The events this past weekend surrounding the House Divided Launch were all captivating and interesting in their own rights, but I was personally most excited by the Social Studies teacher information session.
As a future Social Studies teacher, I was extremely interested in learning about the uses for the site in a classroom context. Furthermore, hearing input and feedback from other social studies teachers made me think a lot about the uses of technology in the classroom and the future of students using digital history. Keeping students interested often means being able to show them things they haven’t seen before, and technology is certainly a means to accomplish this. A resource like the House Divided Project could be incredibly powerful when used alongside strong instruction, introducing students to captivating stories and important methodological strategies.
While the teacher instruction segment was my personal favorite, the visit to the Old Courthouse showed me a new way to look at history in Carlisle, quite literally. The augmented reality tour is an amazing tool that holds very exciting potential for historical tours. The difficulty of finding appropriate photographs and getting them sized correctly will be a process well rewarded once it is fully functional. I was so excited after the experience I came home and tried to download Layar on my iPad, but then I realized – to my dismay – I didn’t have a camera on mine, so it wouldn’t work. I can’t wait to see how far the project goes, however.
In all, the experience this weekend was very exciting. The scope of this project is so far beyond what I realized that it seemed like every five minutes I was learning something new about it. It was a truly exceptional experience, and I eagerly await further developments.