Session Abstract

The key to adoption of family history in a K-12 setting is helping teachers who are thought-leaders in their own professional communities to realize the revolutionary potential of historical exploration and discovery through the use of digital technologies to access, connect, and share billions of historical records.  Once they have experienced the “ah-ha!” moment of recovering past lives and relationships, they will want to make this experience available to their students and their students’ families.   They will also become advocates of the use of family history within their school systems and professional organizations. 

LEARN NC worked with ten in-service teaching professionals to create a digital companion that illustrates the powerful complexity of family history as a tool in the middle and secondary grades classroom.  These instructional documentaries provide scholarly-informed, classroom-tested vignettes of best practice implementation.