Developing Multimedia Courseware for
Teaching History: A UK Perspective
Ian G. Anderson
INTRODUCTION
The use of computers in historical research has followed divergent paths in the UK and US.[1] The development of Web-based materials for teaching, however, may provide a common ground for historians on both sides of the Atlantic.[2] This paper outlines one experience of developing multimedia materials for undergraduate history teaching in the UK by the History Courseware Consortium at the University of Glasgow. Established in 1993, the Consortium was funded through the Teaching and Learning Technology Programme (TLTP), an initiative of the UK Higher Education Funding Councils.[3] In developing the courseware the Consortium had the following goals: to create a pedagogical foundation based on high academic standards, to make the material accessible and flexible, and to provide the necessary support for staff and students using the courseware.
DEVELOPING A PEDAGOGICAL MODEL
Building on the experience of another program at the University of Glasgow—the Computers in Teaching Initiative Centre for History (CTICH), which gathered data about the use of computers in history teaching—we determined that many educators did not have a conceptual framework in which to incorporate computer-based materials into their teaching.[4] Similarly, students required a pedagogical context to guide them through the courseware. Thus the Consortium developed the idea of the 'enriched lecture,' which uses innovative materials within a familiar pedagogical framework. [5]
Since there are no core courses in undergraduate history programs in the UK, but rather ones ranging from the pre-modern to the modern period and from political and military to economic and social history, the Consortium aimed to produce a flexible set of 'core resources' that could be incorporated into existing teaching programs. In the enriched lecture, 'core essays' designed for first- and second-year students provide an overview of the topic and outline historiographical debates and thematic lines of enquiry. Students gain access to the core essays from a table of contents, which provides links to each section of the core essay, information on the author and additional sources, and access to the index, bibliographies, and glossaries. In the tutorial on the Protestant Reformation, for example, Mark Greengrass and C. Scott Dixon wrote a core essay; linked to it are a detailed case study and exercises. Some authors chose a more linear approach in their core essays; others addressed multiple themes. Although the number and style of core essays varies between tutorials, their function, appearance, structure, and level remain consistent.
In order to address the difficulty of reading the large amounts of text on screen, we asked authors to outline their essays clearly with headings, to address a limited number of themes with clear points, and to use short sentences, colloquialisms, and contractions, as in speech. The breaking down of each core essay into sections makes the material more digestible and allows students to dip in and out with greater ease.
From the core essay students gain access to structured and contextualized source material: they can follow detailed examinations of particular examples, case studies, debates, concepts or sources. The schematic diagram below of the Protestant Reformation tutorial illustrates how the enriched lecture was translated into a structure for the courseware
Figure 1. Schematic Diagram of Tutorial
The ability of hypertext and multimedia to integrate disparate publications and source genres is not possible in a traditional lecture or seminar format. The combination of academic commentary and context, as well as the range of primary and secondary sources and open-ended exercises, increases students depth and breadth of knowledge. The integration of academic commentary and historiographic debates with source material enhances the teaching of traditional historical skills and underscores the awareness that history is an interpretative subject, driven by historiographical debate, and based on research with primary sources.
APPLICABILITY AND QUALITY
The Consortium sought to develop courseware of the highest standards that would have the broadest application. Existing courseware that we analyzed, while often technically adept, lacked quality, or attempted to adapt content from a level of study not appropriate for students in higher education. As we created the pedagogical model, we divided the teaching of British history into four broad themes: womens history, the industrial revolution and post-industrialization, mass politics, and the pre-modern period. Separating authorship of the tutorials from the production process so as not to limit the range of potential authors to those with the necessary technical skills, we then invited specialists to write tutorials on these them
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