Digital Media and Document Analysis
Strategies, professional development, and ideas for showing students how to apply their skills in document analysis to digital media.
Our team searched for engaging online activities and designed some activities to fit our needs. In addition, however, we observed how museums and other cultural institutions displayed information digitally for the public. The resources listed here will help teachers interested in pointing out to students the necessity of well-developed critical thinking skills, regardless of the format in which the information is being delivered.
NCSS ANNUAL CONFERENCE
At the Denver 2010 conference, the keynote speaker Sam Wineburg addressed the recent debacle in Virginia over its 4th grade U.S. history text.
The overwhelming emphasis of presenters was on directing students to curated collections, such as the Library of Congress World Digital Library. Our team tries to emphasize the use of archives and libraries in our own digital assignments for this reason.
MUSEUM DIGITAL DISPLAYS
By pointing out how museums, libraries, and science centers try to engage younger visitors, we make the necessity for historical thinking visible to students as a life-long skill they must cultivate. Below are some examples of this phenomena; you can use these examples as a spring-board for student discussion of engaging (and not-so-engaging) museum and education displays that they have seen recently.
The Library of Congress, Washington D.C.
PLUS: Interactive light board points out key features of a Gutenberg bible. The visitor can also turn the pages of the bible and read any part of it, not just the page on display with the actual bible. - Interactive light board allows viewers to discover who made each of the 83 changes to the Declaration of Independence by touching each changed passage and reading extra text.
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Webcasts in conjunction with the History Channel and archival video material (such as movies from the Library) are for researchers who cannot be physically present at the Library of Congress. For an index of webcasts from the Library of Congress, click on the link.
The Getty Villa, Malibu
The digital media on display with the exhibits do not actually add any new text or images. The value of the Apollo in Pompeii digital exhibit is archival (the screens could even be a distraction from the experience of looking at the life-sized bronze in front of the visitor). Slide shows of materials on display, as with the "In Search of Biblical Lands" exhibit, provide the museum experience for someone who cannot visit the gallery; it is not concurrently browsable for museum-goers.
The Churchill Museum and Cabinet War Rooms Museum, London
Video of digital display showing public reaction in 1940 to Churchill's speech upon becoming Prime Minister. The text, which staggers different interviews on the same line, forces the viewer to focus on words as they scroll; it takes time for the visitor to completely view the display.
The digital timeline described on the Churchill War Rooms website is innovative, but information displayed on screen is often on view in glass cases right next to the timeline.
The virtual tour of the War Rooms for those who can't visit the museum is a cool addition to their standing collection.
How the internet helps improve the quantity and quality of information collected: The website also asks those who worked in the War Rooms to submit contact information. Imperial War Museum staff will get in touch with people to collect oral histories and any archival materials that staff members might have.
AUDIOGUIDES AND ACOUSTIC TOURS
Museums and other tourist attractions have used audio guides for years. Some audio guides are now applications for smart phones, such as the downloadable app for the California Science Center's Ecosystems exhibit. The app does little more than reproduce the text already appearing in the exhibit, however; is this useful for the visitor?
- Some audioguides are downloadable even when you cannot visit the exhibit in person, such as the tours for international locations available at Acoustiguide. How useful is the guide if you can't see what is being displayed?
- Most museums feature part of the audio guide rather than the whole guide, such as this selection from New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art.
- Specialized tours for different interest groups looking at the same exhibit are possible.
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Students as Historians in the Classroom
