Surfing the past : digital learners in the history class / door Olivier Nyirubugara.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Nyirubugara, Olivier, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Internet in education.

History--Study and teaching.

History.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (312 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Leiden, [The Netherlands] : Sidestone Press, 2012.

Summary:

This books discusses one of the most frequently discussed subjects in history education during the last two decades, namely how secondary school pupils use the World Wide Web for their learning activities. Based on two case studies in two Dutch schools, the book shows some ways in which the use of the Web has changed history education in at least three respects: first, the findings of the two case studies show that the Web has a huge potential to turn the history class - previously described as boring and too abstract - into a livelier and more attractive environment, where concepts, events, phenomena and processes of the past almost always have textual and/or audio]visual representations; second, strong indications were observed showing that the Web fosters historical understanding, not only by triggering thinking processes that take pupils beyond the shown contents, but also by prompting them to evaluate sources and sample relevant fragments for their assignments; third, the Web has brought into history education sources that were previously excluded, including those described as unconventional. This book shows, among other things, that convergence is underway on both the user side - since pupils use both conventional and unconventional online sources - and the content-production side, where heritage institutions are increasingly getting involved in unconventional platforms like Wikipedia. The latter emerged from the two case studies as the most popular source of historical information, while the websites of heritage institutions tended to appear at the bottom of the list of references. Unlike personal sites, which also scored better, heritage sites face some obstacles, including the still dominant desire to preserve institutions' identity and uniqueness, conservatism - which often prevents the redefinition of collection management tasks -, and the tax-payers' dilemma. For that reason, collections are not hyperlinked and, therefore, remain invisible and not easy to find online.

Contents:

Intro

Acknowledgements

0 Introduction

0.1 History Education as Communication

0.2 Why This Subject Now?

0.3 The Research Approach

0.4 The Structure of the Book

1 Acquaintance With the Past: Which Past and Why?

1.1 Understanding the World

1.2 Historical Knowledge and Historical Awareness

1.3 World History and Local History

1.4 Summary

2 A New Medium, a New Generation

2.1 The Early Days of the Web

2.2 Getting Education Connected: Official Policies

2.3 The Internet Generation

2.4 History Teachers and Their Embracing of the Web

2.5 Summary

3 Digitising the Cultural Heritage for History Education

3.1 Why Digitise? Motives and Policies

3.2 Selection Criteria

3.3 Beyond Scanning: Enhancing Objects' Pedagogical Value

3.4 Taking Digital Heritage Into Web 2.0

3.5 Summary

4 Methodological Introduction to Field Research

4.1 Research Questions

4.2 The Case Study Approach

4.3 Ethnographic Perspective on the History Class

4.4 Observing while Attending

4.5 Interviews

4.6 Content Analysis

4.7 Data Recording

4.8 Summary

5 Case Study One: the Baarnsch Lyceum

5.1 The System, the Place, and the People

5.2 Attractiveness

5.3 Historical Thinking

5.4 Sources

5.5 Summary

6 Case Study Two: The Helen Parkhurst Dalton School

6.1 The Dalton Approach

6.2 Attractiveness

6.3 Historical Thinking

6.4 Sources

6.5 Summary

7 Analytical Understanding of the Findings

7.1 Attractiveness Means Historical Thinking

7.2 Variety of Sources Fosters Historical Thinking

7.3 Convergence: The Conventional Joins the Unconventional

7.4 Findings in Broader Discussions

7.5 Summary

8 Conclusions

8.1 What Digital Learners Do with the Web

8.2 Digitised Heritage in Digital Learners' Eyes

8.3 The Web and History Education Targets.

General Summary

Samenvatting in het Nederlands

Bibliographic References.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (Ebrary, viewed January 3, 2017).

ISBN:

90-8890-161-9

OCLC:

967108250