AHA Session 279
Sunday, January 9, 2022: 11:00 AM-12:30 PM
Preservation Hall, Studio 9 (New Orleans Marriott, 2nd Floor)
Chairs:
Sarah J. Purcell, Grinnell College
Laura R. Prieto, Simmons University
Laura R. Prieto, Simmons University
This practicum will demonstrate the creative use of digital tools for teaching, remotely or in the classroom, drawing from assignments that the presenters developed during the “pivot” to online instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020-21. It emphasizes visual, auditory, and textual primary source analysis. Participants will be invited to draft a teaching exercise at the end of the session.
Session Abstract
This practicum will demonstrate the creative use of free digital tools for teaching, remotely or in the classroom, drawing from assignments that the presenters developed during the “pivot” to online instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020-2021. In particular, we will share in-class and research assignments that engage students in analyzing digitized primary sources. Examples will include the creative use of multimedia available through open resources online like the Internet Archive (IA), “a non-profit digital library offering free universal access to books, movies, and music, as well as 525 billion archived web pages.” One demonstration will model how to develop an assignment on popular music beginning with the IA’s rich Audio Archive (comprising over 15k audio files, including their Great 78 Project) and digitized recordings from the U.S. Library of Congress. Students collaborate on a playlist, write concise captions that reflect on each song and its context, and then take turns playing deejay. Another example will show how to curate a Jazz Age movie matinee experience using GoogleDocs and videos in the public domain via YouTube. Other cases will walk attendees through the digital annotation of textual primary sources and online exhibits by using tools like Hypothesis, emphasizing the interactive nature of “social reading” tools for annotation. If the venue allows, participants will draft their own version of any one of these examples for use in their own teaching. The main goal of the practicum is to illuminate the possibilities for invigorating primary source-based history teaching by employing digital tools. We hope attendees will leave the session comfortable enough with those tools that they will be able to develop assignments with them and model using the tools for their own colleagues and students in turn.
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