Rebecca,very engaging, informative presentation of the history of Minneapolis. I really learned a lot from all of the information you gathered to describe these images.
What's particularly interesting is how older buildings or sections were destroyed to make changes that weren't necessarily any better. What's also interesting is how the street car system played a big role in providing transportation in ways that were less polluting--but then the bus companies (GM) lobbied to have the streetcars removed and we were stuck with more polluting buses since then--with light-rail now coming back.
I think that students would enjoy creating their own VoiceThreads of their own neighborhood histories (one resource for that is the Minnesota Historical Society, which has a lot of old photos. We used those photos when we did a project with Crosswind students about the Selby Dale neighborhood.
Building off of what Rick said, I think that you've identified a great way for students to use this technology in your classroom. This tool is great for doing collaborative teaching with local history, and it would be interesting to link up with the Minnesota History Center and see if you can use some of their image databases (I'm not up to date on how digitally accessible their photographs are) to build projects about the neighborhood your school is in. These kinds of projects are especially important for urban students to take a sense of ownership about the city. As a transplant to the twin cities, I have found that students in high school here may be transplants themselves, and need some kind of hook to feel as though they are a part of the city. This is great to have a sense of place, just like some of the other digital ethnography projects that we have seen.
Rebecca,very engaging, informative presentation of the history of Minneapolis. I really learned a lot from all of the information you gathered to describe these images.
ReplyDeleteWhat's particularly interesting is how older buildings or sections were destroyed to make changes that weren't necessarily any better. What's also interesting is how the street car system played a big role in providing transportation in ways that were less polluting--but then the bus companies (GM) lobbied to have the streetcars removed and we were stuck with more polluting buses since then--with light-rail now coming back.
I think that students would enjoy creating their own VoiceThreads of their own neighborhood histories (one resource for that is the Minnesota Historical Society, which has a lot of old photos. We used those photos when we did a project with Crosswind students about the Selby Dale neighborhood.
Rebecca,
ReplyDeleteBuilding off of what Rick said, I think that you've identified a great way for students to use this technology in your classroom. This tool is great for doing collaborative teaching with local history, and it would be interesting to link up with the Minnesota History Center and see if you can use some of their image databases (I'm not up to date on how digitally accessible their photographs are) to build projects about the neighborhood your school is in. These kinds of projects are especially important for urban students to take a sense of ownership about the city. As a transplant to the twin cities, I have found that students in high school here may be transplants themselves, and need some kind of hook to feel as though they are a part of the city. This is great to have a sense of place, just like some of the other digital ethnography projects that we have seen.