Digital History in the History/Social Studies Classroom

Author(s): John K. Lee

Source: The History Teacher , Aug., 2002, Vol. 35, No. 4 (Aug., 2002), pp. 503-517
Published by: Society for History Education

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1512472

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Digital History in the History/Social Studies Classroom

John K. Lee
Georgia State University

HISTORIANS AND CAUSAL OBSERVERS alike will most certainly

remember the decade of the 1990s for the euphoric expectations that
accompanied the introduction and development of the personal computer
and Internet technologies such as the World Wide Web. Pronouncements
of a technology revolution echoed through the decade and have followed
us into this new century. The hyperbole associated with the assertions of
the "digital age" has had an effect on a wide range of educational
activities. Evidence of the influence of technology can be seen in the
classroom where nationwide there is one computer for every five chil-
dren.' An ERIC search on the subject of technology will literally yield
tens of thousands of articles, papers and monographs.2 Economic activity
associated with the development of new technologies also demonstrates
the depth of the impact of technology on education. The United States
Congress for fiscal year 2001 appropriated $872 million in the area of
educational technology and the E-Rate (a federal tax on telephone usage)
has, as of February 2001, generated $5.8 billion dollars for wiring schools
to the Internet.3 Given the overwhelming sums of money being spent and
the public attention that recent technological innovations have received,
it is no surprise that researchers expect technology to invigorate many
aspects of education.4
One educational area that has greatly benefited from the growth of
The History Teacher Volume 35 Number 4 August 2002 ? Society for History Education

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 504 John K. Lee

technology is
World Wide W
ments have bee
historical docu
has made prim
almost all pla
because they a
focus from th
sources empow
history. Throu
access to the r
imagined.
The instructional use of digital historical resources represents a unique
opportunity to alter dramatically the character of social studies and
history instruction. Although K-12 history teachers have always used
primary source documents, evidence suggests that their use has been
limited.8 Social studies and history teachers and students now have
opportunities to use digital historical resources in much greater numbers.
In order to understand the possibilities, social studies and history educa-
tors need to answer several questions. These questions include:

* What is digital history and where can some of the best examples be
found?
* How do digital historical resources differ from non-digital primary
sources?
* How is digital history affecting college and K-12 history and social
studies education?

This article represents an initial effort to answer these questions and in

doing so the literature on digital historical resources will take center
stage. Essentially, this article will function as a literature review, but will
take form around the three questions listed above. In addition, an effort
has been made to highlight high quality digital historical resources in the
context of theoretical, descriptive, and empirical research.

Digital History: Some Good Examples

Digital history is the study of the past using a variety of electronically

reproduced primary source texts, images, and artifacts as well as the
constructed historical narratives, accounts, or presentations that result
from digital historical inquiry. Digital historical resources are typically
stored as electronic collections in formats that facilitate their use on the

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Digital History in the History/Social Studies Classroom 505

World Wide Web. Arguably one of the most comprehensive efforts

create and preserve digital historical resources can be found in the Un
States Library of Congress' "American Memory" project.9 Each colle
tion within American Memory includes four components, a framewo
access aids, reproductions, and supplementary programs.'0 One exam
of the work being done at American Memory is a collection of ex-s
interviews and narratives from the Works Project Administration (W
This digital body of documents titled "American Life Histories: Man
scripts From the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940," is freely acce
sible through the World Wide Web, is arranged around single topics,
is searchable. The collection includes 2,900 documents from over 300
WPA writers who worked in twenty-four states. The documents we
written in a variety of styles including narratives, interview transcri
and case histories. Individual documents run between 2,000-15,000 wo
in length (including drafts and revisions) and include information o
family income, occupation, political views, religion and mores, med
needs, diet and miscellaneous observations. These documents can be
valuable source for numerous historical activities including identify
bias, comparing sources, and validating historical theories.
Low barriers to publication have resulted in an amazing proliferati
of digital historical resources, however, and as a result, educators a
historians must closely evaluate digital historical resources before usi
them." When making these evaluations it is important to have relev
and meaningful criteria. Bull, Bull, and Dawson have identified f
criteria for evaluating the products of organizations that create
maintain digital collections.12 In the form of questions, these criteria
about their products: 1) are they able to transform teaching; 2) are t
able to withstand peer review; 3) do they have an internal champ
committed to scholarship and K-12 education; and 4) are the resourc
they provide related to the K-12 curriculum? Writing for the Ameri
Historical Association's Perspectives Online, Andrew McMichael
suggested that content, clarity, and communication are useful criteria
measuring the usefulness of web-based historical materials."3 Sever
colleges and universities have developed guides for evaluating websi
quality. The University of Purdue's "Comprehensive Online Resea
Education" (CORE) is a particularly good guide for assessing the qua
of online resources. The CORE project includes detailed questions
researchers to consider before using online resources in three ar
including, the reliability and credibility, the perspective, and the pur
of the website.14
Teachers and students of history should use a mix of strategies wh
assessing the quality of digital historical resources. Using the criter

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 506 John K. Lee

referenced abov
of the content o
developed at c
One for some e

TABLE ONE: D

Institution URL Name of the Collection

University of Virginia http://jefferson.village.
virginia.edu/vshadow2 Two Comm
American Civil War

George Mason University http://historymatter

and the City University gmu.edu
of New York

Rutgers University http://fas-history.rutgers.

edu/oralhistory/orlhom. World W
htm

University of North Carolina http://docsouth.unc.edu/ First-Person Narratives of

fpn/fpn.html the American South
University of Michigan http://moa.umdl.umich.edu Making of America
and Cornell University
Yale University http://www.yale.edu/ The Avalon Project at the
lawweb/avalonlmajor.htm Yale Law School
Duke University http://scriptorium.lib.duke. The Ad*Access Project
edu/adaccess/index.html
Illinois Institute of http://columbus.iit.edu The World's Columbian
Technology Exposition of 1893
Amherst, Hampshire, http://clio.fivecolleges.e
Mt. Holyoke, Smith and Digital History project
University of Massachusetts
at Amherst

Cleveland State University http://web.ulib.csuohio.edu/ Cleveland Digital Libr

SpecColl/cdl
The mid-Wales county of http://multiweb.ruralwales. Powys Digital
Powys net/-history History Project
Rocky Gap High School http://www.bland.k12.va. Bland C
in Southwest Virginia us/bland/rocky/gap.html Historica
South Kingstown High http://www.stg.brown.edu/ What di
School, Providence, projects/WWIIWomen Grand
Rhode Island
Pennsylvania Common- http://bdhp.moravian.edu Bethlehem Digital History
wealth Libraries, Bethlehem Project
Area Public Library, and
Moravian College

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Digital History in the History/Social Studies Classroom 507

The potential of digital history at all levels has been recognized an

realized by the Virginia Center for Digital History (VCDH) at the Un
versity of Virginia. VCDH is the home of the "Valley of the Shadow,"
on-line collection of materials relating to two communities-Franklin
County, Pennsylvania and Augusta County, Virginia-before, duri
and after the American Civil War. The materials include letters and
diaries, newspapers, images, maps, census records, and military records.
Although the Valley of the Shadow is not an interpreted resource in the
manner of a secondary text, the archive intends to raise questions related
to conventional research on the Civil War. The archive explores the Civil
War in the context of the people who made up the communities of
Franklin and Augusta as a mechanism for challenging these conventional
historical interpretations." The site is one of the most heavily visited
history related web sites on the Web, receiving traffic from students and
non-students alike in countries across the world.16 Numerous K-12 schools,
as well as higher education institutions, have used the Valley of the Shadow.
Galgano reported on his use of the site in an undergraduate history methods
course in which students analyzed newspaper articles, letters, and diaries and
completed exercises on historical bias, document verification, and statistical
analysis. In addition, students used the archive to research a paper relating to
some issue or problem from the period. In reflecting on the work accom-
plished by his students, Galgano suggested that the Valley of the Shadow
had "virtually unlimited research potential.""17
Digital history is not just being created at colleges and universities,
however. Local communities and school systems are also beginning to
create their own original digital historical resources. Much of the work
being done in these communities is tied to local history. Often, students
in K-12 settings do the work themselves. This was the case with the
Bland County, "Virginia History Project." This "digital archive" began
as a high school United States history class project and has blossomed
into an archive with over 1000 images, documents, and maps.
In addition to historical archives such as these, numerous organiza-
tions are making teaching strategies and guides available for use with
their collections. Notable among these efforts is the work being done at
American Memory (http://memory.loc.gov), the Virginia Center for Digital
History (http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/vcdh), the National Archives
and Records Administration (http://www.nara.gov/), and George Mason
University's History Matters (http://historymatters.gmu.edu).
Beyond the electronic storage and presentation of historical materials,
digital history is also about the construction of narratives and the presen-
tation of historical research findings. In the digital genre of history,
students stand side by side with professional historians generating an

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508 John K. Lee

infinite numbe
Web. Digital hi
process orienta
alternative nar
the nonlinear c
effectively wit
tions of histor
hypertext will
exercise a great
structure of arg

Digital Histor

Despite the ob
tinctly differe
historical reso
archival activit
they are easier
flexible; and 7)
content of the c
Digital historic
non-digital pri
ers have until n
way to access
physical archiv
to such venture
and artifacts
college student
ing from digit
consideration o
example of th
narratives. For
physical archiv
Press published
George M. Raw
entire set) mea
students can ac
opening of acce
and non-digital
In addition to
are unavailable
fessional histor

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Digital History in the History/Social Studies Classroom 509

own many of these un-archived resources. The cost associated with t

development of physical archives and/or the publication of these mate
als has limited their availability. Ease of publication on the Web h
lowered economic barriers to creating historical archives. Tom Costa'
"Virginia Runaways Project" is an example of a low cost, high quality
digital historical collection.19 The collection includes thousands of sla
runaway and capture advertisements that have, to date, never been ava
able to students of history.
Beyond access and availability are other issues that more clearl
represent the uniqueness of digital historical resources. The most imp
tant of these issues is the capacity for digital resources to make possi
the creation of social networks, and the development of social networ
around digital historical collections is transforming the teaching of h
tory in profound ways.20 Students are able to use email to contact oth
students and teachers or professors. Teachers and collection curators a
able to take collections with them to students in remote locations. Collec-
tions can be designed and presented for specific groups of users. These
characteristics among others are enabling students and historians to
communicate and interact in ways never before possible.
Four structural characteristics of digital historical resources present
additional advantages for digital historical resources over non-digital
resources. One of these differences is the ability to manipulate digital
documents in ways that enhance the document's usability. For example, a
user can cut and paste material from an electronic document or view a
document in a different language. Individual digital documents might
also be in hypertext format and almost always are portable.
The searchability of digital collections is a second structural difference
between manuscript and digital collections. Facilitating not only finding
documents but also information within documents, enables students to
more easily locate and use meaningful information. The Library of
Congress has gone to great lengths to provide American Memory docu-
ments in searchable form.21 The advent of XML (extensible markup
language) will make searching even more efficient and meaningful.22
Even collections or documents that are not ostensibly searchable can be
searched using end-user technologies such as the "find" command on
web browsing software.
The third structural difference between digital and non-digital materi-
als is the flexibility of digital historical resources and narratives. Digital
presentation provides students with a means to explore alternative repre-
sentations of their findings. Non-linear hypertext narratives can be used
to connect arguments to evidence, and hypertexts give readers a greater
deal of autonomy.23 Some radical thinkers see hypertext as a freeing

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 510 John K. Lee

mechanism tha
suggest that hy
other forms of
hypertext puts
ans and enables
traditional narra
The ability to
reflects the characteristics of a collection is the fourth structural differ-
ence. The Web allows for the organization of individual documents and
collections in logical and easy to use formats. As is the case with
hypertext, students who are constructing digital collections can arrange
collections in a non-linear fashion that might reflect some of the idiosyn-
cratic characteristic of the documents.
Digital historical resources are unique for all of the above reasons.
Obviously, the difference is greater in some instances than in others. If an
online document is linear, not searchable, and out of context, it may not seem
to be any different than a print version of the same document, but there are
still important differences. The digital document is different because it has a
set of portable characteristics that make it available in a way that a print
document would not be. For one thing, an online document can be made use
of through online social networks in ways that non-digital documents cannot
be used. Imagine making copies of a printed historical document and mailing
it to thousands of high school history teachers. Remarkably, this is exactly
what is done everyday when social networks such as the National Council
for the Social Studies' listserve is used to send a message about a collection
or document that might be of use to teachers and students of history. This
important difference is often overlooked when evaluating the value of digital
resources.

The Effect of Digital History

on History and Social Studies Education

It is of practical importance to ask about the effect of digital

college and K-12 history and social studies teaching. If histo
studies teachers are to use digital historical resources, the
some guidance about how this use will impact instruction a
Determining the extent of the current impact of digital his
what difficult. There is no direct research on the number of te
digital historical resources in K-12 history and social studie
evidence does suggest that usage is limited. The hands-o
activity that is associated with digital history is often esch
history and social studies classes. The 2001 "National A

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Digital History in the History/Social Studies Classroom 511

Educational Progress in United States History" found that eighty-seven

percent of students in the 4h grade, seventy percent of students in the 8t
grade, and seventy-seven percent of students in the 12h grade use
primary source documents just once a month or less.26 Furthermore, K
12 history and social studies teachers have been found to be less than
likely to use computers in their instruction.27 By comparison, possibl
because of their predisposition to historical research, college and univer
sity history professors and students have been found to use digital histori-
cal resources in much greater numbers.28
Although we can deduce that digital history's overall impact on K-12
history and social studies has to date been limited, anecdotal evidence
does suggest that some teachers are making meaningful use of digital
historical resources.29 Most of the literature on digital history is in the
form of descriptive reports of classroom practices using history-related
resources on the World Wide Web.30 The authors of these descriptive
reports on classroom practice were typically very positive and almost
always use utopian language, claiming that the Internet appears to offer
"promise" or "potential" unmatched in educational history.
However, concern has been expressed that the use of digital historica
resources can create information overload. David Shenk has referred to
this phenomenon as "Data Smog" and suggested that the overwhelming
amount of information and the lack of organizational structure on the
Web may initially be detrimental to instruction.3' Several institutions are
actively addressing this problem by organizing material for both schol-
arly and K-12 academic use. Singleton and Giese have described a model
framework for using primary sources with students developed for the
Library of Congress by the Social Science Education Consortium.32 This
framework includes suggestions on using primary source documents for
focusing instruction, guiding inquiry into historical problems, facilitating
the application of knowledge, and assessing student learning. Institutions
such as the Library of Congress are maintaining web sites with the type of
primary source documents necessary for this type of inquiry instruction.
Numerous efforts have been made to substantiate the pedagogical
worthiness of digital historical resources. Published accounts of indi-
vidual digital history lessons and projects have varied in pedagogical
quality, but in general web-based materials appear to be shifting the focus
of instruction from the teachers to the students. Wilson and Marsh have
reported that the use of computers and, specifically, the Internet could
better engage students and "stimulate an interest in the written word as
students search for documents in remote libraries."33 Rehmel has de-
scribed a lesson in which advanced placement students worked in teams
using the Web and reference CD-ROMs to conduct historical inquiry on a

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512 John K. Lee

self-selected to
into several pr
ested peers. St
unrelated to th
a poorly constr
interest and foc
Much of the lit
character of t
historical resou
resources, stud
this environmen
sions such as w
are constructin
put together d
history. Altho
would do with
documents allo
printed materi
constructed hi
thought to off
media. The que
digital historic
by academician
much to offer.3
To turn now t
indicates that h
of history in
resources.38 In
(AHA), Townsen
Web and that s
survey of 485 c
required their s
explicitly ask a
evidence suppo
historical resour
ments are presen
In addition to
sources offer
traditional hist
students, Kelly
ness (returning
resources as op

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Digital History in the History/Social Studies Classroom 513

students developed a stronger sense of the interconnectedness of histo

and a better understanding of causation when using digital historical
resources.43 Advantages in the use of digital historical resources
middle and high school history classes have also recently emerge
Warren found that both pre-packed and originally constructed web-bas
primary source exercises are an invaluable means of injecting authenti
ity into high school history classrooms.44
The movement of the student to the center of historical instruction
portents a larger issue related to digital history. Wynne has argued that
the Internet (and more properly the World Wide Web) has decentralized
knowledge and democratized access to information.45 In an environment
where such a wide range of materials is available, pedagogy is also
democratized. The pedagogical implications for using digital historical
resources are very different than what might be possible with traditional
print based materials. Teachers cannot control the type of interaction a
student has with the material the way they can with printed material. In
addition, the sheer volume of information available on a site such as
American Memory dwarfs anything available in print. Wynne has sug-
gested, further, that although the Web can be said to encourage activity
that approximates the work of a historian, the debate over whether this is
a good idea is dualistic and discouraging.46 However, she suggests that
instead of focusing on the either/or question of whether students are
ready for serious historical inquiry or technology deskills students (two
arguments she presents), researchers should be focusing on the pedagogi-
cal worthiness of subject and age specific activities that are emerging
from the democratic landscape of the Web.47
The Web and technology in general are also, in a sense, a representa-
tion of how students think in a post-modern world. Trask has suggested
that students might find traditional historical tasks such as reading texts
and footnotes antithetical to their technological experiences.48 He sees
students living in a world where an infinite body of web-based informa-
tion confronts them, but history teachers continue to present the world as
finite and fixed.49 The dissonant nature of this student experience should
prod teachers to alter their approach to teaching history toward a style
that includes inquiry, questioning, and what Trask calls "resonance" or
what other might refer to as authenticity.

Conclusion

The use of digital historical resources is changing the character of

historical studies. Digital technologies (particularly the World Wide
Web) are providing historians and social studies and history students and

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 514 John K. Lee

teachers with
digital technol
primary-sourc
historical stud
make for a uni
and social studies instruction from a teacher-centered transmission model
to a model that encourages student's inquiry. These new forms of inquiry
must focus on genuine historical problems whose consideration will
enhance not only our understanding of the past but our ability to negotiate
the present and progress into the future. In order to ensure this progress,
digital historical resources must adhere to the academic demands of
historians as well as the pedagogical demands of teachers. Given the
body of research relating to the methodological and pedagogical use of
digital historical resources we are on our way to meeting these demands.

Notes

1. According to the Office of Educational Technology at the United States Depart-

ment of Education, as of Fall, 2000 the student to computer ratio was 5 to 1, 98% of
schools had Internet access in the school, and 77% of instructional rooms were connected
to the Internet. U.S. Department of Education's Office of Educational Technology,
Internet Access in U.S. Public Schools and Classrooms: 1994-2000, (May, 2001), <http;:
/nces.ed.gov/pubs2001/2001071.pdf> (8 August, 2001).
2. A search of the FirstSearch ERIC database on May 22, 2002 using "technol-
ogy" as a keyword yielded 66,769 matches.
3. President Bush's FY 2002 and 2003 budgets requested $700 million for educa-
tional technology. This was a slight decrease from the FY 2001 expenditure of $872
million. Office of Management and Budget, Fiscal year 2003 budget (May, 2003), <http:/
/w3.access.gpo.gov/usbudget/index.html> (22 May 2002).
4. Michael J. Berson, "Effectiveness of computer technology in the social studies:
A review of the literature," Journal of Research on Computing in Education 28 no.4
(1996): 487-499; Lee Ehman and Allan D. Glenn, "Interactive technology in the social
studies," in Handbook of research on social studies teaching and learning, ed J. P.
Shaver, (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1991); Cheryl Mason, Michael J. Berson,
Rich Diem, David Hicks, John K. Lee, & Tony Dralle, "Guidelines For Using Technol-
ogy to Prepare Social Studies Teachers," Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher
Education 1, no. 1 (2001), <http://www,citejournal.org/voll/issl/currentissues/
socialstudies/articlel.htm> (22 May 2002
5. William Tally, "Up against authentic history: Helping teachers make the most
of primary source materials on-line," Electronic Learning 16 no.1 (1996): 40-41.
6. Edward L. Ayers, "The Pasts and Futures of Digital History," (1999), <http:!/
jefferson.village.virginia.edu/vcdh/PastsFutures.html> (22 May 2002).
7. Elizabeth K Wilson, and G E. Marsh, "Social studies and the Internet revolu-
tion," Social Education 50 no. 4 (1995): 198-202.

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Digital History in the History/Social Studies Classroom 515

8. The 2001 National Assessment of Educational Progress in United States H

tory found that 87% of students in the 4th grade and 70% of students in the 8th grade
77% of students in the 12th grade used primary source documents once a month or
<http://llnces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/ushistory/results/> (22 May 2002).
9. As of summer 2002, American Memory had over 7 million individual do
ments in over 100 collections.
10. Carl Fleischhauer, "Digital Historical Collections: Types, Elements, And Con-
struction," (1996), <http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/elements.html> (22 May 2002).
11. Jeffery G. Barlow, "Historical research and electronic evidence," in Writing,
teaching, and researching history in the electronic age, ed. Dennis A. Trinkle, (Armonk,
New York: M. E. Sharpe Inc., 1998), 194-225.
12. Glen Bull, Gina Bull, & Kara Dawson, "The Universal Solvent," Learning and
Leading with Technology 27 no.2 (1999): 36-38.
13. Andrew McMichael, "The Historian, the Internet, and the Web: A Reassess-
ment," Perspectives Online (February 1998), <http:/www.theaha.org/perspectives/is-
sues/1998/9802/9802VIE2.CFM> (22 May 2002).
14. For more detailed information on the CORE project see their website at http://
core,lib.purdue.edu/.
15. William G. Thomas, "In the Valley of the Shadow: Communities and history in
the American Civil War," (1999), <http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/vcdh/
thomas.vmhb.html> (22 May 2002).
16. William G. Thomas, "Remarks at the Presidential Sites and Libraries Confer-
ence at the George Bush Presidential Library, College Station, Texas," (1999), <http:ll
jefferson.village,virginia,edu/vcdh/presidential.html> (22 May 2002).
17. M. J. Galgano, "The best of times: Teaching undergraduate research methods
using The Great American History Machine and The Valley of the Shadow," History
computer review 15 no. 1 (1999): 13-28.
18. Edward L. Ayers, "History in hypertext," (1999), <httpi/L
iefferson.village,virginia.edu/vcdhlAyers.OAH.html> (22 May 2002).
19. Access Tom Costa's Virginia Runaways Project at http://www.uvawise.edu/
history/runaways
20. Thomas Thurston, "Building social networks with computer networks:
A new deal for teaching and learning," Paper presented at the American Historical
Association, 2000 Annual Conference, Chicago <http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/teaching/
papers/2000/Thurs.htm> (22 May 2002)
21. See http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/techdocs/amdtd.html for more information
about the search technology being used in the American Memory project.
22. XML is a markup language that allows the author of a web document to assign
meaning to sections of text within that document. When searching XML documents users
are able to search these meanings opposed to just the words contained within the
document.
23. Roy Rosenzweig, "Crashing the system?: Hypertext and scholarship on Ameri-
can culture," American Quarterly 51 no. 2 (1999): 237-246.
24. David Dobrin, "Hype and hypetext," in Literacy and Computers, eds. Cynthia
Selfe and Susan Hilligoss, (New York: Modern Language Association of America, 1994):
306-318.
25. Graeme Davison, "History and hypertext," The Electronic Journal of Austra-
lian and New Zealand History, (August, 1997), <http://www.icu,edu.au/aff/history/ar-
ticles/davison,htm> (22 May 2002)
26. For more information see http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/ushistory/results

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 516 John K. Lee

27. The 2001 Nat

tory found that 84
85% of students in
nces.ed.gov/natio
survey by Henry J
times) use of compu
The full report can
28. T. Mills Kell
classroom," Journa
/mcel.pacificu.ed
29. For examples
Digital Blackboard
30. The following
from 9 different
World Wide Web:
13 no. 1 (1998): 56
G. Junion-Metz, "B
K. McCollum, "We
Chronicle of High
Internet for sourc
R. H. Pahl, "Ancie
"African American
355; J. P. Shawhan
Learning and Lead
it on the web: Tec
and the Young Le
31. David Shenk,
32. L. R. Singleto
The Social Studies
33. Wilson & Marsh, 1995: 190.
34. S. Rehmel, "That's a good quote-What's the source?: Integrating media
technology research and presentation skills in a high school social studies class," The
Social Studies 89 no. 5 (1998): 223-226.
35. See Cameron White, "Relevant social studies education: Integrating technol-
ogy and constructivism," Journal of Technology and Teacher Education 4 (1) (1996): 69-
76; M. L. Rice and Elizabeth K. Wilson, "How technology aids constructivism in the
social studies classroom," The Social Studies 90 (1) (1999): 28-33.
36. William Tally, "Up against authentic history: Helping teachers make the most
of primary source materials on-line," Electronic Learning 16 (2) (1996): 40-41.
37. See Carl Smith, "Can you do serious history on the Web," Perspectives Online
<http://www.theaha.org/perspectives/issues/1998/9802/9802COM.CFM> and Edward
Ayers, "The pasts and futures of digital history," <http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/
vcdh/PastsFutures.html>
38. See the following for examples of college course that include the authentic
student use of digital historical resources. T. J. Brown, "The purposes of course web sites:
A case study," The History Teacher 31 (1) (1997): 62-68; N. Fitch, "History after the web:
'Teaching with hypermedia," The History Teacher 30 (4) (1997): 427-441; E. Zarate,
"Cyberspace, Scholarship, and survey courses: A prototype for teaching world history"
The History Teacher 32 (1), (1998): 57-65.
39. Robert Townsend, "AHA survey indicates growing acceptance of Internet,"

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Digital History in the History/Social Studies Classroom 517

Perspectives Online, February 1999, <http://www.theaha.org/perspectives/issues/1999/

9902/9902NEW.CFM> (22 May 2002).
40. Denise A. Trinkle, "History and the computer revolutions: A survey of curren
practices," Journal of the Association for History and Computing 2 no. 1 (1999), <http:/
www.mcel.pacificu.edu/JAHC/JAHCII2/ARTICLESII2/warren/warren.html> (22 Ma
2002).
41. For some example college and university history students work with digital
historical resources see Edward Ayers and William Thomas' course at the University
Virginia, History 403 "Digital History and the American Civil War" http://
jefferson.village.virginia.edu/vshadow2/projects/projects.html; Roy Rosenzweig's course
at George Mason University, History 615 "Clio wired: An introduction to history and ne
media" http://chnm.gmu.edu/courses/rr/f01/cw/samples.html; and Peter Wood's cour
at Duke University, History 119 "Native American history" http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu
native-am/
42. Kelly, 2000.
43. Ibid.
44. Wilson J. Warren, "Using the World Wide Web for primary sour
high school history classes," Journal of the Association for History and Co
2 (2000), <http://www.mcel.pacificu.edu/JAHC/JAHCII2/ARTICLES
warren.html> (22 May 2002).
45. Anne Wynne, "History instruction and the Internet: A literatur
History.edu: Essays on teaching with technology. ed. D. A. Trinkle and S. A
(New York: M. E. Sharpe, 2001),25-37.
46. Ibid
47. Ibid
48. David Trask, "Did Sans-culottes wear Nikes? The impact of
on the understanding and teaching of history." Paper delivered at the a
the American Historical Association, Chicago, 2000 <http://www2.
pew/portfolio/trask.html> (22 May 2002).
49. Ibid.

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