Friday, November 16, 2007

PB Presentation WIKI

The History Society has been on the road for the last few weeks presenting at the Nova Scotia SSTA, OHASSTA and the Teachers Institute on Canadian Parliamentary Democracy in Ottawa. It has been great to have an opportunity to meet teachers face to face and talk about Canada's National History Society and the fun digital projects that we are trying to get started.

To try and make things more exciting, we are experimenting with using a Wiki this year for our presentation. You can find our presentation Wiki at digitalhistory.pbwiki.com. If we are going to encourage teachers to use digital programs in their classroom, then the least we should do it use them ourselves in our presentations and projects.

I want to also stress the non-linear nature of the Wiki and what that means for historians. Critical thinking is about moving away from a linear view of the past towards something far greater and engaging. A Wiki gives students the opportunity to see how things are interconnected by linking material through different pages. You can also easily integrate other online programs to make your presentation more engaging.

I admit using a Wiki for a presentation is a bit unorthodox, but everyone has to start somewhere. As more teachers hopefully start their own classroom Wiki's we will have more examples to share with educators.

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