Thanks for the news. David Vigilante, Carol Barry, Rich del Rio and I had =
a similar experience at the California Council for the Social Studies =
conference Saturday. The on-line demonstration went well, and we expect =
there will be applications from CA to this summer's project. KSA
On 2/27/98, American Memory Fellows wrote:
>Hi everyone!
>
>I'm just back from the largest ever (over 2400 people attending) Michigan
>Council for the Social Studies Conference where Tim and I did two
>presentations (each to 80+ teachers -- standing room only). We were able =
to
>hook up directly to the site and demonstrate how it worked while I shared
>some of my lessons and my students' experiences. People were very
>responsive and were quite interested about this summer's program. Our
>handout included a page about it and I hope / think there will be some
>Michigan applications. We even had a request to do a summer inservice for
>an intermediate (countywide) school district. Their social studies
>consultant wants us to do a full day workshop dealing with how they can =
use
>American Memory as a part of their K-12 history program. "What do you
>charge?" we were asked. Never heard a teacher asked that before! Guess
>we're not used to thinking of ourselves as professional workshop
>facilitators.
>
>And, at Frances' request, I'd like to share an experience I had last week;=
>it really was a pleasant "aha" for me and my kids. It involved the WPA =
LIfe
>Histories Collection. I was not all that familiar with this collection =
but
>thought it might be helpful as I wrapped up the New Deal and began =
getting
>my kids ready to go out and interview local residents about Midland's
>history in the 1940's. Previously when I worked with American Memory
>Collections I had constructed fairly elaborate assignments which required
>them to do a variety of tasks with a particular collection. This time I
>wanted a less structured and less formal assignment. Since the students
>already were comfortable with using AM sites, I simply turned them loose =
on
>a one day scavenger hunt. I asked them to identify some "best" and "most"=
>life histories (i.e. best capturing of dialect, most interesting story
>involving a minority group, most unusual job description, best written
>history, etc.). The kids loved it! (And so did I.) Several times I had
>to quiet them down as the shouted excitedly across the lab about what
>they'd just discovered. They found hangings, Italian dialect, tall tales,
>cousins' weddings and meatpacking stories which would have made Upton
>Sinclair sick to his stomach. Equally powerful were the silences that
>accompanied the finding of horrific stories about the KKK or what life
>really was like out West. They achieved what I wanted -- they learned =
about
>this specific WPA program and they now have a reference base for =
different
>ways to write up successful life histories. Perhaps even more important,
>they directed their own learning about the past using a diverse =
collection
>of primary resources.
>
>Last summer Dr. Billington challenged us to tell him how a digitized
>collection can directly impact students' education. In my opinion, he
>asked the right group of people at the wrong time. I wish I could have
>described this lesson to him then. It and this experience would have been
>impossible without the efforts of the Library -- both in putting
>collections online and in educating me about them. These resources have
>made history come alive for my students and have allowed them to be
>"historians" working with legitimate primary documents.
>
>Anyone else had a post-Institute "aha" that they'd like to share or a
>response for The Librarian?
>
>Mike Federspiel
>
>
>
>RFC822 header
>-----------------------------------
>Return-Path: <[log in to unmask]>
>Received: from lowtide.sandi.net (lowtide.sandi.net [165.24.6.252])
> by hightide.sandi.net (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id PAA24969
> for <[log in to unmask]>; Fri, 27 Feb 1998 15:21:49 -0800 (PST)
>Received: from rs8.loc.gov (rs8.loc.gov [140.147.248.8])
> by lowtide.sandi.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id PAA21262
> for <[log in to unmask]>; Fri, 27 Feb 1998 15:26:53 -
>0800 (PST)
>Received: from rs8 (rs8.loc.gov [140.147.248.8])
> by rs8.loc.gov (8.8.4/8.8.4) with SMTP
> id SAA115928; Fri, 27 Feb 1998 18:17:12 -0500
>Received: from RS8.LOC.GOV by RS8.LOC.GOV (LISTSERV-TCP/IP release 1.8b) =
>with
> spool id 347368 for [log in to unmask]; Fri, 27 Feb 1998 18:=
17:11
> -0500
>Received: from scnc.mindnet.org (scnc.mindnet.org [161.133.129.8]) by
> rs8.loc.gov (8.8.4/8.8.4) with ESMTP id SAA89292 for
> <[log in to unmask]>; Fri, 27 Feb 1998 18:17:10 -0500
>Received: from [198.110.19.201] (pm325-47.dialip.mich.net [198.110.19.201]=
) by
> scnc.mindnet.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id SAA07848 for
> <[log in to unmask]>; Fri, 27 Feb 1998 18:17:05 -0500 (EST)
>Mime-Version: 1.0
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=3D"us-ascii"
>Message-ID: <v01510101b11cf1a5a47e@[198.110.19.201]>
>Date: Fri, 27 Feb 1998 18:18:05 -0500
>Reply-To: American Memory Fellows <[log in to unmask]>
>Sender: American Memory Fellows <[log in to unmask]>
>From: Michael Federspiel <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: A Conference and a Billington "aha"
>Comments: To: [log in to unmask]
>To: Multiple recipients of list AMFELLOWS <[log in to unmask]>
>X-UIDL: 7b504822ca82f1c8f995cf1246c89ea4
>
>
|