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Historical Voices

Education

What is the Historical Voices Educator's Forum?

The Historical Voices Educator's; Forum is a rich collection of lessons and web resources for K-12 classroom teachers and their students. The Historical Voices Educator's; Forum provides an opportunity for teachers and students to explore and experience primary historical aural artifacts, traditionally unavailable to classrooms. This site engages educators in more intensive ways to incorporate aural resources into the teaching practice, and at the same time allows students to explore beyond the limitations of a text book. Materials available on the Educators' Forum website have been reviewed for quality by experienced educators.

What Resources can be found at the Historical Voices Educator's Forum?

The Educator's Forum offers resources that enhance and enrich the teaching and learning experience for students and teachers alike. Primarily, these resources are designed to bring the past to life by engaging individuals in listening to the authentic voices of characters from the past. These include:

Teacher Built Sites

Teaching with Audio Artifacts is designed by five educators with diverse backgrounds and subject matter expertise teaching in elementary, secondary and higher education institutions across the state of Michigan. With a collective experience of over ninety years, the educators forged a collaboration to develop this project as a result of a technology assignment in a university course intended to provide faculty technology support, with the assistance of graduate students. The site is designed by teachers for teachers.

Sample lessons

These are lessons that were developed using audio artifacts from the Historical Voices gallery. They are interdisciplinary and thus can be used in multiple subjects at multiple grade levels. These are:

(To view a lesson, click on the link).

  • Movie Stars: A 10 year old boy goes to his mother in Detroit; a short story by Jim Daniels- A writer from Michigan.

  • Memories from the Jewish Holocaust: This is based on two poems by Linda Nemec Foster- A poet from Michigan.

  • Using primary resources to learn about Studs Terkel and his work as an interviewer.

  • Women of Courage: Based on a speech by Amelia Earhart and an interview with Rosa Parks.

  • Another Day That Will Live In Infamy: Helping Students Explore Their Feelings and the Facts about the Terrorist Attacks in the United States on September 11, 2001; an adaptation of a lesson prepared by Alison Zimbalist, The New York Times Learning Network and Javaid Khan, The Bank Street College Of Education in New York.

Coming Soon to the Historical Voices Educator's Forum:

  • Lesson Builder will offer educators the opportunity to build lesson plans using resources provided on-line.

  • Lesson Commentary provides educators the opportunity to comment on lessons posted at Historical Voices Education and build upon the successes of others in implementing those lessons in their classrooms.

  • Chatroom provides you with an excellent opportunity to share your ingenuity, creativity, and experiences with fellow educators.

Maintenance and quality of the Historical Voices Educatorsí Forum website

The Historical Voices Educator's Forum website was developed and is continually updated by the Michigan State University's (MSU) College of Education, in conjunction with Matrix, the Center for Humane, Arts, Letters and Social Sciences Online. Dr. Joyce Grant (grantj@msu.edu), who is an experienced educator and a professor in the Teacher Education (TE) department, with the assistance of a doctoral student in Education, Hilda Omae (omaehild@msu.edu), and a web and educational specialist, Scott Pennington (scott@matrix.mail.msu.edu) ; ensure that the materials found on this website are of high quality.

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