Calling All Historians: Input for Impacting the Future of Historical Learning

[marte108]

CALLING ALL HISTORIANS: This is a conversation you won't want to miss. 

I hope the somewhat cryptic opening got your attention because I want to ask all of you a question that has--in part--inspired the radically unique online platform I am currently developing. This platform aims to improve the way we learn, think, discuss, share, and teach History. I am intentionally keeping details of this technology vague in this thread post (here is a very general hint: think social learning network (SLN) collides w/ Digital Humanities (DH)) because I truly want to spark a creative discussion amongst ALL OF YOU, not just discuss my own ideas. 

I found the History grad cafe community when I was applying to PhD programs in 2014 (although I did not end up pursuing the PhD path) but I was (and still am) blown away by how talented, passionate, supportive and *not to mention* all-around-badass-historians you people are, which is why I am posing my question to this specific online community. This is supposed to engender creative + untraditional thought, so...Here is goes:

Question: If you were given the option to create + add ONE feature/tool to a new Digital Humanities/Online Learning Platform, what would your first choice be and why?   

(Note: your responses can be anything--real or imagined...maybe you would want this platform to include a powerful annotation tool that fosters scholarly debate across digitized primary documents. Or maybe you have an idea for a quasi-unrealistic feature that literally doesn't exist yet in any discipline or online platform--either way, I would love to hear everyone's thoughts)  

   

 

 

Edited May 4, 2016 by marte108

[SunshineLolipops]

As a teacher, it would be cool if an encyclopedia or online textbook had hyperlinks to primary or secondary  sources available online. I don't mean just a list of useful databases at the end of the reading.  I mean that each mention of a name or event would be linked to all applicable and available primary sources and each major argument linked to the seminal texts on that topic within the field.  In lieu of creating a whole new encyclopedia or textbook, having the ability to use an app that would recognize key people and events in the text of a webpage and provide those links when the cursor hovers over them would be a great tool for teachers and a way to facilitate students' use of primary sources.  Kinda like a citation tool on steroids that doesn't require the to have cited sources and links to the documents themselves rather than just a citation .  Basically this would be a way of getting the citation support and contextual information on topics in formats that are not heavily cited as journal articles are.  It'd be particularly useful for when you find yourself lecturing outside your field or to give students a hand in exploring a new subject.

[marte108]

 

4 hours ago, SunshineLolipops said:

As a teacher, it would be cool if an encyclopedia or online textbook had hyperlinks to primary or secondary  sources available online. I don't mean just a list of useful databases at the end of the reading.  I mean that each mention of a name or event would be linked to all applicable and available primary sources and each major argument linked to the seminal texts on that topic within the field.  In lieu of creating a whole new encyclopedia or textbook, having the ability to use an app that would recognize key people and events in the text of a webpage and provide those links when the cursor hovers over them would be a great tool for teachers and a way to facilitate students' use of primary sources.  Kinda like a citation tool on steroids that doesn't require the to have cited sources and links to the documents themselves rather than just a citation .  Basically this would be a way of getting the citation support and contextual information on topics in formats that are not heavily cited as journal articles are.  It'd be particularly useful for when you find yourself lecturing outside your field or to give students a hand in exploring a new subject.

Yes. This is exactly the type of idea I am talking about (and suggestion I am looking for) from all of you! We as experts, practitioners, and teachers of history are uniquely positioned to know exactly what tools we (and our current or future students) need to accurately evaluate and learn history. The largest aspect of the platform I am building is the SHARING of history--aka making it easier for people to bring their own knowledge of, and resources on, history to a greater audience, and to have a place to interact with other historians--both professional and amateur historians---including the average person with relatively little/no historical training but an interest in a historical topic/idea/person/place/time etc. 

One of the most difficult aspects of learning history (in k-12 classrooms, in higher education, and beyond) is the detrimental structure of HOW we study history. Giving a student a boring, long, and dry textbook, and forcing them to memorize facts so they can be tested on "twig history" is WRONG. As a nation, we have disconnected and undervalued the study of history for so long that is comes as no surprise that most Americans barely know any of our own history, nevermind the history of the world beyond the United States (see every Kimmel-like video that shows students and adults alike failing to know or recall even basic historical facts).

Therefore, the biggest challenges I am trying to tackle with this platform is a radical restructuring of how we see, LITERALLY, see history. The visualization of history must catch up with the technological advances offered in our modern times. For anyone interested in what I mean by this, or want to get an understanding of the direction I am taking, watch this ted talk on visualizing knowledge