Using video and sound

Perhaps the most valuable thing I’ve gotten out of DDH is a new confidence in my ability to work with technology. I now realize that I could have created and maintained a blog (or edited a podcast, or created a digital exhibition) a long time ago. I just never knew it. I’m still no expert in any of these technologies, but I know believe that with some work I can become proficient.

Back to the question at hand … USF has a sizable collection of oral histories which I might be able to incorporate into a class project. My Spring 2016 seminar on the Civil Rights movement created a web exhibition of primary source documents located in USF special collections. As part of this project, each student had to select and analyze one of the oral histories from the collection. At that point, I had no idea how to work with the audio files, but I’m now more confident in my ability to manipulate them. I hope to more fully incorporate these resources into my teaching in the future.

I may also ask students to make a podcast related to local history utilizing oral history sources. If the students left my classroom with a new sense of technological confidence — “I CAN make a podcast!” — I’d consider it a teaching victory.