to a change in many United States policies, it was the youth of America responding to what they saw as stifling, outdated leaders. In 1960 John F. Kennedy was elected president. We narrowly escaped a nuclear dis… Continue
The United States was plunged into World War II and out of the Great Depression by the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. With over 3,600 casualties, it is one of the more prominent American memories. Mostly because it was so overwhelmingly devastating and sudden, but also because it propelled this country to the position it sits today. It became a matter of great national and familial pride to enlist on a scale unlike previously. Women entered the work place by the droves, and rationing and victo… Continue
Added by Kyle Moore on October 31, 2009 at 10:30pm —
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In recent years I have come to realize that students need more help understanding the violence they see on television news and read about in short online articles. September 11, the renewed Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and two wars involving Americans necessitate understanding and explanation. Yet the general public receives very little of this in the media beyond troop levels and casualty reports. This lack of information is aided by a centuries old trope that the Middle East is unknowable, my… Continue
I’ve always loved African American history. I really enjoyed learning about the progress African Americans have made, beginning with Reconstruction and continuing now. Personally, I take pride in learning about past struggles and how a group of people, whom I identify with, overcame those struggles. It would be very difficult to discuss or teach African American history without talking about race relations between African Americans and Whites. If I were to teach a course or l… Continue
There are few movies I like better than ones about historical events or sports. What could be better than combining the two? When using something like sports to play out a historical event you give people the common bond to the story that they might not have had otherwise. Disney’s Remember the Titans is one of my favorite examples of this. Through the context of football you are introduced to segregation and race relations in Virginia in the early 1970’s. It puts these topics in to a context th… Continue
I can remember a few movies vividly that I was required to watch in school. One such film was Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, which I watched in a civics class. This movie taught me about corrupt politics as well as what a filibuster was. It was made in 1939. I looked up Mr. Smith Goes to Washington to see if it was still frequently used in classrooms today and it turns out that in 1989, the Library of Congress added it to the US National Film Registry. They did so because the movie was “culturall… Continue
Added by Lindsey Dowling on October 19, 2009 at 2:18pm —
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Students love to watch movies. Many teachers like to give movies for one reason or another. However, we need to view movies as another form of history. We need to teach our students how to “watch” historical movies just like we need to teach them how to use their textbooks, how to take notes and how to decide what information is relevant. Many Hollywood movies take important historical events or people and compact them so that they can make the most revenue. Many of these movies end up being bia… Continue
Added by Lindsey Dowling on October 19, 2009 at 1:48pm —
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I do not remember Hollywood movies being used very often as a teaching tool when I was a student. Generally, if we were watching a movie, it was because half the teachers had been snowed in in Westchester and we were being herded into the auditorium to watch The Little Mermaid. Again. However, there is one film which my AP American History class watched in 12th grade that really did stick with me. It would fail miserably in comparison to the likes of Glory and Amistad which,… Continue
Added by Michael Dykema on October 19, 2009 at 1:25pm —
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During the summer I went to see District 9. It was billed as a visionary telling of institutional, state-sanctioned racism, deliberately set in South Africa and drawing on the legacy of Apartheid. The catch is that it tells a story of aliens from outer space. I eagerly anticipated it, and boy was I disappointed. I was surprised to discover that the friend I had seen it with had enjoyed the film, and thought it lived up to its promise as thought provoking film. I was dismayed to find that the maj… Continue
Added by Cliff Haley on October 19, 2009 at 12:30pm —
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The excitement use to be palpable in the room when the class realized we were going to watch a movie instead of needing to sit there taking notes. A movie would seem like several periods, sometimes, of material that was not going to be tested so who needed to pay attention. If it was a “good movie” most of the time you would peak the interests of some of the students and they would see the message in the film. Though most of the time as a student I enjoyed watching a film as a break from some mu… Continue
Added by Shannon Hines on October 18, 2009 at 5:05pm —
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***Excuse my notes for this blog. I felt it more appropriate to just write down my thoughts as I was reading, in an attempt to keep my thoughts fresh. I thought it was the best way to get my “unedited” points across in the blog. ***
The two history films I remember watching in class, although there were plenty, are Thirteen Days and Platoon. I watched Thirteen Days in high school. My U.S. History teacher, Ms. Ryan, used to have Saturday school, which was optional. It was a way for her to cover… Continue
While I'm not surprised in the least that films such as Glory and Amistad were among the most used, I am a bit shocked at the numbers. I don't think I ever had a history teacher who used a portion of a film a week. MAYBE once every two weeks, but never every week. The films were used as rewards for finishing a section, or as icing on the cake at the end of the year. A few of the films were actually used to lead into course work, but then there were also the times we watched a film… Continue
Added by Kyle Moore on October 17, 2009 at 3:53am —
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I explored two collections from Documenting the American South at the University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill. Navigating the http://docsouth.unc.edu website was very easy. Along the top of the opening page there are nine tabs and one of them is entitled Collections. I clicked on the Collections tab and a list of thirteen collections popped up. What was nice about this collection list was that there was a title as well as a brief description and a thumbnail picture to accompany the description.… Continue
Added by Lindsey Dowling on October 13, 2009 at 10:49pm —
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I had fun reading through the letters for this week’s assignments; this is the part of History I enjoy the most. I feel that is the most engaging and entertaining part of the subject. It’s interesting to see what was important and what an average day was for slave masters and the overseers. I would have liked to see more letters or stories from the slaves and their experiences. I think it would be a good project, if we had sufficient amount of the slave accounts, to compare and contrast how life… Continue
History Engine (forgotten post) and Geohistorical Inquiry
Dynamic Maps And Historical Change
Interactive Information
Sickness and Health as Resistance to the Plantation System
Student Historians
Down the Sights
Hollywood in History
