Digital History: Using the Internet to Enhance African American Studies in the Secondary School

Abstract

The authors discuss how high school students participated in a unit in which they learned about African American history in a 1:1 computer classroom—in particular, how they were able to use digital history to learn about a variety of African American leaders who are not frequently covered in the traditional American History textbook. In addition, this article discusses how the students were challenged to think deeply about the African American experience by answering focus questions. The students also researched African American history topics and shared their findings by producing projects that they posted to the Internet.

Keywords:

• African American history
• digital history
• Internet
• 1:1 computers