Part I: The Proposal
Contact Info"Dream It" |
With the arrival of new technologies history teachers are more capable than ever not only to expose students to the massive wealth of invaluable resources that can enrich a social studies education in the classroom but teachers can expose students to tools that can help connect all of these resources into a cohesive idea of identity. Despite the availability of these historical resources that bring the study of history alive for students, teachers are faced with an immense hurdle, an insufficient amount of adaptable computers that can access enriching information and programs. This proposal lays out a request for resources to purchase new computers so that history teachers can expose students to the feelings, emotions, and perspectives of the people that lived in the past with interactive projects that require group collaboration.
Armed with enough computers for each student the class can then maintain a continuous blog that allows individual discovery of our identity as humans or Americans. At the end of the class students would conclude their historical journey with a multimedia video that combines music, pictures, quotes and video clips. Students would depart with an understanding of how all of the bits of history connect together as well as an ability to transfer the ideas of history into their lives. “History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. History is who we are and why we are the way we are” -David C. McCoullough This quote can be summarized in one word, identity. We study history in the attempt to reflect upon the values that make a people’s collective identity. Understanding an identity is useful because then people can make grounded predictions on what current values will yield based off past precedent. Furthermore understanding a people’s identity is useful because it helps to shed light on traditional behaviors that should be carried forth as a torch of responsibility to future generations. Unfortunately most history classes are not taught with the idea of identity in mind. As a result students come away with a collection of trivial facts that are difficult to transfer into pragmatic ideas when they venture into the world. With computers in the classroom students can begin to explore their historical identity at a depth that cannot be topped with traditional pencil and paper resources. Previous Page Next Page |