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Citation: 

Lévesque, Stéphane. "The Impact of Digital Technologies and the Need for Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge: Lessons from the Virtual Historian." In The Emperor's New Computer: ICT, Teachers and Teaching, edited by Tony Di Petta, 17-28. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers, 2008.

Abstract/Summary: 

Stéphane Lévesque stresses that history teachers need to develop their “technological pedagogical content knowledge” to make technology an integral aspect of students’ learning. He claims that technology can push students out of their role as passive consumers of historical information to active investigators of past events. While he acknowledges that students can become overwhelmed by the amount of information available on-line, he stresses that websites like Great Unsolved Mysteries in Canadian History, Cyber-Terrorism Crisis, and The Virtual Historian that present a series of “missions” or mysteries for students to solve, remedy that overload by giving students a specific goal when surfing the web. Drawing on his research with The Virtual Historian, Lévesque found that students write more organized and sophisticated essays, have greater subject knowledge, better historical thinking skills, and a greater awareness of their own learning than students who do not use the website to complement their learning. However, students who used the website had difficulties thinking of historical accounts as constructed and thus still viewed themselves as consumers rather than producers of historical narratives. From these findings, Lévesque concludes that teachers cannot simply replace instruction with these technological learning tools, but rather use them as part of a larger program for understanding the discipline of history.

 

Source/Credit: 
Cutrara