EDSITEment: The Lessons of History

EDSITEment: The Lessons of History

The Lessons of History: Using EDSITEment to Teach American History

Partner in project headed by David Jaffee (CUNY). Three software tools for the NEH’s EDSITEment web portal will include a “Text Collection and Annotation Tool,” an “Image Collection and Annotation Tool,” and an “Image Manipulation Tool.” These tools will be integral parts of the Lessons of History project, which will also include student interactive activities and lesson plans. The tools will enable the project’s focus on facilitating the close reading of important documents, visual and textual, of the American political past. Students will use these tools to gather and then closely analyze the online historical documents creating knowledge with the materials of history. The tools will allow for the modeling of good practice by educators as well as the creation of new knowledge by students.

09/01/2004

08/31/2008

David Jaffee

1. Text collection and annotation tool: This tool will allow students to easily gather primary sources (or sections of them) that they find online and save them in a personal folder. They will be able, then, to share their folders with other members of the class—for example, other members of an assigned group—and with the instructor. They will also be able to annotate the text document and share those annotations with other class members and the instructor. These annotations could include both general reflective comments about the document as well as more specific questions and comments tied to particular passages.

2. Image collection and annotation tool: This tool will be similar to the text collection and annotation tool and will, in fact, make use of a shared folder or scrapbook and will be fully integrated with the text tool. The differences obviously are that it will allow both the collection of images and their annotation. The tool will also allow students to present their findings with its exhibition building feature

3. Image manipulation tool: One of the key goals is to get students to slow down and look closely and carefully at historical sources. The image manipulation tool will encourage students to do that with historical images. It will allow students to take images that they find online and bring them into the virtual lightbox offered by the tool. Within that, they will be able to compare two images closely or blow up an image or specific parts of an image to look at it more thoroughly.

National Endowment for the Humanities

$150,000

American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning