By Stephen Whittaker ’13<\/p>\n
The official launching of the House Divided Project<\/a> brought together students, faculty, staff and community members through the sharing of technology and ideas.\u00a0 The most effective component of the weekend-long event was probably the teacher workshop held on Saturday morning.<\/p>\n It was extremely interesting to see how educators from across the country reacted to the more technological side of the days events, and I was shocked to learn from some that they are truly trying to innovate in the classroom.\u00a0 Coming from a large, public high school, I did not have many history teachers that integrated a great deal of technology into the classroom (or at least it was not that effective).\u00a0 As a student interested in social studies education policy, it was remarkable to see and hear of all the potentially useful tools that are grossly unappreciated by secondary school teachers.\u00a0 Resources such as mapping software, video editing tools, and primary source databases are rapidly becoming necessary components of social studies education in order to both improve the learning process and keep students tech-savvy in a world of computers and digital innovation.<\/p>\n Websites such as Twitter<\/a>, the USAHEC<\/a> and even Google<\/a> are providing means beyond the featured House Divided engines to conduct research and change the way that students interact with history.\u00a0 Twitter offers a way of communicating in real time with other students and interested persons.\u00a0 One can offer stories and ideas or even follow technologies relating to history as they advance (as shared by the Washington Post<\/em><\/a>).\u00a0 The US Army Heritage and Education Center offers similar tools to the House Divided.\u00a0 It is an incredible source of digitized material that should not be overlooked for research and educational purposes.\u00a0 Google also provides a veritable treasure-trove of tools for both students and historians.\u00a0 From Google Maps<\/a>, to Google Books<\/a>, to the new Ngram Viewer<\/a>, the potential for lesson-planning and new means of collecting and analyzing data is virtually boundless.\u00a0 Great attention should be paid to these tools and the countless others in the digital world.\u00a0 They are the future of the way students and professionals will come to engage with history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Stephen Whittaker ’13 The official launching of the House Divided Project brought together students, faculty, staff and community members through the sharing of technology and ideas.\u00a0 The most effective component of the weekend-long event was probably the teacher workshop … Continue reading