Using Digital Archives

Creating Digital Archives

Students & Digital Archives

 

 

Using Digital Archives in Social Studies Classes
Since the initial development of the World Wide Web in the early 1990's, tens of millions of historical documents have been placed online. During that time the quality and range of historical documents available on the Web steadily increased. The proliferation of these online archives has led to a new trend social studies called “Digital History.” Digital history is the study of past, or current events using a variety of electronically reproduced primary source texts, images, and artifacts, as well as constructed historical narratives, accounts, or presentations. Digital historical resources are typically stored as electronic collections on the World Wide Web.

Beyond historical archives, however, are archival resources that all social studies teachers can take advantage of. The US Census, the CIA World Fact Book, the records of the New York Stock exchange, the GIS system and “Vote Smart,” are just a few examples of what is available online to social studies teachers today.

How do you find Historical Archives? One of the easiest ways is to use a Boolean search engine and search for primary documents on a subject.

Reading Assignment #3:
Read the article by Lee on Digital History and post a reply to it on the class discussion board.

Portfolio Activity #3A - Finding Digital Archives Online
Use Boolean search engines to find three digital archives for different parts of your curriculum.
[For example, you could report on a digital archive of World War II sources, one of sources for Constitutional Law, and one for 19th Century England.]

Post links to the three sites you found on the class discussion board, along with a brief review of each archive (is it useful, why?; what classes would it be good for?; etc.)

Examples:
The Progressive Era - HistoryTeacher.net

Ancient Egypt - TeacherOz.Com

September 11, 2001 Archive

From the archives which you and your colleagues find, post links to five archives on your Internet Resources web page and write a brief description of what is available in the archive.