Integrating Technology in History/Social Studies

Historical Scene Investigations (HSI) represent a scaffolded process by which student interact with primary sources to answer guiding questions. Several sample investigations are provided, although teachers could adopt the recommended four-step process with any primary sources they currently use in their own classrooms.

Great Unsolved Mysteries in Canadian History is a good example of a web site that scaffolds student problem solving of historical mysteries using primary sources with opportunities for student interpretations. The site uses an inquiry-based approach with students "doing history" much as historians would do.

While possibly criticized for its lack of attention to historical fact, Civilization is a good example of a simulated problem solving environment where students can take on historical roles (e.g., Abe Lincoln) and attempt to lead a civilization to victory over enemy nations. Without "teaching guides," the instructor would be on their own to find "teachable moments" from student play.

In this simulation, students are responsible for guiding a family of five in rural Haiti through poverty, with lessons to be learned about health, debt, education, and work. The game was created by kids involved in the Global Kids program with the support of Gamelab programmers.

The Persistent Issues in History Network (PIH) is a collaboration among history teachers and university researchers interested in engaging students in problem-based historical inquiries. A database of resources is available to support new inquiry projects.

Geni is a family tree tool that allows users to define and organize individuals, marriages, and children in a visual display. For each individual in the tree, personal information such as dates of birth and death can be entered, digital pictures can be uploaded, biographies written and memories shared. In the Web 2.0 spirit, the tool is collaborative, allowing the creator to enter email addresses of family members, inviting them to co-create the shared space. In the classroom, Geni could be used by individual students to research their own family history, and as the trees fork backward, reflect with other students on the topic of immigration and immigrants in each of our families. Teachers could also set up mock trees and assign each student one person to research (e.g., the descendants of George Washington). Students would then be responsible for collecting and writing the demographic and biographical information for their assigned person, with the whole class contributing to a shared tree.

Mneograph is one of several web-based timeline programs, allowing students to create media-rich timelines of different historical events. Students can add images to their Mneograph timelines as well as annotated information, supporting presentation of information following research.

The Center for History and New Media provides this free Web-based Timeline Builder.

The Virginia Center for Digital History has created this History Browser, which includes a timeline and visual map displays to illustrate primary sources.

VoiceThread is a tool that allows users to upload a wider range of media, including images (can import from Flickr), documents (PowerPoint, Word, Excel, PDF), and video. Once online, users can comment on posted media by typing a written reflection, or recording an audio or video reflection. Multiple users can leave comments on the same media item, supporting collaborative conversations around a topic. Social Studies teachers can use VoiceThread to post historical documents and lead-in questions that ask students to contribute a reflection (e.g., What consequences may result from the actions described in this document? How are things different today?). Students and teachers can also post PowerPoint presentations with both annotations and embedded questions that invite peers to comment on or respond to information reported in the slides (e.g., Some say Thomas Jefferson, shown on this slide, was America's greatest president; do you agree or disagree?). VoiceThread is also a good platform for students to collect and share oral histories and images from family members or persons in their communities. VoiceThread includes a secure educator network where students can safely publish work with minimal annual subscription costs.

The Center for History and New Media provides a Survey Builder application for use by educators and students who would like to collect feedback from those using their oral or digital history projects.

Footnote is a tool that allows teachers to upload primary source images with expired copyright restrictions to their account. The teacher can share any uploaded image with students by inputting their email addresses. Students click the URLs they receive via email to access images where they can leave several types of reflections: comments that are general to the entire document; spotlights that allow reflection on a pertinent selection of highlighted text; and annotations of the document's author, date, place, and text. Footnote users can also digitally connect images by indicating one of several possible connection types: from the same document, includes the same person/family/thing/place/event, was part of or influenced, and more. Students can also enter written details pertaining to the connections they make. This connecting feature supports more in-depth analysis of a teacher's document collection as students read and explicate both basic and higher-level thematic relationships across multiple shared resources. If teachers lack their own digital images, a quick search of Footnote reveals multiple public images that may be used in support of lessons (e.g., currently 8500 images related to the topic of "slavery"). Likewise, students may search to identify relevant public images for use in their own digital reports. Footnote includes a feature called "story pages" that allows a user to build and share an online report with imported images and written narrative.

Historical Thinking Matters is a Web site that scaffolds student investigations into post-civil war U.S. history, particularly how to critique primary sources and construct historical narratives. Four investigations are provided by the site--spanish american war, scopes trial, social security, and rosa parks.

The National Archives Experience provides students access to 1200 selected archival documents from the National Archives in several thematic categories (e.g., immigration). The interface is not exactly intuitive, but students can collect resources they come across and create pathway challenges by writing clues about similar resources. Students can also interact with the resources they collect to make posters and movies.

Picturing Modern America is a program of EDC's Center for Children and Technology in New York City. It includes a number of tools for students to analyze and critique primary visual sources from the period of 1880-1920, including an image detective and an exhibit builder.

Zotero is an open-source extension for the Firefox browser that allows users to collect and annotate research sources through their Web browser. According to developers, the tool "includes the best parts of older reference manager software (like EndNote)—the ability to store author, title, and publication fields and to export that information as formatted references—and the best parts of modern software and web applications (like iTunes and del.icio.us), such as the ability to interact, tag, and search in advanced ways."

TrailFire is a Web collection and annotation tool that allows trail blazers to string together a set of existing Web resources and mark-up/annotate the pages for trail users that follow their path. A unique URL is generated for each path that can be shared with others. TrailFire includes collaboration features, including the ability for trail users to add comments at any stop along a trail, or the ability to create a "wikitrail" where users can add new stops to a trail started by someone else. This tool could enable students conducting research in digital archives to capture evidence supportive of a theory they are trying to prove (e.g., the eight documents I've marked on this trail provide evidence of racism in the U.S. Supreme Court).

Primary Access allows students to research primary sources and produce personal narratives in the form of short movies that contain their interpretations.

Scribe is another tool from the Center for History and New Media, allowing users to complete electronic note cards about research sources they find online.

A useful resource, especially for schools or districts that lack up-to-date history texts, is the digital history reader, a type of electronic textbook for both U.S. and European History. As stated on the site's "About" page, "each module includes an introduction outlining the module objectives and relevant historical questions students might consider while reading; background historical information, or the context of the period; an archive of documents, along with questions to guide students' use of the evidence; an assessment section to evaluate what students have learned and to allow for feedback; a conclusion; and a list of related resources."

The North Carolina History Digital Textbook Project provides educators with access to primary sources and media-rich information tied to standards for the teaching of 8th-grade North Carolina history.

This electronic collection of world maps emphasizing antique or historical maps would be useful in lessons looking at the new world and how it was "discovered" and perceived by explorers.

In the first person is an index of 4000+ collections of personal narratives--diaries, letters, and oral histories, supporting student research into different time periods and people.

Also supporting electronic research is the DLF Digital Collections Registry, pointing to more than 900 digital collections, many pertinent to the study of history.

Supportive of student research, American Social History Online allows users to identify content from 146 American social history collections, including images, pamphlets, maps, sheet music, political cartoons and posters, oral histories, and more.

A very useful archive of New York Times newspapers from 1851 through 1922, allowing students to research news stories from pre-Civil War through the Harding presidency, as well as advertisements, classifieds, and other information that would help to inform customs, work, and life in different time periods.