Audio/Video or Multi-media Primary Sources
Make history come alive with audio and video resources.
Links
Oyez offers audio files of landmark cases heard by the U.S. Supreme Court--another take on primary sources in which the spoken word reigns. It is sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities and National Science Foundation. This site is an excellent media for students to practice listening and oral presentation skills as well as experiencing real history.
History and Politics Out Loud, sponsored by the NEH, includes voices of FDR, John F Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr. from historical turning points.
Old Time Radio (from OTR and Internet Archive) also cultivates listening skills. Events and episodic stories, such as the Hindenburg disaster and the Shadow, respectively, are included in these primary sources.
Footage from Movietone News portrays real time events from the past. It could encourage students to create their own productions online.
Remember.org is one of the more comprehensive sites which explores the context for the Holocaust. A half century has passed since the ending of this actual era in history. The horror is still unimaginable; now the children of the few remaining survivors are responsible for remembering. This site is laid out like a newspaper so multiple forms of data--literature and eyewitness accounts, music and secondary sources such as television documentaries--have been incorporated. You will not miss other (perhaps more graphical) sites because 14 pages of links are listed. (Memory is still another topic in history..) Listen to Voices of orphans or visit One Thousand Children; they traveled to Canada after the camps were disassembled.
In most areas the History Channel is offered on cable or satellite. Supported by online assignments and links to other resources, these amazing documentaries can also be ordered in hard copy.
Two specialized topics are included here: the W.P.A. and Moonlit Road. During the Great Depression era in the U.S. the Works Progress Administration sponsored local artists all over the U.S. A folk music specialist shadowed the great composers and lyricists and gathered their work. This site requires an audio capability. Another wonderful audio collection of Native American folklore has just been released---original music from the Omaha Indian tribal archives!
The Moonlit Road will transport your class to the southern U.S. to learn about regional history and culture, especially ghost stories complete with music and read-aloud features. The graphics are nice, but the site itself does not offerer technology much differently than a sound filmstrip. Interactivity is limited. The University of North Carolina has gathered thousands of documents together for a history of the American South. For a beginning, 250 artifacts(various media types) documenting slavery can be viewed.
The Blue Flame Cafe has reserved seats for blues singers with photos and music clips. Older students would probably benefit more than K-5.
Inside the Harlem Renaissance helps students simulate producing a video for the International Broadcast corporation on the achievements of the Harlem renaissance.
Center for History and New Media at George Mason University has five categories with essays, primary sources, videos, audio recordings and tools. Thin information represents different points-of-view. Several units use multi media in the presentation. The History News Network is an e-zine for current events, including a note-taker, scrapbook and poll taker.
And many of the above resources can become part of an iPod broadcast.
Annotation
Since the Web is based on multiple data types, this topic meshes with the process and technology. It is useful to mention that only by preserving this multi-media can the past be brought alive with rich data (a television channel motto?)
