Digitizing Local History

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Procedures:

Because Monticello is an important part of our local history in Charlottesville, Virginia, we have designed this lesson around creating a "Digital Monticello." We hope that you and your students will select a piece of your own local history and digitize a segment of your community.

  1. Before taking the class on a field trip to Monticello, assign each student one item (i.e. Jefferson's Tombstone, Jefferson's Gardens, Jefferson's Library). Each student will be responsible for gathering information about this item and synthesizing what they have learned for the rest of the class.
  2. Fieldtrip. While visiting Monticello, have each student use the digital camera to take a picture of the item they are gathering information on. Students should gather data on their assigned topic during the field trip.
  3. Once back at school, each student creates one HyperStudio card. The card should have a picture of the item they were assigned and a text box with a description and the significance of the item.
  4. The teacher should create buttons to connect all of the students’ pages together into one stack. Once this has been done, demonstrate the slideshow to the entire class. Each student will be responsible for learning the information that is presented during the slideshow.

Center for Technology and Teacher Education, University of Virginia, This module was created by Cheryl Mason University of Virginia