Tag Archives: U.S. history

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The Spirit of Atlanta: A Quest for Context of 1920’s Atlanta

  March 22, 2015 ,

To search for historic Atlanta is like searching for fragments of city scape blown apart by an enormous shotgun blast. There seems to be no correlation with what is there now and what has been. But it is exactly this process that defines Atlanta. Atlanta is a city constantly reinventing itself. Perhaps we learned that, from the Civil War, we may be forced to reinvent ourselves. Even today, Atlanta struggles with its core identity. From very early in its history a “northernness” was often noted about Atlanta. Henry Grady was one of the foremost champions of this “New South” concept, that we ought to diversify our economy, and become more industrious like our northern neighbors. From these elements an “Atlanta Spirit” grew, a spirit thirsty for capital and economic growth. Modeled after the Chicago World’s Fair, we organized numerous expositions. We compared ourselves, not to Birmingham, Charlotte, Savannah, or even Chicago, but to New York. Atlanta was eager to distance itself form its agricultural neighbors, and with this distance came a disdain for the past. Nothing was sacred in Atlanta’s quest for recognition. No relic should stand in the way of urban growth, progress. It is from this setting that we can define Atlanta history into 5 major eras: Atlanta’s Founding Reconstruction Turn of the Century Atlanta Demolition Reurbanization ATLANTA’S FOUNDING Atlanta began as a simple point from which to begin construction of a railroad. It’s geography was chosen because it seemed a suitable route to the Chattahoochee River, not for its suitability to become a great city. This railroad … Continue reading

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3D Atlanta Updates & Other Tidbits

  March 1, 2015 , , , ,

Hey Guys! Couple of new updates to share with everyone about the 3D Atlanta Project! First off–in two weeks we should have 3 completed models of architecture to show off! Which is pretty exciting! Wasfi, Nathan, and I are hard at work getting them ready! The other SIFs are currently working on compiling their historical research into interactive pieces. What I mean by that is this: If they find something on Coca-Cola from the 1920s that is relevant but maybe we don’t have enough information to fill up,say an entire booklet, we can simply hang up a flier on a building’s wall that a player can interact with. So the question then–is what is this interactivity supposed to look like? After Discussing a lot of different options, we came up with the simplified point-and-click idea. The point-and-click paradigm is well known and intuitive. We aren’t trying to create a new paradigm of interactivity–rather utilize pre-existing paradigms of interactivity to change a paradigm of educational interest and engagement. So–“Point-and-click”–which some of you might be familiar with from the ubiquitous mystery search games that are all over app stores and Steam, or from certain classics from Sierra or Lucas Arts in the 90s (Secret of Monkey Island, Quest for Glory, etc.) and perhaps the more well-known Myst series. In our environment–although it is a full 3D environment from a first-person perspective–the point-and-click interface simply means than when the player’s cursor,(which can be controlled from a mouse, or if the object is simply … Continue reading

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Consumption vs. Production in the Hybrid 2110

  November 3, 2014 , ,

With a lot of help from Ameer, I am finally reaching the point where I can make videos more or less on my own. As I have been making them, I have been thinking about how educationally useful the experience of making the videos is. The countless decisions about what edit out, how to write captions that add to the content of the talking heads, and how to select images that enrich the storyline are really useful exercises in critical thought. The making of the video is more stimulating and engaging than the experience of watching them. Maybe this is simply a reflection of my still-modest chops as a filmmaker, but I think fundamentally it has to do with the difference between consumption and production – or, to use Halverson’s terms, between the kinds of content based technologies educational institutions have often been drawn towards and the learning technologies that have proliferated on the internet. So, I have been thinking about how to use the hybrid 2110 and its video component in ways that try to capture something of the experience of making the films. I know of at least one person at GSU, a VL named Nicole Tilford over in Religious Studies, who has been teaching students in upper division classes to make video as an assignment. You can see some of the results of her student’s work here. However, Nicole has been doing this with upper division courses, which has several significant advantages for projects of this nature. … Continue reading

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Update on the US History Survey

  October 12, 2014 ,

Late last week, I observed a session, devoted to the topic of secession, of the hybrid U.S. history survey. It made me more than a little nostalgic for the classroom, in all its gritty and chaotic glory. And, it reminded me of the madness that is the one-semester U.S. history survey — the first week of October, and you have already reached the mid-point of the survey, the Civil War. Absolutely crazy, and a strong argument for GSU to adopt the standard version of the U.S. history survey, which is generally broken into 2 semester length classes. But that is another topic entirely. If my last post focused on the risk of the hybrid course, my experience watching the class served to remind me of the potential rewards of the hybrid structure. I have taught the survey several times, and the biggest problem I always face is the necessity of providing context. This is, in part, a coverage issue common to any classroom, but I think in history it is particularly important because as history teachers, the main skill we are trying to teach our students is to place events into historical contexts, to see things through the lens of the past. This is really only possible if you know enough about the past to create a context for it. For this reason, depth and breadth are super important to historical understanding. When I teach say Tom Paine or Harriet Jacobs, I am less interested in the kinds of questions … Continue reading

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You can lead a horse to water

  October 6, 2014 , ,

Taking risks in education is, well, risky. As I have mentioned in several previous posts, one of my SIF assignments is to work on the hybrid U.S. history sections being offered at GSU this fall. The course is innovative in a number of ways: it takes full advantage of the D2L platform, it has it’s own, custom made (and free!) textbook, and it uses video segments, essentially little documentaries, to supplement instruction and to create a class that meets in-person once a week, and in a virtual classroom on the other. The film segments, in combination with reading from both the textbook and from primary sources, become the material on which Thursday class is based. So, the classroom is also flipped, meaning that it replaces time often spent in lecturing for time spent on discussion or other types of activities that usually get little time in survey courses. As great as this sounds, there is a little bug in the system so far – very few students are watching the video. Because they are accessed through D2L, the number of students accessing each video can be tracked, and the results to date have been discouraging. This is frustrating – not only because of the many hours that go into producing each video segment but also because the videos are an attempt to engage learners who are supposedly visual, and who will tell you that they don’t keep up with reading because of the medium, not because they are averse to … Continue reading