I find myself using digital tools in the classroom as much as I formerly used other resources to bolster my teaching and presentations. Just in this semester, I have used two different varieties of collaboration through digital methods within my undergraduate classrooms. When I have run these options, I instantly recognized that using digital tools in the class are tricky since there are limits to what I can do in a single period without enhancing the project to be unwieldy.
The first iteration came within the the first several weeks of History 101, Western Civilizations. I found myself droning on about explorers and the class (which is at 6 pm) was clearly not engaged in the material as I presented it. I reached into my teaching experience to have the class develop a list of explorers on a Google Spreadsheet. The spreadsheet was shared access with the class and editable by them. They had several minutes to collaborate and develop some cursory answers for who the explorers/conquistadors were and what they meant. The limitations to this exercise were severe, but it allowed groups of students to experience collaboration, sharing efforts, and for the class to collectively assess the value of the explorations.
The second iteration came with discussing the Enlightenment. Enlightenment thinkers writ large, including those associated with the scientific revolution, reads as a long list, but when groups of three are told to assess the value of several thinkers and list their contributions, it becomes a learning experience through developing and sharing information. The second component of this exercise was to map the primary locations of each of these thinkers. With a quick overview, we could see that many thinkers lived in similar areas and it is clear the opportunities for collaboration and shared ideas. Inspiration drives inspiration – at least at a cursory overview. You can view the document here.
Digital history can be more than the long-lasting, architecture-intense, behemoths that can tax individual and university resources. Digital history can be short and intense and still yield positive results.