This website, developed by Classroom Connect, provides to primary and secondary resources for the study of American history and culture. This website links to a vast collection of material that is organized into the following themes: power, identity, culture, and the environment. Most, but not all, of the materials link to The Library of Congress? American Memory Collection.
Type of Material:
Collection
Recommended Uses:
Preservice and inservice teachers can use these digital materials in preparing lessons and units of study about American history and culture and also use these materials directly with their students.
Technical Requirements:
Although, the vast majority of information is available without any special viewers, a few links lead to sites that require Flash, and access to some information requires Quicktime, Windows Media Player, RealPlayer, or SGML. Information about these requirements is provided at http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amviewer.html#text
Identify Major Learning Goals:
To learn about American history and culture and the themes of power, identity, culture, and the environment by exploring links to primary source documents. Users will also learn to locate primary sources related to a variety of topics.
Target Student Population:
This site is useful for undergraduate/graduate students in teacher preparation programs as well as inservice teachers of grade 5-16+ and their students.
Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:
Users should have some basic knowledge of U.S. History and be reading at a 5th grade level or above.
Content Quality
Rating:
Strengths:
The Library of Congress? American Memory Collection is a digital library with more than 7 million items from more than 100 historical collections. Classroom Connect has provided a gateway to these primary source materials relating to the history and culture of the United States. This collection of materials is extensive and fascinating, mainly because most of the materials are primary source documents including diaries, documents, photos, letters, maps, video, and audio. A keyword search feature is provided, or the user can spend time browsing this vast collection by specific time periods or themes. The collection of links within the themes offered by Classroom Connect seems to be especially strong on documenting African American history and culture. The Timeline is a nice feature, although it requires Flash.
Concerns:
The number of links in the American Memory Primary Resources by Classroom Connect is so extensive it is possible that some teachers and students will be overwhelmed. Despite the vastness of this collection not every key word search will turn up primary source documents or other resources for every topic, so users might be disappointed. Other themes might be useful but there is no indication that these are being developed
Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool
Rating:
Strengths:
This website represents a very diverse collection of materials. The Teacher?s Lounge section with the materials on incorporating primary resources into instruction and lesson plans should be very valuable for social studies methods courses. The number of resources linked from this site for teaching the social studies curriculum in general and American history and culture in particular are a dream come true for many instructors. The multitude of lesson plans on the site should be a rich source for analysis and study by students. Having access to primary documents and
other primary sources is extremely valuable for new and experienced teachers. Many of the primary source documents are not be easy to accecss in any other format. The chart in the introduction to the Teacher?s Lounge section of the site was very helpful in understanding and organizing the Library section of the website.
The Teacher?s Lounge also includes a link to the Library of Congress? website called The Learning Page, which offers introductory activities for students about working with primary sources, lesson ideas, and other resources designed for educators, which this website does not provide. The possibilities for developing lessons and units of instruction is nearly limitless.
Concerns:
Classroom Connect would provide a useful service if they included a different overview of the goals and purposes of this portal than the one offered in the Teacher?s Lounge. For example, the rationale for the themes selected, guidance about how to best use this site with various grade levels and for various purposes, and sample lesson plans would be a welcome addition. Lesson ideas are said to be available through the Connected Teacher discussion board at Classroom Connect, but this requires joining Classroom Connect. Even then, nothing was found about how others had used American Memory Primary Resources portal developed by Classroom Connect. Perhaps the timeline might be of greater instructional value if each entry on it was a hyperlink to a list of available resource materials.
Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty
Rating:
Strengths:
The site is well designed with a navigation bar on the left side of the page. Navigation about the site is easy. Despite the vastness of this collection and the multiple links provided,
everything worked smoothly and no broken links were encountered during this review. The layout is clean and simple. The annotations for links are clear and links all open in a new window.
Concerns:
None
Creative Commons:
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