Professor Ahmed F. Ghoniem, MIT president Susan Hockfield, and American DG Energy chairman George N. Hatsopoulos look at the life of thermodynamicist Joseph Henry Keenan and his contributions to the field and to the teaching of the subject. They also look at the history of thermodynamics more generally.
The degree of difficulty educators face when dealing with new technologies varies, but the sensation of feeling like a “newbie” when it comes to technology can often create tech-wariness among teachers. Educators should not feel this way.
Teachinghistory.org's presentation at the 2011 American Historical Association (AHA) conference, entitled “Teaching and Learning History in the Digital Age,” offered attendees exposure to free and easy-to-use tools that can work for teachers, regardless of their technological abilities. The main message of this presentation? Start small and be willing to face unexpected hiccups along the way.
One educator, nearing retirement, was curious about digital tools as I shared with her the topic of my presentation while walking to another conference event. She was initially interested in attending my presentation but found that the whole topic of digital tools was too complex for her.
Besides, where would she even begin searching for new media tools? She found herself regretting her earlier decision to skip panels on digital tools. It seemed that her own dilemma—where to start looking for digital tools—is not unique. The goal of the presentation was to help educators like her gain exposure to technology that is easily available. My advice to her was the same as I provided the audience: Start with what feels comfortable.
Some educators might enjoy exploring complex tools, “going under the hood,” and learning new skills. Other educators might want a ready-made tool, like Wordpress, to help build a course website. The open-source nature of platforms and browsers like Wordpress, Firefox, Zotero, and Omeka allow daring educators to invent the new plug-ins that can radically transform educational tools. For the less adventurous educators, these platforms allow them to take advantage of the work of others.
The presentation at AHA was, in part, inspired by a recent series of articles by Robert Townsend in AHA's Perspectives on History (Oct., Nov., Dec.). In his findings, which surveyed over 4,000 two- and four-year college faculty, Townsend noted that educators are increasingly embracing digital tools. Nearly 70% of respondents characterized themselves as “active users”—a number that might surprise many. Upon closer inspection, however, active digital users are mostly younger (no surprise here), and the most popular tools are not what many digitally-savvy educators would necessarily consider cutting-edge: digital cameras, scanners, search engines, word processors, and online archive searches. Tools that have the potential to change how we “do” history—text mining, social media, GIS/mapping, and data visualizations—received few responses in AHA's survey.
My immediate reaction to Townsend's articles? Is that it? On the one hand, I found it rather underwhelming to see what passes as “digital history” in the second decade of the 21st century. On the other hand, a utopian view of this subject is probably not well-served considering the budgetary and curricular constraints teachers face; lasting change rarely develops out of radical, or revolutionary, change. A more measured approach would be to acknowledge that significant uses of technology in the history classroom will gradually occur through funding for technology training, or, more likely, through collaborative exchanging of ideas among staff.
The presentation at AHA, then, was structured to address three or four key areas teachers address in their planning stages. As always, these tools are helpful, but only when applied with thoughtful consideration towards teaching and research (several good reads recently posted on Edwired deal with the perils and possibilities of web tools).
Digital Tools for Presentations
Digital Tools for Communication
Digital Tools for Production
Digital Tools for Miscellaneous Tasks
With such a long list, but one that barely touches the surface of what scholars can do with new media, it is easy to see that free and open-access tools are readily found online. The problem, however, is that many educators feel the same way as our curious veteran educator at AHA. The question “Where can I find these tools?” is still a bit too commonplace these days. As a result, teachers are often hesitant to seek out new technology—not necessarily due to a lack of will, but rather because many simply don't know what (or where) to search.
This presentation aimed at closing that gap in a small way.
Townsend, Robert B. "Assimilation of New Media into History Teaching: Some Snapshots from the Edge." Perspectives on History (Dec. 2010).
Townsend, Robert B. "How Is New Media Reshaping the Work of Historians?" Perspectives on History (Nov. 2010).
Townsend, Robert B. "A Profile of the History Profession, 2010." Perspectives on History (Oct. 2010).
Ready to explore the digital tools mentioned above—and more? Check out our Digital Classroom section.
The Ad Council has been producing public service announcements attempting to affect change in society and serve the public interest for nearly 70 years. The campaigns take the form of print, radio, and television advertisements. They have run the spectrum of societal issues, from "Rosie the Riveter" and the campaign to place women in war jobs to contemporary ads related to predatory lending. The Ad Council has brought us memorable characters like Smokey Bear, McGruff the Crime Dog, and Vince and Larry (the two crash test dummies who convinced us to wear seat belts). But what do these public advertising campaigns say about America? How can we use these ad campaigns to better understand U.S. history?
Through analyzing the ads we can isolate time periods in history and understand what were believed to be the most pressing societal issues of the time. These campaigns tried to decrease behaviors that were believed to lead to social problems or promote behaviors that would lead to a better society. Thus, in seeking to understand the advertisements, we can help students uncover the contemporaneous sociology of the ad campaign.
You can begin by exploring the Ad Council's Historic Campaigns that highlight some of the more notable campaigns in the last 70 years. Each campaign is complete with background information and some have links to PSA videos associated with the campaign. An even more complete retrospective of past advertising campaigns is maintained by the Advertising Educational Foundation and can be accessed here.
I have found the site particularly useful in helping students understand more recent history. For instance, few would disagree that, socially, the 1980s were rocked by the AIDS epidemic. The site highlights PSAs to prevent the spread of AIDS, which represent a dramatic shift in societal norms with the public call for condom use. The ads on crime prevention featuring McGruff the Crime Dog also help illuminate the 1980s. These ads coincide with America's "war on drugs" and emphasis on law and order during the 1980s. 1970s culture was epitomized by environmental awareness featuring Ad Council PSAs showing Native Americans distraught to find their territory littered. These ads and more can be found in the Historic Campaigns section.
Teaching with advertisements as primary sources is beneficial in two ways. One, students are exposed to yet another example of primary sources that come with their own unique set of historical questions. Two, by learning how to unpack the intent of advertisements on people of the past, students are more apt to be able to recognize advertising manipulation in the present. The Ad Council dedicates a page of resources for educators that includes useful links and frequently asked questions. These pages also identify current advertising campaigns, which might be useful for students to identify some of the important topics of today compared to the important issues they find in earlier decades.
Before having students analyze advertisements as primary sources, it is important to model for students how advertisements should be read. Students should also be made aware of the strengths and limitations of using advertisements to understand the past. An excellent overview of these strengths and weaknesses can be found on page 11 of this guide to primary sources, from the Smithsonian's History Explorer, along with questions to guide students in analyzing advertisements.
A natural fit to teaching U.S. history through public service announcements would be to have students create their own PSAs. Students could be given a list of pertinent social issues to a particular time period or could be asked to research important topics on their own. Students could write a script and use a pocket camcorder to record their PSA. Editing could be done using iMovie, Windows MovieMaker, or any number of free online video editing tools. The purpose of the assignment is to help students understand the changing nature of social issues in the United States.
Another idea is to have students research the effectiveness of given historic campaigns. The Ad Council maintains a database of reports and figures related to the success of various PSAs. This is a condensed version highlighting the impact of the Ad Council's more famous campaigns. The purpose here is to help students see how effective advertising not only convinces people to buy products, but also can convince people to change behavior for the common good.
The Ad Council works to address the most significant social issues of the day. With that purpose, the Ad Council offers a unique look into making sense of our social past by revealing important issues of the time. Advertisements offer students an opportunity to interpret an overlooked type of primary source of the past and establish connections to the present.
Looking for more guidelines on using ads in the classroom? Historian Daniel Pope helps you make sense of advertisements, and historian Roger Horowitz analyzes historical documents behind 1950s potato chip advertising campaigns. This syllabus from a university history course also walks you through the steps of analyzing an ad.
Search our Website Reviews using the keyword "advertisement" for reviews of more than 200 websites featuring archived advertisements.
Does anyone know a solid, one-stop shop for interactive simulation and activities for high level, college-bound U.S. history students? I am looking to freshen up some of my units and I thought these might be fun. I am specifically looking for one-day activities that engage students (there can be homework before and after).
While the web is full of great resources for the history classroom, you’ll have to narrow your search in order to find simulations. The most efficient way to start is to head to sites offering lesson plans, and to search within them for simulations.
One great resource for lesson plans is the work of Teaching American History grant partners, which is often posted online. The Danbury, CT TAH project, for instance, has a number of lesson plans on its website, including a number of simulations relevant for an American history class. Fitchburg State University also has a number of lesson plans online, including a simulation on the causes of the Civil War.
Another kind of web resource to explore is the work of states and school districts. One good example of this kind of resource is SCORE, the Schools of California Online Resources for Education site, which has a number of resources for classroom teachers including simulations for U.S. history classes. Some come from outside sources like Harper’s Weekly online, which hosts a simulation on Reconstruction, while others, like a simulation on immigration, are created by classroom teachers.
Colleges and universities are also rich sources for materials, often providing creative approaches to classroom instruction. The University of North Carolina School of Education has a number of lesson plans and ideas online, including a simulation on fugitive slaves. Columbia University, through Columbia American History Online, also offers lesson plans, like a simulation of pre-Civil War efforts at compromise.
Yet another good place to look for resources is an aggregating site like Best of History Websites or the National History Education Clearinghouse. At the former of those sites, you can find links to resources like the Day in the Life of a Hobo podcast—a creative simulation focusing on the Great Depression. At the latter of those two sites, you can find a number of resources, including a link to a simulation game exploring the impeachment of Andrew Johnson. Interact also has classroom ready simulations about U.S. and world history, which can be purchased by your school.
Good luck with your search!
Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute of African American History at Harvard University, speaks about the development of the African American National Biography, the largest African American biographical collection ever published, spanning more than four centuries, with 4,100 entries in eight volumes. The series presents African-American history as told through the lives of its most notable historic actors, documenting and dramatizing the central role played by African Americans in our nation's history, from the 16th through the 20th centuries.
Richard Carwardine is Rhodes Professor of American History at Oxford University, author of Lincoln: A Life of Purpose and Power, and winner of the 2004 Lincoln Book Prize. In this lecture, he discusses different aspects of Lincoln's life. Why is Lincoln a mythic figure? How early in his career did he develop his views against slavery? What role did religion play in his life? Professor Carwardine analyzes Lincoln's greatness as well as his humility.
Jill Lepore, Professor of Early American History at Harvard University, speaks about her book, The Name of War: King Philip’s War and the Origins of American Identity, and traces the meanings attached to this brutally destructive war. Lepore examines early colonial accounts that depict King Philip's men as savages and interpret the war as a punishment from God, discusses how the narrative of the war is retold a century later to rouse anti-British sentiment during the Revolution, and finally describes how the story of King Philip is transformed yet again in the early 19th century to portray him as a proud ancestor and American patriot.
Julian Clarence Levi Professor in the Humanities and Director of the American Studies Program at Columbia University Andrew Delbanco examines the evolution of the American Dream—the idea that anyone may rise above his or her station, regardless of birth. Beginning with the Puritans, Professor Delbanco traces the origins of the American Dream from the Calvinist fire-and-brimstone of Jonathan Edwards, to the swelling optimism of Emerson and Melville, to the present day.
Why were the Sons of Liberty not stopped by British troops as they boarded three ships in Boston Harbor on Dec. 16, 1773 (Boston Tea Party)? Were there no Redcoats patrolling the area? How long did the Boston Tea Party last? An hour, two hours? Why weren't they apprehended?
The tea was on three privately owned merchant ships. One hundred and fourteen chests were on board the Dartmouth, the first ship to arrive in port. The other two ships, the Eleanor and the brig Beaver carried 228 chests between them, along with other cargo. As the ships sailed into Boston Harbor, they each passed by Castle William to the south, which was under the command of a British officer and had upwards of a hundred cannon. When the ships came into the harbor, but before they docked, port officials boarded them. That meant that they had officially reached port and that their movements were now under the command of port officials instead of their captains.
Behind the tea-laden ships, British Admiral John Montagu brought a squadron of warships to prevent the colonists from forcing the ships back out to sea before they were unloaded. This put the captains (and the ships' owners) in a bind. If the tea wasn't unloaded, customs weren't paid. And if the ships tried to sail back out of port, Montagu would stop them and charge them with failing to pay customs on their cargo that was due, according to him, because they had already entered port.
After a few days, the colonists had the ships come in close to Griffin's Wharf. The Sons of Liberty organized a continuous watch of the vessels. Twenty-five men on each shift ensured that the ships were not unloaded under the cover of darkness, or at least to sound an alarm if there was an attempt. The ships' captains came ashore and left the mates on board. The situation remained the same for more than two weeks.
Thomas Hutchinson, the royal governor of colonial Massachusetts, clearly understood that the colonists were angry, but he did not anticipate that they would damage the cargo. He was counting on the fact that after 20 days without having paid customs, the customs authorities—with the assistance of British sailors and soldiers—could legally impound the tea from the ships, and then, from Castle William, disburse it in small amounts to a few merchants who could resell it. This would circumvent the colonists' effort to make sure that the tea did not enter Massachusetts. Hutchinson and the apprehensive merchants who were willing to receive the tea had holed up with the troops in Castle William.
Boston was not under martial law, so soldiers were not policing the city, although Hutchinson could have brought a detachment of soldiers in, had he known beforehand the particulars of a threat. He did not post a military guard at the wharf, however, perhaps to avoid provoking a confrontation with the crowds keeping watch there.
On December 14th, when the 20 days of waiting were almost up, Hutchinson wrote his brother Elisha about the excited Bostonians, "I hardly think they will attempt sending the tea back, but am more sure it will not go many leagues: it seems probable they will wait to hear from the southward, and much may depend on what is done there." (Hutchinson, 96) Yet Hutchinson also believed the colonists might take some form of direct action if an attempt was made to land the tea onto the wharf.
Just after six o'clock on the night of December 16, 1773, a group of about 60 men daubed their faces with burnt cork, coal dust, or donned other makeshift disguises, armed themselves with hatchets, and formed a raiding party. Some of them styled themselves "Indians."
They made their way to the wharf. The Sons of Liberty's watch was already there, and still others joined them, either to assist or simply to see what was happening. The raiding party formed three groups of 50 each, and boarded all of the nearly deserted ships at about the same time. They met no resistance.
Lendall Pitts, the commander of the group that boarded the brig Beaver, "sent a man to the mate, who was on board, in his cabin, with a message, politely requesting the use of a few lights, and the brig's keys—so that as little damage as possible might be done to the vessel;—and such was the case. The mate acted the part of a gentleman altogether. He handed over the keys without hesitation, and without saying a single word, and sent his cabin-boy for a bunch of candles, to be immediately put in use." (Thatcher, 1812).
The moon shone brightly too, so their work was well lit. The night was very quiet and neither the crowd on the wharf nor the raiding party spoke much. Onlookers at the wharf, as well as the men on some of the closer British ships, however, quite distinctly heard the sounds of the chests being staved in.
The party quickly brought the 342 chests of tea (a total of 90,000 lbs.) onto the deck. They split them open and threw the tea and the chests overboard into the harbor. The party took care that no other property on board the ships was harmed, and that none of the raiders took away any of the tea. They even swept the decks clean of loose tea when they were done. They worked quickly, apprehensive of a possible attack from Admiral Montagu's squadron, part of which was only a quarter of a mile away.
Montagu watched the affair from the fleet, but he took no action because of the cargo ships' position next to the wharf. "I could easily have prevented the Execution of this Plan," he wrote the following day in a report, "but must have endangered the Lives of many innocent People by firing upon the Town." (Labardee, 145) Instead, he rowed ashore and watched from a building nearby, even briefly exchanging taunts with the Indians.
The tea party lasted three hours, finishing around nine o'clock. The raiding party then formed in rank and file by the wharf, and, shouldering their hatchets, marched, accompanied by a fifer, back into town, dispersed, and went home.
The next morning a large, winding mound of loose tea still floated in the harbor, and a party of colonists rowed out in boats and sank it down into the waters with their oars. The British fleet witnessed this, too, but did not interfere.
The disguised men's identities were kept secret by their fellow Bostonians, and Governor Hutchinson was unable to charge the members of the raiding party, but Parliament responded five months later (news traveled back and forth across the ocean very slowly then) with a series of measures meant to force Boston to heel.
Benjamin Bussey Thatcher ("A Bostonian") et al, Traits of the Tea Party; being a memoir of George R. T. Hewes, one of the last of its survivors; with a history of that transaction; reminiscences of the massacre, and the siege, and other stories of old times (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1835).
Peter Orlando Hutchinson, The Diary and Letters of His Excellency Thomas Hutchinson, Esq. (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, & Co., 1884). Benjamin Woods Labaree, The Boston Tea Party (New York: Oxford University Press, 1964).
This historian think aloud shows a historian reading an edited statement by the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) regarding the 1925 Scopes Trial. Specifically, this 73-second video shows a historian considering the source of this document and generating questions, before launching into the document’s contents.
The accompanying audio commentary, Using the Think-Aloud, points out what the historian is doing so viewers can see why her questions and processes are called historical thinking. These two features work together to help viewers visualize thinking processes that are usually implicit and hidden.