Teaching History in the Digital Age

by T. Mills Kelly

Although many humanities scholars have been talking and writing about the transition to the digital age for more than a decade, only in the last few years have we seen a convergence of the factors that make this transition possible: the spread of sufficient infrastructure on campuses, the creation of truly massive databases of humanities content, and a generation of students that has never known a world without easy Internet access. Teaching History in the Digital Age serves as a guide for practitioners on how to fruitfully employ the transformative changes of digital media in the research, writing, and teaching of history. T. Mills Kelly synthesizes more than two decades of research in digital history, offering practical advice on how to make best use of the results of this synthesis in the classroom and new ways of thinking about pedagogy in the digital humanities.

Genres: History

181 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2013

Reviews

[Austin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book discusses the advantages and challenges of using digital technology in the post-secondary history classroom. In a sense, it acts as a “call to arms” for the modern-day history teacher, asserting that the entire discipline of history is in danger of fading into irrelevance if teachers do not begin to adapt their teaching methods to better reflect the unquestionable trend (in schools, academia, and the workplace) towards web-based historical content. The book also breaks down preconceptions surrounding the internet (certain widely used sites in particular, like Wikipedia) to ease some history teachers’ worries/fears about implementing it in the classroom, and lists several sample assignments rooted in familiarizing students with digital technology and teaching information literacy – all of which serve as great inspiration for the history teacher. Overall, I found this book to be a very compelling read – T. Mills Kelly presents a large amount of interesting material in a way that is both concise and easy to follow.

T. Mills Kelly’s background as a history professor with several years of experience teaching digital research methods and researching new media immediately awards this book significant credibility. The book sets precedence for types of assignments to best teach the skills necessary to navigate the digital landscape, while simultaneously easing nerves surrounding unknown variables. It is obvious in his writing that he wants to appeal to both the progressive teachers as well as the more traditionalist ones. For example, he declares in chapter 4 that the five-page paper is obsolete (p. 82), but then goes on to state its importance in developing a student’s ability to write – a subtle contradiction to soften the blow of a controversial topic in historical pedagogy. However, he does combine the best historical methods from either side in his suggestions – firmly rooting his use of technology in the traditional aims of methods courses such as in-depth analysis and practical historical knowledge. An underlying theme of this book is to convince the undergraduate history teacher of their shortcomings in the classroom. The author firmly believes that since most students are left to their own devices when conducting research on the web (in part because professors either wrongfully assume that students are already adept at using the digital technology, or they just don’t know enough about it themselves), they are coming to their own conclusions about what are acceptable digital sources (p. 29-31). Therefore, if history teachers fail to adopt modern technology in their teaching methods, they are failing to prepare their students for the competitive, increasingly technologically-based job market (p. 85). I especially admire his approach as it holds the teacher accountable for preparing the student rather than blaming the student for their shortcomings.

Two of this book’s greatest strengths are its structure and length – the latter is especially useful when trying to fit it into a tightly packed research methods course that already requires a lot of reading. The author manages to frame his arguments succinctly, with a wide variety of well-researched sources to back himself up. He also provides multiple examples of experiments that he conducted in his own classroom, which serves as valuable lessons for teacher and student alike. For example, both teacher and student alike can learn a lot from his detailed account of an experimental course he taught called Lying about the Past which he says, “combined serious historical work with a playful sensibility.” (p 107). The structure of the book is very easy to follow, breaking down the study of digital technology into five chapters (not including the introduction and conclusion): Thinking; Finding; Analyzing; Presenting; Making (DIY History?). This straightforward layout is sure to cover all aspects of the historical process, and weighs the pros and cons of traditional, or “analog” research methods, versus his suggested digital methods. While the book is by no means a comprehensive guide for navigating the entire digital landscape (the author is quick to point out that his book will soon be out-of-date due to the nature of the ever-changing technological and online world), it retains its relevancy today – almost five years after its publication… In the world of digital technology, that is a very long time! Another welcome characteristic of the author’s approach is that he is consistently reinforcing the fact that digital history is generating much excitement in history as a discipline and creating numerous viable career opportunities for young students (p. 127).

All in all, this book is a great collection of the author’s original research as well as some secondary sources; the scope of the bibliography is both impressive and well researched – the history teacher can rest easy if they choose to pass it along to their students. In his argument for the importance of text mining software to the study of digital scholarship, his interpretation of survey data offers some interesting conclusions about the benefits of implementing such software in the classroom (p. 69). In most cases, he follows his analysis with the counter-argument as food for thought, and to cover all his bases – a respectable quality that acknowledges both ideologies. His inclusion of secondary sources from disciplines other than history was especially useful, making this book applicable not only to the history teacher/student, but other academic disciplines such as the sciences – digital technology is, after all, a relatively new advancement in all university classrooms and general workplaces, and therefore worth considerable study. The only complaint I have is that some of his supporting examples are long-winded… shortening his explanations would not take away from the lesson he is conveying, in my opinion.

The author has unquestionably created a very valuable resource for the modern history teacher, but one should not dismiss the potential benefit it holds for their students also. As an undergraduate history student myself, I found myself thinking more quizzically about the online resources I use on a daily basis, but also feeling more comfortable about using them (as well as some newly introduced sources) going forward because of the author’s well-sourced analyses and detailed interrogations of these websites and software. I would strongly advise the history teacher to incorporate this book into their undergraduate history courses (especially research methods courses) – both as an introduction to the basic set of analytical skills needed to navigate the vast number of sources on the web, and as exposure to the exciting possibilities of how history can be created/presented on the web in the digital age.

[Hannah Farbota · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this book, Kelly draws on years of personal experience through research and practice of digital history to present tips on incorporating digital media into the classroom. The book is organized into five major sections: thinking, finding, analyzing, presenting and making. Each section is broken down in terms of how history is currently being taught and how these methods can be improved by the incorporation of digital media. Kelly believes most historians have remained rather ignorant of the vast possibilities technology presents to teaching and learning in the discipline; they recycle the same lectures, power points, and major papers year by year. He makes many powerful arguments surrounding the overarching idea that educators must adapt to the digital environment in ways the modern student has already done outside of the classroom. As a history major in university, this was quite the interesting read. I can see the necessity firsthand for educators to provide students like myself with the tools and knowledge needed to both consume and produce history online.

In “thinking”, Kelly describes how students view and make sense of the past and the importance of adopting a critical approach to thinking. “Finding” outlines the ways by which students obtain information online. Sources are vast and sometimes unreliable, so educators must be able to provide tools for their students to easily navigate this infinite digital archive. Kelly then goes on to explain how online sources can be made sense of and the connections between online sources in “analyzing”. Students should be able to pull information and draw conclusions from a variety of digital media formats. “Presenting” discusses the ways students can demonstrate knowledge in a means other than standard academic writing and how historical presentation is evolving. In the last section, titled “Making”, the ways in which students are creating new and different forms of history are addressed. Kelly stresses that students should be given opportunities to create their own historical content online in order to better their understanding and engagement with the subject.

As stated in the preface, this book is intended for professors and educators in the historical field, particularly interested in integrating digital media in a classroom environment. Kelly provides not only basic tutorials on ways of doing so but also emphasizes the necessity of these actions. He proves that students in the modern world can improve their learning experience by capitalizing on the huge amount of readily available software and the infinite possibilities of the Internet. By encouraging a student’s natural creative drive and stepping away from standard essay formats, educators can create interest not only in coming to and participating in class but also in the field as a whole. When we attend class, an engaging learning environment really makes all the difference in our learning. To create this sort of environment, it is essential for professors and educators to be digitally literate and ready to make the jump into the digital world.

As a university student, I definitely got something out of reading this book. When thinking about my own personal learning experience, I can understand where Kelly is coming from in regards to the lack of utilization of digital media in the classroom and students’ utmost dependence on online sources. Throughout my reading, I came to the realization that I fall into the category of students that Kelly describes to be unaware of the potential of the Internet and varying digital sources other than what results out of a simple Google search. I definitely agree with the underlying theme that educators must learn how to navigate and employ digital media in the learning environment- I have just started my third year of my undergraduate degree and have barely ever been exposed to digital media through school in my entire student career! This book could also be useful to those in my position as becoming a teacher or professor is a path that some of us will follow, and to those researching digital history itself. There are also limitations in regards to reading this book for those who have no scholarly understanding or experience in the field of history other than standard high school memorization of names and dates. A lot of the methods and activities outlined need to be employed in a classroom and by an educator, and someone who is not interested in history will likely not understand or be able to get through Kelly’s ideas on the subject. Even as someone involved in the field, I sometimes struggled to get through Kelly’s seemingly endless examples.

I especially liked the author’s perspective on the use of Wikipedia. While this site is an incredibly useful tool for students in obtaining quick facts, throughout our high school and even post-secondary experiences we have essentially been brainwashed into believing that this site is the “devil’s spawn” of academic research and reliability. Kelly draws on his experience as an educator to discuss the merit Wikipedia holds in the classroom as a lesson on how history exists on the web, issues with crowd-sourced information, and the importance of utilizing proper academic sources. I think classroom exercises described in the book, such as the Wikipedia assignment, are needed to promote collaborative community engagement and spark interest in students in the field of history. I had very little previous knowledge of how Wikipedia functions behind the scenes or how it can be used a valuable educational tool, so this portion was very interesting to me.

Although the intended audience of the book is quite specific, its overall message is certainly more relevant: welcoming our world’s digital revolution into traditional practices is easier, useful, and more necessary than it seems. The insane technological change of the recent years has really affected post-secondary education as a whole and, in the coming years, will continue to complement yet also challenge traditional archival history. But, as Kelly explains, the future of teaching history is dependent on the willingness and ability of educators to adapt to the ways in which technology and digital media are evolving. If you have any interest or involvement in the historical field, whether it is professionally or unprofessionally, I’d recommend giving this book a read. Kelly’s ideas are fresh, well explained, and are needed now more than ever in our prominent digital age.

[Ronnie Haidar · Rating 4 out of 5]

T. Mills Kelly’s book, “Teaching History in the Digital Age” dares to challenge the traditional teaching methods that a lot of post- secondary professors use in their classes today. In his book, he discusses how most professors today, predominately in the field of history are still subjecting their students to dry lectures, where the professor is presenting information to the students, with no use of additional mechanisms, such as technology platforms. He further argues that, once upon a time, a professor could control the content that a student was exposed to, whereas now, this is not the case. He maintains that instead of fighting this battle, educators should embrace this change and use it for good. This, unfortunately, has not been the case with historians, as he says, “historians have remained stubbornly ignorant of the history of teaching and learning in our discipline”.
At first, I thought that this book would be beneficial only to history professors. But as I kept reading, I realized that this book is not only important to all professors, regardless of their discipline, but it is also important to all students. That being said, this is a book that is geared to and written for historians. The reason that I say this is because Kelly is presenting how we can use technology and more specifically how we can use digital sources to help explain history. At this time, I would also like to commend Kelly’s choice to limit the main purpose of this book. His two main reasons for this book is to challenge the more traditional approach to teaching and learning history, and his second reason is to explain how we can include digital sources in our interpretation of history. Keeping the purpose of this book to such specific positions, allows the readers to really focus and understand what is being presented to him.
Kelly does an excellent job, I think, on how he organizes the content of his book. He breaks the concept of teaching history into five main sections or chapters—thinking, finding, analyzing, presenting, and making. He then defines each concept and how it relates to history, both from a student and professor’s perspective. He also compares and contrasts how these concepts have evolved over time, from a more traditional standpoint to a more modern, technological one. I thoroughly enjoyed how he did this, as he allowed me to compartmentalize how technology can be used in all the different stages of being a historian, or more appropriately, a history student. Included in these sections or chapters are his real account experiences as a university professor which brings substance to the arguments that he presents. Narrating his personal experiences, allows him, the author to share the emotions and the feelings that he had, with me, the reader. This allows for a much more heart-felt and deep presentation of his arguments. In these chapters, Kelly does not only maintain that as historians, we should embrace technological resources, he also offers ways on how to do that. I think this is important, because too often than not, authors present their position and argument but they do not offer methods on how to apply their position or integrate their argument. This is not the case with Kelly; he discusses how to incorporate digital sources into our classrooms today. This allows the professors that are reading this book to pick up and use these tactics to help them convert into the modern world. This book is filled with instructions on how to use digital sources more effectively with students. I like how the points that Kelly is offering to the reader is not just informative but also applicable. From the student perspective, especially one who does not remember a classroom that did not rely on technological resources, the insights and instructions that Kelly offers to history professors and historians, allows me to understand and appreciate how far we, as the population of the educational realm have come in terms of using technology effectively. I also like and think it was important how in these concept chapters, he used a lot of examples, through pictures and historical sources, which again, allow the reader to get a more personal and real experience of how we can effectively use technology while studying history,
One particular part of Kelly’s book that I enjoyed and thought was especially important was his discussion on the platform that is Wikipedia. The discussion of Wikipedia makes this book a lot more relevant and important to students reading this book today. Instead of the usual attack that most professors and educators direct on Wikipedia, Kelly offers another approach. He argues that professors should learn to use Wikipedia and allow their students to use it as a source. He continues that it is not that big of an issue that Wikipedia allows for the live editing of the content on their site, rather this can be framed to teach students to perform more diligent and through research. I liked how Kelly did not ignore the topic of Wikipedia and furthermore, he did not just agree with other professors on the uselessness of the site. As he does constantly in his book, he presents a problem and also offers a solution. In the case of the ”problem” of Wikipedia, the solution that he provides is that professors and educators should teach their students on how Wikipedia works. Students should be taught how to edit on Wikipedia and how exactly Wikipedia allows the general public to edit their pages. By doing this, we are converting Wikipedia into a valuable resource.
Overall, I enjoyed this book as it gave a real life account on how a historian went from attaching the syllabus for his class online, to understanding and arguing for more people to understand and appreciate the benefit of using technology. As I have mentioned earlier, he divides his content neatly, which allows his book to be an easy, non-stress read.
Earlier in this review, I argued that this book is useful for all, even though it was written for history professors and historians. I stand in firm in my position and would further maintain that students and professors alike, whether they are studying history or not, can benefit from this work. The reality is that the majority of our population is going to, at one part in their lives or another, especially because of the modernization of our world, will come across digital sources, and it is important that through this interaction, we can use these said sources to benefit and accurately narrate history.

[Lamar Hanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

**WARNING** SOME SPOILERS AHEAD

Teaching History in the Digital Age is a book that explores the various difficulties and advantages that arise when teachers and professors bring the digital world into their classrooms. T. Mills Kelly argues that the ways students approach and consume content online (which is not exclusive to historical content) are rapidly changing, while the methods that educators employ to create and perpetuate content is lagging further and further behind. Kelly believes that professors need to meet their students halfway, so to speak; to bring the time-honored principles of historiographical research into new mediums, specifically, digital ones.

Before actually writing my review, the first thing I did was plug the author’s name into the Google search bar. The second thing I did was admire the irony of my actions. The search quickly turned up his faculty page at George Mason University, his personal blog, his various monographs and publications, and finally, his profile on the popular student website, RateMyProfessors.com, all of which paint the picture of a dedicated educator with a decorated career. He earned his PhD in History at George Washington University, and is a specialist on teaching methodologies in History. It’s safe to say that Teaching History in the Digital Age is written by an expert in the field.

Kelly divides his book into five sections: Thinking, Finding, Analyzing, Presenting, and Making. The first, Thinking, is a brief study of how students consume and understand history. Kelly points out that it should be obvious that it is integral to know how students learn before anyone can attempt to teach them. He, states that the end goal of any historian should be an accurate/true representation of the past, but he argues that true facts and statements about the past are not history. Instead, Kelly cites Robert Bain’s interpretation of History as an epistemology that encourages its practitioners to analyze and explore the sources available to them. He emphasizes the importance of critical thinking and research skills in the digital age, where the amount of sources available at any given time is far too much for anyone to process. The next chapter segues seamlessly into the topic of abundant sources, pointing out that online databases contain millions of items on millions of topics, and search engines such as Google make access to them instantaneous. In this chapter, Kelly underlines the importance of teaching students how to properly search for and vet historical sources since an increasing amount of information found online is erroneous, and search engine results are not always the most reliable. His third section is particularly interesting, as it delves into the methods that are used (and still being developed) to sift through the dizzying amount of online content. From such simple notions as categorizing and labelling sources as they are digitized (which he calls “markups”) to employing text- and data-mining software that can identify relations between keywords or subjects across countless documents, images, or even maps. The final two sections, Presenting and Making, were much the same, as they both explored how to take advantage of the growing online community to create virtual tours and exhibits that can benefit from open-sourced feedback (which includes, but is not limited to, wikis and blogs). These two sections bore one striking difference, however, in that the final section detailed Kelly’s own attempt at teaching his students these important historiographical lessons by tasking them with perpetuating a historical hoax.

The final chapter was, in my opinion, the most interesting part of the whole book. It is in this chapter that Kelly describes a university course he once taught called “Lying About the Past.” Kelly describes this experimental course as an attempt at making History as fun to undergraduate and graduate students as it is to fifth-graders. It was in this chapter that Kelly really brought out the importance of one of the core concepts of his book: the separation of content and form. Throughout the book, he argues that professors need to move beyond the standard essay format, in order to create History assignments that are more engaging, while also cultivating the same skills of research, analytical thinking, creativity, and presentability that is expected of any historian. Another important outcome he highlights in the course is that it taught his students to exercise a healthy degree of skepticism towards any sources of information they find. By teaching his students the methods and circumstances that lend to the creation of hoaxes, myths, and simple inaccuracies in history, he also taught them how to identify and avoid these mistakes when consuming history, and, more importantly, when creating their own historical content. Moreover, even though these students were charged with fabricating a piece of history, they had to learn and employ various historiographical skills to do so successfully. I found myself smiling in bemusement as he described his students doing real, extensive historical research in order to better situate their fake American pirate, and regretting that no History course I have ever taken was so engaging and amusing.

While this book was an interesting, even fun, read, the author himself recognizes that the digital landscape is changing so fast, much of what he wrote became obsolete even as he was writing it. Kelly describes many of the discoveries about the usefulness of Web 2.0 coding and the applications of data-mining softwares as cutting-edge, but even as I read this a mere three years later, some of the techniques and programs he mentions have already faded out of the spotlight to be replaced by newer, better softwares (for example, Instagram and Reddit have become far more prevalent than they were in the early 2010s). Nonetheless, he makes many powerful arguments for the importance of digital media in the classroom, and his book would benefit any student who is currently pursuing education (of any subject, not just history). It is an appropriate book, certainly, for courses concerning how History is consumed on the Internet, but at nothing more than an introductory level.

As an aside, I found that the book contained a higher-than-average amount of spelling, grammar, and syntax mistakes. Shame on the editor.

[Rachael · Rating 4 out of 5]

T. Mills Kelly starts off introducing himself and his ideas in an lengthy introduction clarifying his reasonings for writing this book. The book is light and the language is easy and fluid. Kelly’s claims to understand and facilitate his student’s learning is clear by his lack of superfluous and onerous language that history texts often incorporate. Kelly is an engaging writer and his book is full of charming and familiar anecdotes to help prove his points.
Kelly opens the book with an anecdote on how a student changed the background music of a video from the Nuremberg Trials so that it correctly adds to the mood of the video. However, in doing this the student changes the primary source instead of simply analyzing it as one would normally do in a history class. Kelly is rightfully shocked but uses this memory as an example of how students learn differently with the influence of the internet. Kelly makes many convincing arguments throughout the book such as the clash between teachers and students, the lack of understanding and historical thinking on the student’s part, as well as the problem of limitless sources on the internet.
The first chapter explains how the best way to teach history and the best way for students to learn is not the same method according to Kelly. This topic contributes to his idea of the relationship between a teacher and a student and the clash between them which is his overall thesis. History teachers often do not know how to teach history so that students can understand, and students are not sure what teachers want out of them. Teachers in the field of history feel students are lacking in their historical thinking, especially because students treat history as familiar instead of other, and when solving a problem, they make assumptions that do not work when looking at the past.
One of his stronger points in chapter two is how he mentions the growing problem of the abundance of historical sources online that anyone can access. This evolves into a topic of quantity over quality, especially as the use of the internet provides students with sources that are not always reputable or reliable. This also comes up in chapter three on analyzing historical sources and how the limitless sources available can make it hard for students to narrow their pick efficiently. Kelly makes a solid argument on how to teach using the internet as a tool instead of something to ignore because of intimidation.
Kelly also notes how students today are not only consuming online content, they are creating it. One example being the student who altered the primary source video of the Nuremberg Trials. Kelly argues positively that this asset of his student’s lives can be used as a tool to teach history, especially as history is largely about understanding the past which is what the student tried to do by changing the music to understand the video better. He focuses on the faults of both students and teachers, but especially teachers in their skewed pursuit of teaching a history without digital media.
I love that Kelly derails lecturing as a method of teaching that many professors in institutions take up, because of the numerous studies that have proven it is not an efficient way for students to learn. Similarly, he adds that testing ‘just the facts’ do not promote historical thinking or learning on part of the student, which he ultimately holds as one of the reasons for teaching history. This is a good point that I wish Kelly would have went in more depth on.
His weaknesses are infrequent but present; his writing is littered with anecdotes which can take away from the points he is trying to make in each chapter. He likes to use these anecdotal comparisons to facilitate understanding but he often uses historical events to make a point. These comparisons can be confusing if a reader is not aware of that person, place, or event. For example, on page five of the introduction he mentions a mural created by artist Gustav Klimt for the University of Vienna that was so unique it shocked the art critics present, and he compares this shock to how he felt when a student altered a primary source in his class. Kelly mentions his area of expertise is in Eastern European history, thus many of his examples are from the historical events of Eastern European countries which can limit the audience. Kelly also unjustly refers to all students as one group despite that each student is going to be fundamentally different to one another.
The audience of this book is intended for Kelly’s peers as a history professor at a university. He aims the book as a quasi self-help book for history teachers in the digital age. The thought processes behind each chapter on how to engage students to history with technology and the internet at hand are intended for the teaching style of post secondary schools rather than high schools or below. In the first chapter, he mentions his list for historical thinking, which detail the expectations he as a university/college teacher has for his students. There isn’t any need for historical thinking to understand that these expectations are above the high school level of education. This book is also intended for any teacher who struggles with digital media in the classroom and how the internet has influenced the way students learn today. Kelly even mentions that professors who teach physics come across the same problems with technology and the internet. Students, notably in history, could also be the intended audience but Kelly does not focus his writing to them, instead referring to the students as one mass that professors try to understand and teach by using this book.
I recommend this book if you are interested in teaching modern students today and wish to incorporate the internet into your lessons with all the positives of it and none of the drawbacks. As a student, this could be an insight into why professors hate when you use Wikipedia. Kelly makes tremendous points about the attitudes of teaching at a post-secondary level in relation to digital media and tries to offer up helpful solutions for those who fear the power and prominence of the internet in the life of students today.

[Vaughn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Teaching History in the Digital Age by T. Mills Kelly.

T. Mills Kelly was teaching in the early stages of the internet and was able to see that his history students would have to adapt to the coming changes. In his book he talks of how students engage with and utilize technology to better their research and understanding of history. His book also mentions the digitization of archives and how the preservation of information on the internet can be beneficial and a problem. Kelly was a digital education pioneer in the 1990’s and he along with other professors were able to start developing their own digital research methods but, also start grooming young minds into the digital age. However, he also points out that with new technology and methods of research there is also new problems and fears for the future historians. Kelly’s book explains a lot of what younger students take for granted in the digital age and often we do not think of how risky or unreliable the digital world can be.
The book is organized and Kelly does well to present his strategy to dealing with the digital world as well as his theories towards education with technology. The book is divided into five chapters: Thinking, Finding, Analyzing, Presenting and Making. “Thinking”, focuses on how people should approach historical thought and to think in that time of history. “Finding”, is how a student should go about exploring the internet and trying to avoid false information or racial centrist websites. “Analyzing”, is how students access all the resources they find on the internet and utilize it for their assignments or learning. “Presenting”, is how they use this evidence and how to compile it in a way that is correct and informative. “Making”, is very similar to presenting but, Kelly talks about how students should add onto or create their own content to understand.
Kelly designed this book to be read by college professors teaching history, he also wanted to bring attention and guidance to the professors to integrate the digital world into a history class. It’s a fun project although as he mentions early in the book he thought it would be necessary. In 2017 it is absolutely necessary to incorporate technology into the classroom. The digital world cannot totally replace a classroom because of the social interaction and the ability of a professor to guide the subject matter and also help consolidate broad ideas. Students will be exposed to media in multiple ways. Kelly touches on the fact that a modern student already walks into a classroom and has multiple social network pages and they are well versed in how to interact with internet although some may lack knowledge on just how it works.
An example of some of Kelly's interesting proposals is in the chapter presenting (pg 83). Kelly brings up an interesting thought about how students write essays and that it is a private interaction between the teacher and student. He argues that it could be more beneficial if all the students had some kind of way (digitally) to view each other's thoughts and it would make for a more informative discussion. More open discussion can form the classes consensus on subject matter much like Wikipedia does for the entire internet. This among other examples is how Kelly’s writing is interesting and challenges a reader's traditional way of thinking about the classroom. Kelly presents the reader with many ideas to think about the digital age and history. He is very informative and convincing.
Although sometimes within the book it feels as if he is arguing for major changes he really is not. In fact he states that he thinks the education system should remain the same but, perhaps a little modification in the way students learn because of the exposure to information online. I agree with a lot of what Kelly had to say in his book, especially since students are often exposed to a lot historical content before enrolling in a course. I’m glad that this book covered every aspect of history and technology because it leaves a reader satisfied. Another interesting point Kelly brings to the reader's attention involves the actual writing of his book; how, if changes had to be made it cannot be done after the book is printed, there only can be another revised edition and it would take months or years to do so. The writing of history online offers quick revision however; writing history online offers more people with alternate ideas of a certain event. A public domain such a Wikipedia is a consensus of an event.
Kelly’s book is very informative however there is a few bad points to how the book is written. In Kelly's book he often repeats himself and the book maybe could have been condensed. There is a little bit of over explanation although, for less internet savvy readers (who the book is written for) may need it. The book has a lot of examples but, may not have needed so many. There was also a dragging out ideas or taking a long time for transition.
This book really does challenge a reader's thoughts on how to approach digital history and for myself it was a lot of new information or just a change in perspective. Kelly’s ideas are quite interesting and he himself may be a divergent thinker. The book overall is a good read and is probably something even a history student should be aware of. I believe the intention of this book was Kelly’s pitch to have a more inclusive classroom discussion and that we talk about the internet and there is almost an equality in the classroom of sharing information between all students and the professor teaching the course. Kellys book definitely explains anything a reader wants to know about the subject, professor or student.
Although kelly says he wrote the book for professors to be used as a guide of how to teach history however; the book simultaneously can introduce a student into how one can process historical information taught in class. This book can also show a student how they themselves should look at anything they find on the internet or even things they learn in class. I would recommend this book to any audience seeking information about digital history.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a third-year university student, I really appreciate the overall message and content of this book. The author, T. Mills Kelly takes a more thoughtful approach when looking at the way History has been taught in high schools and universities. Kelly takes a fresh look at the common misconceptions and issues that teachers and professors encounter when thinking about the way history exists on the Internet. He also discusses the steps in which students and teachers encounter history in its newest form when doing research and the results of that research. These steps he divides into chapters: Thinking, Finding, Analyzing, Presenting, and Making. Each of these chapters explains what students are thinking about history when writing papers and completing history assignments. It is very helpful for teachers to know what problems students face and how they are acquiring and encountering information in this digital age, in order to help them learn.
In the chapter titled Thinking, Kelly writes about how students learn about history. He discusses how only a few students have a natural “historical sense” when it comes to thinking about information in a meaningful way. (Page 15) This means when a professor is giving a lecture, most students will think all of the information is equally important. Students with this historical sense will be able to differentiate important information from the rest. He also discusses the misconceptions many students have when they think they know the whole story. He uses the example of the women’s suffrage movement. Many students would just assume all women wanted the right to vote, when in reality, this was not the case and that many women had valid reasons for not wanting to vote. (Page 19)
Moving on to the Finding chapter, there are so many sources on the Internet that it is not difficult to discover information on historical topics. Kelly discusses how “Google Makes College Easy” by revealing the most viewed sources on the first page. This does not always mean that the sources are reliable, as he would reveal when looking at the “Hitler Historical Museum” source and how bias it can be. In the chapter, Analyzing he looks at how to determine which sources online are good sources. There is an existence of primary sources online that can be good for students to use, but there are also many sources that are very bias and dangerous. The chapter on Presenting is about the different ways students are required to present historical information and why they are required to do so. The chapter titled Making discusses how history is being made in the digital age and the vast rate it is made.
I agree with a lot of the information relayed in this book and I wish that teachers in high schools and universities implemented more of the ideas mentioned in the book. The chapter Thinking, was very relatable to me because the way he describes how students think about history is how I thought about it in high school. The task of researching a history topic has always been very daunting to me. It has always been extremely stressful to decide which sources are valid. I really enjoyed when Kelly was discussing how not all sources online that are not .edu are invalid. I agreed with him when he was saying that some .edu sources could be just as valid or invalid than websites that are .com or Wikipedia. As students, most of us have always been told that Wikipedia is not a valid source to use in academic papers. Kelly brings up many great points about Wikipedia and how because it is crowed edited, it can be even more accurate than some other sources that teachers would approve of.
The example of the “Hitler Historical Museum” website that seems valid is a great example of not taking websites at face value. (Page 37) It really taught me a lesson about back-checking even the simplest of sources. On the first page of the website has some very simple facts and common known theories about Nazi Germany during world war two. When there was further research done on the website it was discovered that the website was a pro-Nazi site. The birthday cake for Hitler on one of their web pages is proof of this. (Page 44) The point he makes in this example is a very important one in doing research that all students and teachers should know.
Other than the content of the book, the structure of the book was very easy to follow and well read. The author does not use such formal language that makes it too dry to read like many history books do. The book is filled with many personal experiences the author describes his own experience as a history professor. This makes the book much easier to read and actually enjoyable at the same time. Its only weakness would be that the Internet is a very difficult to publish in a book form. It would have been much easier to write an online book on the topic to be able to go back in and update it as needed.
Perhaps the thing I enjoyed most about the book was the honesty of the author. In his conclusion section of the book, he admits that by the time the book is published it will already be out of date. This book really speaks to its audience of history teachers. I believe that not only should all history teachers give this book a read to improve their teaching strategies, but all history students should read it as well. This book is helpful for students because of its fresh look at the way we think about history. As a history student myself, reading this book from a fresh perspective got me excited about all of the new ways I can view and create history as a student. This book made me realize there are so many possibilities out there for my fellow students and myself. Since there is history being made all the time, and the rate it is being made is amplified by social media: every historical event that has happened in the recent past is documented on sites like Twitter and Facebook by people from all over the world. This may make it more difficult to find valid information, but nonetheless, the information is there from all different points of view from all over the world.

[Jakob · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved reading Teaching History in the Digital Age, not only because I am a history student, but because this book provides a new insight into how history should be taught all over the world in classrooms. T. Mills Kelly breaks his book into five different chapters: thinking, finding, analyzing, presenting, and making. Each chapter provides readers with a different perspective on how history has been developing in the digital world while criticizing some educators who are still trying to teach history the same way they learned decades ago. Kelly's use of his own research online, personal experiences, and the information that his students were able to gather in his courses allow him to reinforce his ideologies about how most historians are stuck in an older time period. He also criticizes other historians who believe the use of the traditional research paper is the best way for students to demonstrate their learning and academic ability as historians.

In his introduction and first chapter, "Thinking", Kelly discusses how students are growing up in this digital age and have so much to offer when it comes to providing good academic research by using new technology and the web. With so much new development and access to information on the internet and digital archives, Kelly argues that there are more options available on the web now for research and learning that older historians are either not aware of, or do not wish to implement and teach students how to use in their classrooms. I like how Kelly criticizes his generation of teachers on how they have not progressed with the new technology available to students or help guide their learning by using it. As a history student now, I rely on interesting YouTube videos and blogs to further my knowledge on a subject and I am rarely interested by generic lectures and textbook readings. At the end of his first chapter, I cannot agree more with Kelly and how he discusses the advantages digital media can have on the learning and teaching of history (Page 25).
Another thing I liked about the book is that Kelly provides multiple examples of how students now rely on search engine results to find research for their projects, unlike previous historians who would go to a library or search through archives. For example, in his second chapter, "Finding", Kelly provides readers with searches about Adolf Hitler and how using the first several results, which look reliable to me at a first glance, do not actually contain any truly credible information. You are then able to see that after picking apart the source's data and researching the site, it was not created by a national database or provide an unbiased opinion since it was linked to Nazi-affiliated sites (Page 42). As a student, Kelly offered me different perspectives and a new insight as to which sources I should consider using when collecting my own research. I also like how he presents his readers with the information they need on how websites should be analyzed before using their information, such as who created the website, the metadata it contains, its history, and reviews of the website.

Even though I found the several examples of different ways to approach finding a credible source useful, I find Kelly did not discuss how to use these sources to our advantage once we are finished school. Kelly dedicates most of chapter 4, "Presenting", to how teachers should start to stray away from the five, seven, and ten-page essays because they do not aid in their students' post-diploma future (Page 83). When I finished this chapter, I have to say I agree with him on changing the curriculum, but there seems to be a grey area in which I also believe academic history papers are important to a student's learning. I feel academic essays provide students with an opportunity to demonstrate their understanding and show further insight into a topic. Also, being able to receive feedback on what they could have done better in the future gives students something they can reflect upon and then later implement into post-diploma work. However, I do agree with Kelly on his point that presentations students created during their schooling can later be used as a portfolio in applying for either graduate school or a place of work as it shows a sense of creativity and the characteristics in their work (Page 85).

In his conclusion, Kelly sums up his point on how educators need to grow with the development of technology and the digital age. As a student, I do not think that history has fallen behind as a discipline, but there are many things that Kelly addresses in this book that should definitely be taken into consideration by other history teachers. I enjoyed the way he presented his ideas on topics such as researching, presenting, and making history and how they are falling behind as us students are growing up in an age of technology, but no instructor to teach us how to utilize these new resources to our advantage. I feel as though history teachers should take Kelly's ideas into consideration since most history students do not want to stick to the standards of textbook readings and writing essays because, as Kelly mentions, there is new technology available that historians can use to create more interesting learning experiences.

I feel this book would mainly interest history teachers, students, and anyone who is interested in how history has developed digitally over the last few decades along with how the discipline has been able to take advantage of the new resources and databases available on the web. These types of people would like this book because Kelly provides personal experiences about why he believes history should change as a discipline by trying new things in his classroom that include using digital history, not just reading and writing.

[Olivia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I definitely recommend this book! It went over some very important issues that are almost always overlooked and I appreciate T. Mills Kelly for bringing them to light for me. For example, Kelly speaks about how easy it is to create a “factual” “un-biased” web page as well as a way to look behind the scenes at how certain websites end up on the top of your search results lists. T. Mills Kelly is a professor and specialist in the scholarship of teaching and learning in history and in this book, he takes a jab at his own field. He does this by reminding us of the problematic way history is still being taught to students as it has 100 years ago, yet the new generations of students in these modern times have available different types of resources and ways of thinking/learning. T. Mills Kelly acknowledges the cultural shifts and the problems facing the way history is taught and how history is learned in today’s age. Although Kelly is writing in the early 2010’s, he recognizes that by the time the book is published and others read it, it will be going out of date as technology is constantly changing, but he attempts to give strategies on how students and teachers may follow along. One of the ways he does this is by giving a great definition on historical thinking. He provides a list of 15 ways to go about thinking historically, a list that I would not have even considered when I attempt to do my own historical thinking. I definitely feel like many other students would benefit from knowing that list. I found it very interesting when T. Mills Kelly connected the informal writing college students do every day to the contribution of our own histories. “…thousands of text messages the average college student will write in a semester… a substantial fraction of today’s students will have a blog; a Twitter feed; will publish and mark up photographs; will insert tags on images, videos, blog posts, and Facebook profiles; will create online videos; and will write entries for databases. And perhaps many will write comments ranging from a few words to many hundreds on content they find online” (80). Before this quote, I would have never thought of all the ways the modern generations actually write and record what they see and feel about personal and political topics. Even though I spend a good amount of my down time reading Instagram’s comment section looking for a debate or a discussion I can add to or share with my friends and family. The author of Teaching History in the Digital Age provides all of these insights to the reader in his easy to read, clear writing along with a splash of his wit and humour. This made the book both interesting in its content and entertaining in its delivery. There are not many weaknesses that I can point out among this book although it is a tad long. When I say “long” I am referring to the explanations, details and back stories, in my opinion. This unfortunately made me lose focus a few times and forget what I was reading. For example, the introduction of this book was a little difficult for me to read. I am usually comfortable reading large words and phrases but for some reason, the way things are worded and digressed in the intro made me feel like I was not as smart as I thought I was. Once I made it past the intro and into the chapters, it became a lot easier to understand and follow. One thing I disagreed with that T. Mills Kelly said was his suggestion of removal of the “five-page paper” as a primary teaching tool, since it apparently no longer benefits the student’s learning practices of this generation. “This reality then begs the question whether the five-page paper really helps students prepare for the world they will live in once they graduate? My belief is that it does not” (82). Although Kelly made some very good points and mentions the many other options students now a days have, I feel like the five-page paper is still very useful for students and should remain mandatory and primary. I stand by this because I feel papers encourage students to formulate their arguments in a professional format as well as provide clear evidence to support their argument in order to convince the reader their viewpoint is correct. I feel that this practice, as long as it has been around, is very useful in educating students in academic writing and reading and the specific techniques of formulating impactful arguments. Other than that, this book was actually very interesting. I enjoyed reading it and I feel like I learned quite a bit about my own modern generation, also how my peers and I learn and receive information from the web. Moreover, as I said at the beginning of this review, I would definitely recommend this book, especially to academic audiences. I think this book is perfect for academic audiences because for one: its title. Teaching History in the Digital Age will definitely grab educators’ attention on the shelf. Once flipping through, these educators will be able to find helpful information on how to add efficiency to their job. Kelly provides many interesting insights about how students learn and react to the changing lifestyle of this modern time. History educators would benefit greatly in knowing how their students will be going about finding evidence to support their ideas and what their students may be taking away from the web. The introduction I spoke about earlier is also part of the reason I would recommend this book to educationists, as they would have no problem following along with his wordy sentences, as well as their interest in what they are reading would not waver as much as mine did. Although I mostly suggest an academic audience to read this book, I believe anyone interested in learning how to teach himself or herself how to properly find and analyse content they find on the web would be very appreciative of this book.

[Sarah Helm · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a teacher who tries to incorporate a variety of technologies within my own classroom, I have to say I enjoyed this book. Kelly gives a comprehensive look at the problems, challenges facing Historians and Teachers of History, within the new era of the digital world. An era in which, many in academia are uncomfortable with, as it challenges the long-standing, status quo ideas of how facts, and materials should be presented, researched, and studied.
I felt that Kelly did a good job for the most part, in both presenting the challenges of the digital world, and giving clear examples of how to approach these challenges, within the context of teaching history. He sufficiently outlined both new ideas, with new technologies, and presents practical applications to the teaching of History. He begins with outlining how technology – mostly the internet has contributed to the exponential growth, and availability, of databases, and primary sources. I see Kelly as both honest and optimistic, in his explanation of how this evolving freedom of information, and sources can seem like an arena of bedlam in the eyes of his colleagues. He is confident in his proposal, that if students are taught properly; the digital age can enrich students work, and still maintain academic integrity.
Kelly categorizes the approaches to digital age learning into 5 main categories. This makes it easy to understand the process of studying History within this context. He begins with ‘How students learn about the past’. Presenting the challenges to the traditional methods of teaching History – in which he feels, so far is inadequate. He makes a strong argument, that students should be shown how to search, and assess online sources, and new forms of content through websites, blogs, and social networks. All of which are becoming common ways to communicate ideas, facts, and accounts of events both present, and past. He stresses the importance of critical thinking, and the significance for students to question the legitimacy of the digital sources they are using. He uses the ‘The Hitler Historical museum’ website as an example for students. He demonstrates how digital sources can often be misleading or biased, and students must be acute in their understanding of who creates digital sources, and how those sources show up in a search engine.
After establishing that students search, and verify legitimate sources, Kelly shifts his focus from finding sources, to how these sources can be used in creating History. At this point, he is hard selling the idea to History teachers. He has some great examples, which show how technology can enrich our understanding of an event, through the use of multiple sources and varying software. This point is well illustrated, in which he explains how using multi-layered sources, such as geographic interfaces, texts and photos, can give a broader picture of events that took place, which lends itself to ask more enriching questions of the events. In one example, he demonstrates how the use of multi layering maps; which pin brothel locations and prostitution arrests in Harlem, resulted in showing a larger scope of the relationship between police and sex work in that area at the early part of the century. Kelly illustrates how this multi layering approach to Historical archives, allows students to do richer analysis of the information available.
I feel Kelly gives a fair insight into the traditional pedagogical approach of teaching History in academia, as well as outlining the relevancy of these teaching methods in light of all the digital possibilities. I agree with Kelly, in that if we hope to engage students in this field of study, or any field of study for that matter, it is time teachers ‘meet them’, on their turf, so to say, and utilize the programs, software and platforms to better present information, as well as provoke new ideas from students. Kelly does a good job at showing interesting ways to incorporate the digital arena to make presenting and working with historical archives an enriching learning experience. He also is able to challenge the status quo of lecturing and essay writing in a methodical way, and demonstrates how the skills of historical thinking can be still refined and practiced in an alternative way that is engaging to this generation. Kelly is also clear in that, as much as technology can enrich the learning experience, and offer a hands-on approach to historical archives; it does not mean to discard traditional historical thinking methods. He suggests that embracing the digital age creates an opportunity for collaborative findings, while “challenging students to make history through their own creative impulses”.
Over all, I enjoyed the book, but must admit, I found it surprising that the digital age appears to be somewhat difficult to embrace for those in academia. At times, I felt that Kelly presented a dichotomy between Professors and students - old versus young in mindset. As if he were under the assumption that anyone over the age of 25 wouldn’t know how to use technology to enrich learning. I also thought it interesting that Kelly did not discuss Podcasts at all. Rather than focussing on the shortcomings of PowerPoint, this type of presentation could enrich the oral history telling, and improve the traditional lecturing, in presenting important content to students.
Kelly’s main audience for this book is Historians and teachers of the Humanities. I would recommend this book, but also would suggest it to a broader audience of educators. I feel that many disciplines could benefit from the perspectives Kelly presents; in which the digital age can enrich critical analysis, and thinking through the refinement skill; in turn create a deeper understanding of events and material.

[Paulo Castro · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a student under the education system for most of my life (thus far), I’ve always been curious as to what teachers and professors do or think about when it comes to trying to inspire their students to actually want to learn. There are some educators that are still passionate about what they do, so they innovate and adapt to their situations; while there are some that recycle the exact same thing.

Theodore Kelly’s, Teaching History in the Digital Age, gives insight as to what innovation and adaptation means in a classroom.

Let’s start of with a quick summary of the book. Kelly separates the book into five chapters: Thinking, Finding, Analyzing, Presenting and Making. The first chapter, Thinking, focuses on how students approach history. Finding focuses on do’s and don’t of finding credible sources online. Analyzing is trying to figure out how students integrate what they have found and use it to their situation. Presenting is how they use this evidence. Then, Making is creating the medium as to how to put all of these elements together.

The next part of this review is a brief analysis of the purpose as to why Kelly felt the need to write this book. Unfortunately, as a student, more than half of the time, lectures and class bore the hell out of me. I usually end up having to learn the material on my own time, ask other students in the class, or just swallow the fact that I’m not going to get an A. I’m sure professors and teachers all know that they have students just like me. Kelly nailed it when he said how students are teachable, and how we want to find the best resources to do well in the class Basically, I do want to learn, I do want to do well, but there seems to be a disconnect when it comes to effectively translating what the professor wants to teach and me wanting to learn. Kelly then goes on to say how historians have never been good in teaching their students how to find resources online; which I believe is due to the online word being such a young resource to everybody. No one has yet to find the best way to utilize such an evolving and vast resource. I believe Kelly wrote this book as an introduction to show the holes in the education system, and various ways as to how history, amongst others, should adapt to the evolving world of the digital system.

Like any other reviews, every book has its strengths and weaknesses. One of Kelly’s book’s strengths is its honesty; for example, Kelly says how a link is usually clicked on when it’s on the first page of the search result. Even the most honest and hard working of students use this strategy when looking for online resources. Another strength is its anecdotes with a teacher’s perspective. Earlier in this review, I mentioned how I’ve always been curious as to what teachers and professors go through in classes. In this book, Kelly starts to doubt himself and his teaching ability because for some reason he is not able to engage the students. I think this part of the book was really eye opening because it revealed to me that teachers are trying just as much as students just with a different purpose. Another strength of this book is its flexibility. I found that Kelly also talked about the major principle problems that are present in the education system that exists outside of history. This enables other departments, faculties and disciplines to read this book, and potentially get tips on how to improve their teaching styles, syllabus, curriculum, etc.

Next is the weakness of this book. Unfortunately, this book falls in the trap of using examples way too much. As I was reading, the first two chapters were easy enough to understand, and there was a nice flow going on. As soon as you hit the third chapter, Kelly starts to use way too many examples and just starts listing stuff. I get that he is trying to be as vivid as possible, but recreating databases filled with names and dates as far as 1888 is just not interesting enough for a reader in today’s age to really get the grasp of how cool it may have seem at that time. Chapter three was definitely the densest, thus this book’s biggest weakness because of the overwhelming number of examples Kelly uses that fails to interest most readers, at least me.

At the end of the day, I thoroughly enjoyed the book. I enjoyed it because I liked the writing style, it was simple, easy to follow and informational. Secondly, the author was relatable. Kelly definitely showed me the other side of the education system, which I’ve always been curious about. Also, I enjoyed Kelly’s book because he and I share the same belief that learning can and should be fun. Kelly states how he had a class that would come early and stay late, was engaged throughout the class, and laughed all semester. I’m lucky enough to understand what he is talking about because I was part of a practicum in my institution, where I wanted to come to class early, stay late and was forced out of the classroom because there was another class coming. I’m convinced that my experience in that practicum has taught me more than I have in any other classes combined. For someone in the education system to strive for something similar, I can’t help but be on board.

I recommend this book to high school students, high school teachers, post-secondary students and professors of all disciplines because, like I mentioned earlier, Kelly’s strategies and principles can apply to more disciplines. Also, exposing digital media, strategies how to use it, the don’ts of digital media at an earlier age, especially today, could be a good idea because it allows for more time for the students to get used to it, create their own strategies on how to use it to their benefit.

[Jennifer Reid · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked how the author went in depth to explain himself and the points he was trying to make. Especially talking about teaching and learning strategies I think it is very important for the author to make sure they are being as detailed as possible. I enjoyed the use of his personal experiences with using the internet as a tool for his students. He made the book personable and relatable by using his experiences with using the internet as a tool. He brings up important questions that we as consumers of the internet should ask ourselves, which I found helpful if the reader is not familiar with the internet, how it works or how it can be used to the best of its ability. I liked how the author embraced the internet and payed attention to how amazing and helpful of a tool it can be used for. There are many professors that I have either had myself or have hear of that completely disregards the internet as a whole and believes that there is no concrete reliable sources that should be used for historical research purposes. It was eyeopening to have someone like Kelly so excited about the internet and how it can improve and build on our experiences. An example of this would be in the introduction when Kelly talked about a student who changed the audio in a historical clip. Kelly explains at first he did not believe it was a more authentic source but later understood that it very well could have been.

The book has five main chapters that touch on things that should be considered while teaching history in the digital age. The first chapter revolves around thinking. The author talks about how people are ignoring the fact that lecturing is the least effective way to teach history. Kelly goes on to explain that while lecturing, not only is the information given not being absorbed but that students already of preconceived notions of history and tend to draw their own conclusions from what they already know. In the second chapter Kelly talks about finding information on the internet. Kelly explains lessons that he has learned from searching the internet for information. These lessons include “Google Makes College Easy”, “If It’s Not Digital, It Doesn't Exist”, “If It Looks Reasonable, It’s Probably Fine”, and finally “All Content Online Is Fair Game.” In the third chapter where Kelly talks about analyzing sources on the internet, he mentions software that helps us connect information to help us better understand information by giving us more resources to investigate. The fourth chapter talks about presenting and how you can contribute to information online. He gives examples and elaborates on things such as slideware, Blogs and Microblogs and Wikis. The fifth chapter focuses on making content and how to get involved and make the internet a fun learning place.

The book demonstrates and gives many examples of how the internet has changes the way teachers teach history. Overall I believe this book is helpful and eye opening to the many challenges that teachers face while trying to teach students history and the way the students perceive history. The author provides many examples of how he has personally seen the introduction of the internet. I thought that the author did his job and got his point across quite clearly and effectively. I find that this book is a very loose manual on the internet and the ways it can be used. Kelly gives a lot of background to his examples and findings that help the reader get a good understanding of what he is talking about as well as how credibility on the subject. It is clear that he knows what he is talking about and this shows in his work.

A weakness that I noticed was that he had the tendency to repeat himself on several occasions. He would either reuse a word or a phrase multiple times within a few pages. He would also repeat himself with his ideas or the ideas would go on for too long. Which I know is in contrast to what I said about him explaining things well and efficiently. What I am trying to say is that the author teeter-totters between giving enough well thought out information and dragging an idea or example on for too long.

The audience for this book is historians and professors as it relates heavily to those topics. Kelly gives wonderful insight on the different ways the internet can be used in the classroom as a learning tool. It is clearly stated that lecturing to students is not an effective way for them to obtain information so I believe that it would be in a professors (particularly history professors) best interest to read this book and ask themselves the same questions that Kelly proposes. This book would also be good for historians who want to do research and contribute their findings. Kelly gives great advice on how what to look out for while researching and finding information online through reputable sources. He also gives a lot of information about how to contribute and the types of ways one can contribute to the content information online. I also believe that if can be helpful to students. For me personally, I thought that this booked helped me understand the way that I retain information and how I have biases that prevent me from learning the full story. I am now more careful and aware when I search the internet for research. This book has given me a new perspective to the way professors teach and how it can effect the way that each student learns.

[Nicholas Robinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Overall, Teaching History in the Digital Age was an interesting and informative read that I was quite a fan of. Kelly’s book is a guide of sorts for teachers on how to better integrate newer technologies into the classroom to form newer methods of teaching history. I was quite a fan of his liberal use of examples which perfectly illustrate the modern student’s methods at hand. Kelly shows a level of knowledge on this subject that many professors simply cannot. He looks at five crucial skills that historians use: thinking, finding, analyzing, presenting and making; and explores the newer ways that students are approaching and learning these skills. A common theme throughout the book is the idea that history as a field is lagging behind the everyday applicability in young students lives and education. As a student of history, I found this insight interesting and relatable to my life.

I very much appreciated Kelly’s positive view of Internet sourcing and resources. Especially in regards to more dubious sites like Wikipedia. And yes, I still know that Wikipedia is an general encyclopedia not to be sourced from. Now I know not to trust everything I read online, but the overarching opinion of professors that “online sources are inferior and bad” gets tiring and redundant as I repeatedly hand in essays that I source entirely online and receive good grades on. Kelly on the other hand fully accepts this new world order for history and pushes for online literacy for students.

Something that Kelly stressed the most was that the students of today live in a vastly different world than their teachers did and as a result, many teachers do not teach their students the skills they need to succeed. As he points out, the field of history has not changed significantly in the past 100 or so years. The lecturing model of a teacher orating their knowledge to a bunch of nodding students who then regurgitate said facts on an exam remains the most prominent form of teaching. Students also have to write out the information they have found in archives and books in physical libraries in formal, structured essays to relay this back to the teacher. Very traditional, but it fits the needs of students whilst also teaching them the historians skills of analysis and finding sources hidden away in nooks and crannies.

But with the advent of the Internet in the 1990’s, incoming students have lived on the Internet for most of their lives. I related a lot when Kelly pointed out that students often take the lazy route of typing key words into Google and hoping for the best. But this proves his point. History teachers often do not know this new, whacky world of Internet sources and their students, who primarily use the Internet for sources anyways, lose a large part of their analytical education. Whereas earlier students were trained by knowledgeable professors on how to look things up in libraries, I can comfortably speak from personal experience that this is not always the case with Internet sources. That all being said, 2017 is a different world than 2013 and I find more and more professors able to help us out a bit more. Actually, in a mandatory first year course here at the University of Windsor, we spent days going over how to properly access historical collections online.

Kelly’s point on the changing world of students online goes even further. In chapter 4, he brings up some pretty interesting statistics about the amounts that people write in a day. As people plugged into the internet, we create and consume tons of written material on a daily basis from small comments to essay-long posts and responses. This in turn also applies to the real world of post-graduate jobs. As history students, we are always told not to despair at the assumed joblessness of our future because our skills at analytical searching, digging for information and ability to clearly communicate are very valuable skills that employers search for. If that is so, why don’t we have any experience with “real world” writing in school? Its really not likely that we will have to write formal essays to our future bosses. I very much agree with Kelly’s idea that non-essay writing should be incorporated into the classroom. And to be honest, the classes that I liked the most were the ones in which professors took unique approaches to wiring.

One of the weaknesses I could say that are present in this book is that it is dated. For example, Kelly makes constant mention of Flickr, which I haven’t used since 2011. This is understandable though, as the internet changes so fast that its no wonder that a four-year-old book is out of date. Another problem I found was that some of the content about historiographical concepts and such are pretty advanced and can get quite confusing. I could only make sense of most of chapter four due do the knowledge I learnt from a single source I took on historiography a few years ago. To be fair though, I am only a student and this book is clearly intended for professors and other teachers already familiar with concepts such as these.

With all of this attention on how to teach properly it is clear the book’s intended audience is for professors. I feel that it is a great resource for them as Kelly has described many of the problems of teaching history today and potential methods for rectifying them. I for one know of a few professors I would not mind giving this book to.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a well written book, but I take odds with the author when the allowed his students to remix a news reel about WWII. To do so violates the purpose of what you're trying to study and the context in which you're studying it. For example the student was "offended" (aka needs a bitchslap) by the music because it sounded too much like Triumph of the will. The mistake the author made was in not pointing out the context in which these newsreels were made and the music people liked to hear at the time. I would be willing to bet that if the student were to listen to comtemporary music of the time, they might find that ALL the soundtracks might sound similar to triumph of the will.

If you look at movies from the depression era forward, they didn't have the cynicism the had today---they were designed to be uplifting as opposed to today when everyone wants to be down. We forget as the author pointed out that in 1945 we had emerged from a war and depression, from times when whole blocks of houses were quarentined because of disease, people dying in the streets of disease, of not having food, or decent places to live.....in that context maybe things might seem alot different to this poor student's offence....

[Vanessa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Going into this book, I expected to find very little in terms of what I could actually learn considering Kelly says right away that the book is written for history teachers and professors. I discovered relatively quickly that I was wrong, and that I have a lot to learn about how to use the web in academic ways. Kelly takes us through his experiences as a professor trying to use the internet to actually improve the quality of education he gives his students and proposes other history academics consider doing the same. He broadens the scope to include statistics about the web and how universities have decided to use technology, or rather, how most choose not to incorporate technology in their courses. Of course, Kelly notes the inevitability of the technology in his book being outdated almost immediately after publishing, but many of his main points remain valid over 4 years later. The combination of these factors made Kelly's book an enjoyable, insightful read for me.
Although Kelly gives many good tips about how to use the web for academics, the main argument in his book is to emphasize the importance of adapting the teaching methods of history to properly entice and educate current and incoming students that have grown up relying on technology. Not only should educators be incorporating technology in their courses, but actually use technology to engage with history in participatory ways that have been shown to improve knowledge retention. In order to do that, educators need to inform themselves and their students about useful resources. For example, Kelly cites WhoIs.com—a site used to see ownership details and credentials of other sites—as a resource to identify the validity and usefulness of a given webpage. I didn't know about this website beforehand, but I can think of multiple instances where this address would have been useful, especially in my academic career. It's reasons like these that I support Kelly's argument and believe history departments should be more open to adapting in order to better educate students and possibly gain more respect from the general population that often find history too boring to pursue (at least in my experience).
Despite my agreement with Kelly's argument, I can appreciate the fact that he acknowledges the resistance to changing history education drastically and does not scorn history academics for doing what they know. He mentions the ever-existent tension between disciplines like history with more “traditional” disciplines like mathematics. History should not be compared to mathematics because history cannot teach a straightforward, obviously correct answer in the same way mathematics can; these subjects vary greatly in terms of best teaching method and evidential proof. Yet history as a discipline has had to compete to be taken seriously even before it was considered a discipline. However, Kelly acknowledging these facts that make other history academics hesitant does not mean he excuses them for their responsibilities as educators to change in order to actually impart knowledge. He believes if history academics do not change in the coming years, the discipline will lose a good number of incoming students due to their lack of substantial learning that would justify majoring in history. I'm not sure if Kelly's “do or die” approach is over-exaggerated or not, but all I can say is it would be extremely useful to learn in technological ways that currently occupy all aspects of life.
One of the main advantages of reading this book is the amount of specific evidence Kelly has included to prove that new teaching methods are worthwhile. He recounts many personal experiences working with students and how they surprised him with the way they use and learn from technology, and backs up his claims with multiple statistics from multiple sources. He also goes step by step through each point he makes and breaks chapters down into types of technological resources and how they can be used effectively (ie. Google, PowerPoint, Wikipedia, etc.). The downside to this writing style is that it can sometimes be long-winded and/or repetitive, which can make parts of the book harder to get through than others. It becomes especially repetitive when Kelly is speaking about the same example in different chapters (contexts), and while this is understandable, it feels somewhat tedious.
As I mentioned earlier, Kelly says his book is aimed towards history high school teachers and university professors, although he notes that his experience is mostly with university education. I would say it does a good job at advocating for students’ form of education, even though unintentionally. Kelly discusses the controversy surrounding his ideas and implementation of some of them, which leads me to believe that if his book is read by history educators, it will at least start a discussion between them that could mean at least some form of change, even if it is not as “radical” as Kelly’s proposals. For that reason, I believe history teachers and professors should read this book to learn more about their students. I would recommend this book more for academic audiences as the arguments and examples involve the academic world more than the general public, and the more universally useful information Kelly presents could probably be found through easier means.

[Mari · Rating 4 out of 5]

My Thoughts:
I really enjoyed this book, especially as a history teacher. I found myself agreeing with a lot of his ideas, especially in regards to his approach with Wikipedia. It was refreshing to see someone now outwardly bash it but instead offer guided support as how to use it as a source with students. The very fact that he assigned his students to create their own history does not immediately discredit the website, instead it reinforces his idea that diligent research and source vetting is required. I loved that he went through and showed his students exactly how to look and see the recent edits to the Wikipedia page and to track that information.

Despite having some really great ideas that apply to research over all, this is definitely a book aimed at historians - specifically college history professors. As a secondary educator, I did find a lot of useful information, but otherwise it seems to be a bit limiting because of the activities and the type of history research/assignments being described in the book. Overall, I would recommend this book. I’ve already passed it onto the two other people in my department!

Summary:
In his book, Kelly breaks the concept of teaching history into five main sections - thinking, finding, analyzing, presenting, and making. Within each of these sections is a detailed explanation about how to integrate the new digital world into the old traditional historical records. The main argument centers around the idea that digital sources are underutilized by the vast majority of educators and almost solely relied upon by today’s modern student. This creates a discrepancy in information. Indeed, the way students gain information has changed and the “most important result of the changes this abundance brings to the history classroom is that we (the educator) can no longer control the information students have access to” (pp.27). But he does not stop there. Students are not simply collecting facts from the internet and digital sources, they are actually creating content to live on the internet, and in some cases, grow. The role of the instructor, according to Kelly, is to help the student learn how to sift through the endless amounts of information available. To understand that historical sources are not going to necessarily be “pretty” or “neat” and even though students may have the skills to change those sources on the internet, they should abstain.

Another prominent issue addressed in the book is digital literacy and source reliability. It is the job of the educator/historian to teach proper vetting of sources, including those such as wikipedia. He does not advocate avoiding Wikipedia, instead, he suggests teaching students how to use it. One of the things educators must do, is show students that Wikipedia is “a living archive of public debate over how information in that encyclopedia ought to be presented to the public” (pp.50). By showing students how it is edited and how to check the editing, Wikipedia can become a valuable resource.

In the last section of the book, Kelly describes what he calls DIY history. Again, he stresses the importance of using online sources and digital media to consume history. It is just as important to “give them (students) room to create” as it is to “teach them to think like historians” (pp. 106). All in all, the main take away is that digital information and online sources are a valuable resources, but only if those conducting the research are doing so while being “critical consumers” (pp. 114).

[Miljenko Hajdarović · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting read with lot of first hand examples.

[Tyler]

T. Mills Kelly navigates the field of history as it becomes increasingly influenced by a trend toward digital research. Kelly discusses what this means for teachers who may have to reassess their methods of teaching away from the traditional ways in which universities have practiced and advocated for in the past. Students, of course, are the cause of this as they rely on and consistently use the internet as a means of research. Although, sometimes it may be detrimental to their learning experience because of the vastness and unreliable amount of content found on the internet. Kelly argues that teachers should use digital resources to create active learning opportunities that students can create online and that teachers should be open to the surprising results students may come up with when they create that content. Kelly received his BA at the University of Virginia, and his MA and Ph.D. at George Washington University. Besides his education, his resume is impressive due to university, state, and national awards he has won and his involvement with various organizations.

Kelly utilizes a vast amount of resources, as well as direct references to many other scholars. This is done in order to prove his arguments or consider an opposing view so the reader can better understand the topic. For example, the book has a total of 322 sources within its bibliography. This shows that Kelly did thorough research and thus results in a well thought out book. By condensing this extensive amount of information Kelly retrieves from these sources, he is able to narrow what digital history will mean for the field in a concise manner. I imagine that it is a difficult task to undertake but a necessary one. So for that reason, it is excellent to have a short book (130 pages) that is concise and easy to understand. His use of direct references within the text and the large collection of documents he uses allows for the reader to easily find more information that may not be included in the book for further research. Many other scholars are directly quoted in the book, usually followed by Kelly using them as evidence and dissecting what the quote means in relation to Kelly’s argument.

Kelly also uses personal experiences with his own students that he has had while teaching. I felt that this allowed for practical examples of how students in the early twenty-first century are dealing with this new digital age of history. It made it easier to understand what issues teacher and students will need to address in the future. For example, in chapter 2 called “Finding: Search Engine Dependent Learning,” he breaks what students ‘know’ about using the internet into “lessons”. I put quotations around 'know' because these are lessons self-taught by students but are not entirely in their best interest. In each of these four “lessons”, he draws from personal experiences from his students. In “Lesson 2- If It’s Not Digital It Does Not Exist” he describes how he assigned his student a reading. The student couldn’t find the reading on the online academic article archive “JSTOR” and simply gave up on finding the reading. However, Kelly explains that if he just looked on the library bookshelf the student could have easily done the reading. This is just one example of how Kelly uses first-hand experiences with students to describe a point he is trying to make. I advocate for Kelly’s inclusion of his students' experiences because it is practical and easy to understand, it also shows that Kelly isn’t just reading statistics and articles but actually experienced what the book addresses first hand. Many of the chapters include subheadings, similar to the way each lesson was given its own subheading. An example is when he talks about Wikipedia; it is under the sub-heading “Wikis”. This is effective because it makes it easier to understand Kelly’s main points and to navigate the book when doing research. A few pictures are also included which help provide visual examples. The way in which the five chapters are broken up, is also effective as it makes clear what each chapter will address.

An issue with the book, which is noted within the text by Kelly himself, is that the digital realm is constantly changing. This means that new developments in the world of digital history will be absent from the book. The issue with that is some sections might become out of date quickly, missing some new and vital information. For example, certain statistics may change, an introduction of new social media platforms, or if a website becomes less relevant can all result in the book lacking important information or becoming out of date. Kelly uses an example of how when he first started writing the book in 2009 mining of digital imagery just started but by the time he finished in 2011 many developments had been made in the field, this meant he had to do a rewrite on the topic. The book was published in 2013; I believe it is safe to say some changes have taken place in digital history since then. That being said much of the content is still useful and important for the field of history and for those who decide to read the book.

The book is excellent for university and college professors in the social sciences, as well as their students. I am currently doing an undergrad in history and political science at a university, and have found that I have faced many of the issues posed in the book. After reading the book, I now realize and will better understand how to address these issues. I argue that it may also be very useful for politicians and school board directors who create the policies for high school curriculums, specifically for the history departments. It is important that when they create these curriculums that they understand the way students gather information on the internet and how it will dictate the quality of the school work they produce. I also recommend it for the general public because it may improve their ability to be critical of information they find on the internet, whether it be on a video news blog, social media, or website with written articles. However, I must warn that for a citizen within the general public it could be somewhat boring. Therefore, for most of the general public, it is not a good book for entertainment but could be valuable to improve their research sensibilities. Overall, I enjoyed the book and learned much as I read through it.

[Brittany Ewing]

Book Review of Teaching History in the Digital Age by T. Mills Kelly

Brittany Ewing



“The most important result of the changes this abundance brings to the history classroom is that we can no longer control the information students have access to. Our students are no longer forced to rely on what we assign to them as the essential sources of information for the problems posed in a course”(pg. 19)


The fact that I was reading this on my phone in a PDF version of the book makes this quote even more accurate. There is a plethora of knowledge being released to the world and if someone does not know to go looking for alternative options, such as an online version of a book, then they most likely will only stick to using sources they know or are given. While this is by no means a bad thing since hopefully all professors are giving useful materials, they may not be aware of new items at all times for every single research topic they happen to be assigning. Every minute there is a new something old to be discovered, sometimes it is just a matter of waiting for it to be uploaded and searchable. Books that were written five years ago can quickly become outdated in their sources simply because another author has found another source that was recently published and adds to knowledge not previously available.


This book is abounding with the knowledge that after it is written and published there is a chance for the content to become outdated, which is the case in the social media references at least. In the second and third chapters T. Mills Kelly uses some statistics gathers about social media users ranging from 2005 to 2011. The stats used change drastically in those six years and to someone reading them in 2017 they are downright laughable. This is in no way a criticism of the author or his work but contrarily it is an example of one of the running themes of the book: digital information is moving faster than people can keep track of. When one statistic is created almost immediately that changes and one must begin again. This place is also changing the way students and teachers coexist in a classroom setting. The above quote from chapter two explains quite well the knowledge that students are now able to find boundless resources apart from those given by any professor in multiple subjects not solely in a history class. Fifty years ago there may have been a handful of books that a student could use to do research in any given subject, and with the internet the numbers of resources both primary and secondary in nature is growing daily.


“...Hegemann freely admitted lifting substantial portions of her book from the work of other authors without any attribution. Hegemann called this remix of other authors’ work legitimate because, as she said in a formal statement via her publisher, “There’s no such thing as originality anyway, just authenticity.””(pg. 4)


This inclusion was incredibly interesting considering the author, T. MIlls Kelly is sharing an instance of blatant plagiarism and using it as an example of the mindset that a growing number of students today seem to share. The author of the book in the quote is only seventeen years of age and is clearly admitting to plagiarism but does not seem to have any issues with doing so. The young author brings up authenticity of facts being more important than origin or facts and is a great brain puzzle for T. Mills Kelly to start off with. As any author knows it is becoming more and more difficult to find an original voice when sitting down to write these days, and with anyone being able to publish their thoughts without needing to authenticate facts or sources it is even more difficult to separate facts on the world wide web.


Whether it is original research or a work of fiction the age old archetypes bombard us from all angles and trying to be innovative and come up with a new original idea can seem daunting, which is why more and more innovators are taking to reinventing the past. T. Mills Kelly mentions in his introduction and first chapter that the teaching of history has been stagnate for the last one hundred years keeping with the lecture and information bomb style of orators and rhetoricians. Students sit, listen, and take notes while a professor stands at the front and rattles off facts, dates, and important details pertaining to the subject being studied resulting in a test of how much knowledge the students retained.


The author uses examples from other history professors and writers with the opinion that this style needs to change to incorporate the growing need for transferable skills among graduates. Knowing how to write a five page research paper with resources given to the students by the professor only shows that those students can read and summarize successfully.

Having access to our own resources also creates the problems of authenticity that T. Mills Kelly mentions throughout his book. If a professor has not read the source a student has used it is understandable to be weary of its usefulness and authenticity considering the facts of forgeries abounding all over the world. This puts a greater pressure on both student and professor to be able to determine fake from fact and at the same time open our minds to the possibility that what we thought we knew was in fact not a fact but a fake. The young Hegemann author and professor Kelly’s remix student touched on a profound idea when they questioned authenticity in authorship. Students today are looking for truth in history even though that may mean that the good guys may actually have been the bad guys and any information gathered could potentially rewrite the history we thought we knew.As a professor and author T. Mills Kelly has realised that in the age of digital information anyone can contribute to the ever growing knowledge base we thought was expertly constructed. This book is a fine addition to any classroom resource list and would be beneficial for both students and teachers to read.

[Mello Attalla · Rating 3 out of 5]

Teaching History in the Digital Age is an inside look on what the Web and the information it presents through new communications on the past History. The book answers the questions of what it is like when information is stored within the digital realm. The author, T. Mills Kelly is an associate director of the Center for History at George Mason University.T. Mills Kelly strived to prove how the digital internet is transforming the way in which students learn about the past. The features that essentially create a network of historical knowledge are complements to other forms of history. The guide is done to generally target professors within the history field, by informing them about the changes of digital media within the research, writing, and teaching of history.
This guide aims at showing teachers a nonbiased methodto students to think about the past. Digital history presents ways in which the media is presented by the use of the Internet. This creates factors in which the reader must be aware of that contribute to the legitimacy or illegitimacy of the website. These infrastructures are presented within databases and the access of the internet on campuses. Teachers that teach history must adapt the internet and the access that students have towards it. Students are now able to delve in to their own research. The reliability of sources is the main culprit on the internet. “If a professor presents his background in History it can still not be legit enough to prove that the facts that they present are correct. Even when we are successful in convincing students that the past is indeed a foreign country that they can peek into, but can’t actually visit, they are still likely to assume that they know people from that foreign country anyway (pp. 32).” This statement presents the simple response as to how the understanding of history and the real life research and application of it may vary.
The guide begins with examples and experiences that the author went through. Sources that lack verified authors like Wikipedia may be used if properly followed. This can aid in presenting information that is relevant to which it will be viewed as something that is resourceful. “After all, students will do as they will, no matter what we say, and regardless of what one might think of open archive websites, major cultural players such as the Library of Congress and the National Archives have begun forays onto this playing field (pp. 57)” The author tries to be non-judgmental when describing the way in which the experiences presented within the field of history relate to that of teaching history. The evidence placed online provides a wide array of information in to this problem, in which the professionals are well keen in the information provided online. As established in the novel, the author provides stories in which examples are given on how students are able to change information online and in this way it provides different aspects of knowledge. “This reality then begs the question whether the five-page paper really helps students prepare for the world they will live in once they graduate? (pp. 82). As the book is published reality will change and information will be sorted differently. As in the past the user would visit Wikipedia, now there is the internet and the videos that it presents. The way in which information is retained is different. Creators of information are subjected to less, as different methods and uses of the medium are used. In this novel the information presented is thoughtful in a sense that it pertains to the reader as it recommends the user to critically think. It has also developed a method in which works are altered through sound and other animations including that might alter the way a certain topic is viewed. The more it does this the less the information becomes valuable and informative. This damages the reputation of the holder and the reader and viewer will see the way that the information pertains and its validity. The information is then sought out better for the purpose of providing a way in which the viewer encompasses it. As the examples shown in the text it develops a proper way in which information is read.
The etymology of the word History is “His-story.” History is told by the winners and the dominance of one empire over another. Students should be taught to think critically for themselves. Information provided by authority must always be subjected to scrutiny. Something like History may be easily manipulated or told by the government as being correct to benefit their agenda. The use of Adolf Hitler as an example when the author expands on Wikipedia and what it is proves that the author is biased and selective to certain topics. Examples displayed throughout the novel where related to what the author stated about the past. This book is recommended to teachers that teach history. As it presents a purpose for the way the novel is published. This author provides different methods in which information is presented using their experience and the experience of their past in order to display the information in an accurate measure. Providing it in such a way that it is presented chronologically, establishing well developed information.