Peer Review

EyeWitness to History

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Overall Rating:

Content Quality:

Effectiveness:

Ease of Use:

Overview:: EyeWitness to History is a collection of articles, video, and audio clips for a range of different time periods in history. This material ranges from the ancient world through the 20th century. The material is organized by time period and major subject topics.
Type of Material:: Collection Reference Material
Recommended Uses:: Social science teachers could use it to find relevant sources for assignments in document analysis. Students could use it as an introduction to a particular topic and an introduction to reading and understanding documents.
Technical Requirements:: Internet access
Identify Major Learning Goals:: • Student will gain a basic orientation to historical time periods. • Student will be able to explore primary source material (documents, audio, video) on historical topics
Target Student Population:: appropriate for 5th grade through lower-division undergraduate.
Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:: Students will need to be introduced to the difference between primary and secondary sources. To be most useful, students will also need to understand that the 1 primary source for each topic will only tell part of the story and that it needs to be interpreted carefully and not just accepted as "The Truth.

Rating:
Strengths:: Each topic has an introduction and 1 primary source, which is well chosen for that topic. * The materials are in short, digestible form. Much of the content is related to U.S. history, but there are sources related to other regions in all time periods.
Concerns:: Since there is only one primary source for each topic, only one conveys (although the introductions do indicate what was controversial).

Rating:
Strengths:: Excellent resource for research reports • Reinforces classroom learning
Concerns:: In terms of online support, the site was last updated 2 days ago, but I don’t know how often that occurs. * Because the site is not designed in a format for teachers to immediately put to use, it doesn’t have clearly stated learning objectives. Nor does it indicate the level of knowledge or skills that students would need to use the site effectively. Instead teachers would have to design their own uses of the site’s information and their own lesson plans. Hence its flexibility, whether it was an effective use of student time, and whether the learning activities were appropriate and engaging, would depend on what a teacher chose to do with it.

Rating:
Strengths:: There are various ways to access the site from the main page. A navigation bar near the top has various time periods listed (ancient, Middle Ages/Renaissance, 17th century, 18th century, 19th century, Civil War, Old West, 20th century, World War I, World War II). That same navigation bar gives access to “Photo of the Week,” “SnapShots,” “Voices,” “History in Motion,” and Index. This navigation bar appears on all pages as far as I can tell. From the homepage, one can also access a special “Spotlight On” feature and “It Happened This Month.” * I have not found any links that don’t work. * It provides an effective introduction to many topics
Concerns:: * I find the design a bit clunky. When you open up a time period, one is confronted with a long list of topics with links and short descriptions. * The only instructions are printed in very small print beneath the main navigation bar and say, “Select a category or go to the Index.”

Other Issues and Comments:: My version of Internet Explorer was installed in 2011, and my network admin advises against updating to later versions because they tend to be less secure. When working with this site, on two different days, one in September and one in October, IE "stopped working" multiple times, usually when I tried to navigate to a new page. Generally, it would reopen the page and I could navigate successfully the next time I clicked. I don't know if this should count as a "problem" with the site or not.
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