Reed School Students Hope To Bring

Local History To The Web

By Tanjua Damon

Some fifth grade teachers at Reed Intermediate School are going to be able to teach history lessons with a bit more hands-on experience thanks to a new website.

The school is participating in a pilot program for an innovative online project called Local Historical Archives Project (LHAP), which will allow classroom teachers and their students to study the history of Newtown while compiling information on the website, providing access for anyone who uses the Internet. The program was created by John Raymond, director of TIELab (Technology-in-Education Laboratory) in Woodbury.

Mr Raymond is a former history teacher who hopes the site will be something that schools around the country and world will want to participate in to make history fun and exciting as well as educational. Schools can participate by paying $75 per year as well as fees for workshops to train faculty.

“In our historical societies, in our town halls, and in our grandparent’s attics we’re sitting on a massive but untapped learning source,” said Mr Raymond, who believes that the best way to learn about history is through primary sources. “Students at LHAP schools will touch, smell, read, and think about documents and images from the past and all the while will be building a local history archive available to any teacher, student, and citizen anywhere.”

Mr Raymond explained that the teaching profession is often a challenge because students do not always want to be in school learning.

“One of the biggest challenges is to get students interested in what we are doing,” Mr Raymond said. “Getting them engaged. This will give them skills they can use forever, mental skills and primary sources.”

He believes this program will give teachers one tool to help “engage” students in learning about the history of the world as well as the history that comes from their own backyards.

Mr Raymond’s project will have students taking technology such as digital cameras and scanners to historical societies and town halls to take photographs of documents that make towns special. He also hopes students will look around their town and find historical places they can take pictures of and write about to include on the website. Mr Raymond went onto explain that students might already visit these places, but a “spark of interest is left behind” because hands-on opportunities do not often occur.

“These field trips already take place. But I would argue that field trips leave something out,” Mr Raymond said. “If there’s nothing drawing them in, to engage them, we’re talking about a mind set of research, having students ask questions, to be able to go and discover something. What if they go with an endeavor to bring something back to the school.

“With cameras and scanners, students can capture the image that can later be used as a resource for learning and teaching,” he added. “TIELab Local Historical Archives Project gives a place students can put all the information they capture.”

Reed School teachers Al Washicko, Karen King, Joan Cunningham, and Chris Breyan spent time this week in training of how to use the website both as a teaching tool and as administrators of teachers whose classes can upload historical information the students collect about Newtown. Instructional Technology Specialist Ken Royal helped to bring the pilot program to Reed.

“This really makes them think about what the connection is. I really like that,” Mr Royal said. “This place really lends itself to this project because the teachers here have the equipment now. We are already doing interactive lessons here now. I love this. It’s a positive thing. It can go further than this classroom.”

 Mr Raymond hopes the project will build a teaching resource, build a partnership between the school and the town, and build a local history archive that is invaluable.

“Now instead of teaching out of the textbook, you are teaching local history students have helped create,” he said. “We need opportunities to create positive partnerships.”

Mr Raymond and Mr Royal plan to have historical information put on the site before May 1 when the Ninth Annual Legislative Technology Exposition takes place in Hartford. For more information or to check out the site, go to www.tielab.org.