Mark E Harvey, State Archivist, State Archives of Michigan
Danna C. Bell-Russel, Educational Outreach Specialist, The Library of Congress
Julie Daniels, Coordinator of Educational Programs, New York State Archives
[Disclaimer (borrowed from David Weinberger): Live-blogging. Getting things wrong. Missing points. Omitting key information. Introducing artificial choppiness. Over-emphasizing small matters. Paraphrasing badly. Not running a spellpchecker. Mangling other people’s ideas and words.
There was an interesting discussion from three panelists, during which I took no notes. Here are some notes from the Q&A]
Question/comment from Joanne Murray of Drexel College of Medicine Legacy Center: There is money out there for marketing and assessment of your educational programs.
How do you learn how students are learning? Video games, social media?
NY State Archives: [missed this]
Michigan: try to incorporate 21st learning skills
LOC: we focus on inquiry-based instruction because that’s what teachers are interested in. We also track what state standards are addressed by our materials [may have misheard].
NYSA: using video games for learning – the games look good, but feedback from students and teachers was that participants (also?) want copies of documents that they can hold in their hands
LOC: Social media – send out an RSS once a week or so, in the process of starting a blog
NARA: RSS feed for document of the month, uses Facebook
Q: How can archivists make Teach American History repository visits more meaningful for teachers?
Library of Congress: we work with our curators to bring “the real stuff” to teachers. Break down LoC’s resistance to working with teachers. Ask teachers about their theme/focus to ensure that the materials they see are relevant to them. We go to TAH conferences to see how it works and do outreach
Michigan: observed TAH workshop, “it was like watching paint dry.” Instead we get them out of doors, move them around, look at historic structures after studying the documents related to those structures.
Library of Congress: teachers love to move around, they hate to sit, they hate being lectured to
NY State Archives: remember that teachers may not know what an archives is. If students are learning skills (e.g., map reading), teach them the skills not just show them the content.
NARA: takeaways are important. We take TAH participants into the stacks.
Question: To what extent have your programs been successful (if it is even a goal) at considering the needs of teachers? Not just showing teachers how to use systems, but to improve those systems for them.
NARA: huge priority. We don’t just put up the documents we think should be online, but find out what teachers want. NA has seen a reduction in onsite researchers, is focusing on online users
Library of Congress: when we first put up American Memory, we surveyed its users: teachers were the #1 user group. Some staff “don’t understand why we are dealing with these kids.” They are future users.
Michigan: we understand that kids are the key to the future. Our 2 main user groups are teachers and genealogists. We try to find materials that cross over, so the things we do for genealogists will add value for teachers also.
NY State Archives: trying to alter the vocabulary for search, tagging things in ways that users will understand. We make it easy for archivists to find things, but do we use vocabulary a 13 year old would use. Unfortunately, we do not consider educational programs in our digitization plans.
Q. Do you collaborate with archivists at colleges that train teachers?
Library of Congress: just ask us.
Q: Person from the IMLS recommends CHNM site called “history matters.” “Very readable and fun.” http://worldhistorymatters.org
