Manfra, Meghan McGlinn and Jeremy D. Stoddard. “Powerful and Authentic Digital Media and Strategies for Teaching about Genocide and the Holocaust.” (2008)

In this article, Manfra and Stoddard wade through the expanse of digital content that deals with the Holocaust and genocide in order to identify new digital media that allow students to engage in authentic learning experiences about the two concepts. Using the three tenets of ‘authentic instruction’ outlined in Newmann and Wehlage’s (1993) framework - (1) student construction of knowledge through higher-order thinking skills; (2) student engagement in disciplined inquiry; and (3) student engagement in making connections to the world around them - the authors identify newer Internet resources that are interactive and stimulating. They discuss four categories of new media: audio/video first-person accounts; streaming video and audio accounts, such as news media; interactive geography and interactive mapping tools; and social interaction and activism sites. In each of these categories, they link the medium to the tenets of authentic instruction. They conclude with four appendices, listing several websites for each of the four categories of media discussed in the article.