Digital+History

__[|Digitalhistory.uh.edu] as a Tech Tool to Access Information__

Digitalhistory.uh.edu is an online reference resource created and supported by the Department of History and College of Education at the University of Houston. Its primary focus is the articulation of United States history through an online, digital format. Included in the database are interactive timelines, maps, practice quizzes and virtual exhibitions involving historic photos, art, and written works for student uses. In addition to offering a voluminous amount of primary and secondary documentation, the site also contains a number of video and audio pieces. Through multimedia, Digital History gives breath to U.S. historical record by offering images and sounds of both contemporary and past episodes in the country's consciousness. The online resource also offers, although limited, a perspective of the American experience through the eyes of ethnic peoples. Numerous links to museums, other databases, and websites dealing with the U.S. past are also included at Digital History.

How would I use this online resource in a history/social studies class? Of particular interest at this site is the multimedia aspect of Digital History. Here, students can access audio clips form such eras as the Civil War and the Gilded Age then discern and write about the values expressed through music of the time. Through Digital History's video stories, I can offer students engaging and provocative imagery revolving around such groups and incidents as the Industrial Workers of the World or the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam as an anticipatory set leading into a lesson. With Digital History's E-Lecture, too, I can "invite," through Real Player recordings, such prominent historians as Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn to help lead a discussion on the origins of the 9-11 tragedy or the role of "ordinary" people in shaping the United States.

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