Two Applications Useful in the History Classroom

In recent years, apps and other websites useful for educational purposes have proliferated. It can be hard even for the most technologically savvy instructors to keep track of all of them, so it is quite helpful for teachers to post summaries and assessments of the applications they find most useful for the classroom.

Discord started out as a chatting app for people to use while playing video games but has since become one of the primary social media websites for teenagers and young adults. Discord is designed as a text messaging app but is remarkably versatile thanks to the ability to join or create servers. Servers can be dedicated for a particular hobby or a friend group but also for classes. Class Discord servers are similar to class group chats in that individual students can ask questions about assignments, exams, projects etc. and their due date. However, a Discord server also is similar to a Facebook group in that there are multiple channels. While the main channel can serve as a sounding board for questions about a due date or clarification about instructions on an assignment, other channels can be used to share classroom material such as links, videos, or articles. Discord channels have search functions so it is relatively easy for students to find a message or link from a few weeks before. Students can maintain various levels of anonymity and even customize their username and profile picture for the server meaning they can use their real name and photo there while being anonymous on their main Discord account. Students often create independent Discord servers for their class and I've joined several of them since starting the teaching program at CSULB. However, it is useful for teachers to be involved in the classroom Discord server since the instructor can make official announcements and answer inquiries from students. Discord has voice and video chat options as well as text, providing further flexibility for the instructor. It is particularly useful for history teachers in that its well suited to sharing files as noted above, but can easily be used by teachers in any subject area.

 

The following YouTube video is an excellent tutorial on how to utilize Discord in an academic setting:

Internet Archive is one of the best storehouses of resources online for teachers in any subject. The Internet Archive includes an enormous numbers of scanned books as well as audio files (including music) and video. Perhaps the most intriguing feature of the Internet Archive is the Wayback Machine which allows users to view captures of websites on a past date extending all the way into the Internet's infancy in the 1990s, making it a pioneer in archiving the Internet itself. Naturally this is an excellent resource for history teachers in that a wide variety of historical texts and other material are available for assignments or research projects. Oftentimes, students may find that there is a lack of free scholarly resources online besides Wikipedia since Jstor and similar scholarly databases are usually not available to high school much less elementary or middle school students. Internet Archive provides an alternative to that by allowing students to directly access books online. While the most accessible texts are obviously older ones that are copyright free, students can also "borrow" more recent texts that have been scanned and uploaded onto the site.

Some of the scans of copyright free texts available at the Archive have been included here: