Alice Harmon's Blog (19)

Throughout our semester in ECI 525: Contemporary Approaches in the Teaching of Social Studies we have explored a variety of unique and educational methods in which we can learn history. This class was unlike any I have taken before, it was challenging yet fun and I feel like I walked away from this class with a vastly greater understanding of the 21st century digital aids that are there for our use in researching history. Our classrooms have become bogged down with bookwork and writing papers… Continue

This blog for some reason never posted - Good thing I saved it in word! Better late than never.

Resource 1: Linking to our Past: Documenting the African American Experience in Virginia: This website is a “Resource for Teachers” to use when they are teaching about the history of African Americans in Virginia. The layout of the page is pretty basic to figure out; it opens onto an Introduction page that describes the purpose of the website. Along the top of the page there is a basic design… Continue

For the Google Street View project I choose to look at an area within the French Quarter of New Orleans Louisiana. I started out in front of Café Du Monde, a famous café located on Decatur Street along the Mississippi River Coast. Throughout the entire French Quarter you can smell the Beignets and Coffee that they serve there, a famous recipe that one can only find in New Orleans. I then started out going South down Decatur Street where you can see the beautiful St. Louis Cathedral on the right… Continue

So often when we think of the Civil Rights Era in United States History we focus on the impacts that men like Martin Luther King and Malcolm X had, or the Civil Rights groups that emerged across the nation (and usually the male figure head that lead the group). Aside from the brief mention of Rosa Parks history often forgets about the women who were behind this great movement. Therefore I would like for my tangent to be the focus on the Women who backed the Civil Rights movements and their… Continue

- Whitman’s Drum Taps by Angel Price: Price explores how Walt Whitman was a poet during the time of our Civil War and how his intimate interactions as a psychological nurse to soldiers provides us with a unique historical view into the day to day lives of those who experienced our nation’s Civil War. Whitman’s two brothers fought for the Union Army and when his brother George was wounded Walt traveled across the nation to be with his brother in the hospital. Upon arriving there he was inspired… Continue

Today's reading from "Designs for Democracy" highlights a number of key points about the importance of how our nation began to develop structurally and the years that follow:

During times of conflict between other nations or opposing forces the United States government funds the construction of warships and weaponry to defend the nation. Engineers,… Continue

So often we are caught up in the “events” that occurred in our history or we focus on the dates or an overall theme of events and their impact on our past, what we often forget is that geography and the spatial components of our past and present are equally as important as the events that occurred in these areas. Edward Ayers, Civil War historian, discusses the importance of being able to visualize history and in his project, “The Aurora” he attempts to create a historically rich atlas that… Continue

So often we are caught up in the “events” that occurred in our history or we focus on the dates or an overall theme of events and their impact on our past, what we often forget is that geography and the spatial components of our past and present are equally as important as the events that occurred in these areas. Edward Ayers, Civil War historian, discusses the importance of being able to visualize history and in his project, “The Aurora” he attempts to create a historically rich atlas that… Continue

History Engine brings up a good point, essays really have not developed much over the past few years. The idea that they created to make a search engine that would connect essays in a number of different ways (by topic, time period, location, etc) is useful especially in finding useful primary and secondary sources. By searching something by a more general topic and being able to find essay results written by other students one can compare ideas and develop new ones as well. Teachers can also… Continue

History Engine brings up a good point, essays really have not developed much over the past few years. The idea that they created to make a search engine that would connect essays in a number of different ways (by topic, time period, location, etc) is useful especially in finding useful primary and secondary sources. By searching something by a more general topic and being able to find essay results written by other students one can compare ideas and develop new ones as well. Teachers can also… Continue

There is a number of excellent movies portraying the emotional time period that we call the Civil Rights Era. Wikipedia has defined the African-American Civil Rights Movement as being the years 1955-1968, which is one of the things about Wikipedia that I find to be slightly laughable. The Civil Rights movement may have “ended” in our text books and encyclopedias with the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 by President Lyndon Johnson. However, as someone who has studied our nation’s history… Continue

The first reading was based on research conducted by High School US History teachers in Wisconsin and Connecticut and was grouped into 4 main questions that was asked of these 85 participants. The first asked specifically what films were viewed in their classrooms, how often and how recently they were viewed. The second section inquired on how teachers used the film in their classroom (i.e. group work, lecture, discussion, etc). The third area focused on how teachers felt about the usage of… Continue

The first posting (a mere 2 sentences) was on January 1, 2002. Rosa Park’s page has been revised over 500 times with the latest editing being on September 29, 2009. There is a number of revisions every month of the year but it seems like August of 2008 had a great deal of updates.

The original posting was a short paragraph that named Rosa Parks as being “simply unwilling to give up her seat on the bus” in 1955 when the bussing segregation laws were still in effect in Birmingham Alabama.… Continue

***I tried saving the image to my computer but it was being quite unruley... its a pretty well known painting and can be accessed by the link above or by using google image and typing in Charles T. Webber "The Underground Railroad"***



Charles T. Webber’s painting titled The Underground Railroad (1893) shows a number of slaves being led… Continue

The analysis of Benjamin West’s work in the late 18th century enlightened me on how little I know about analyzing art! However, I really enjoyed reading the article written by Vivien Fryd about the Indian and William Johnson and their inclusion in West’s The Death of General Wolfe. Although my eyes were drawn to the Indian from the first time I saw this picture it was interesting to read her analysis of why she thought West included this Indian when he was clearly not there at General Wolfe’s… Continue

"This Reminds Me of A Little Joke"

(Incase this picture is not uploading right the URL is: http://elections.harpweek.com/1864/cartoon-1864-Medium.asp?UniqueID=32&Year=1864 It is under the HarpWeekly 1864 Election campaign)



• Instrumental: In this picture it shows President Lincoln (this is a 1864 election photo so he was “President” Lincoln) holding George McClellan in his hand. McClellan was Lincoln’s Democratic rival for… Continue

Bank of America Stadium was built in 1996 after the Carolina Panthers inaugural season in 1995 when they played at Clemson University. Originally what was called Ericson Stadium; Bank of America Stadium is credited to having launched a vast amount of other teams to build new stadiums. It was also the first stadium in the USA that was built from the funding of PSL’s (Personal Seat Licenses). The funding was so successful that the NFL gave the Carolinas this expansion team: The Carolina Panthers.… Continue

David Staley’s article add too and agree with William McNeil’s argument that illustrations and visual aid are absolutely essential to helping us learn history. His argument mirrors the findings of those from last week’s reading about how essential learning through our senses is in studying history. He chooses to focus on the visual aspect of our senses, arguing that written history is not the only valid way of learning history. Specifically “cognitive images” such as graphs and diagrams are… Continue

Our readings from last week focused on learning History through sensing the past; the sights, smells, tastes, feelings and sounds that people encountered throughout our History. I thought the readings were unique and original ideas that would certainly bring a classroom alive and help students learn more about History. What I remember most from my Middle and High School History courses are not the lectures or the readings, but the times that we were able to do hands on experiences… An example… Continue