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Hannah Farbota

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Teaching History in the Digital Age (Digital Humanities)

by T. Mills Kelly

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Hannah Farbota said: " 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, analyzin 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. ...more "

Sep 26, 2017 12:14PM · see review