Information Access Seminar

Spatially Aware History Teaching

Friday, September 30, 2011
3:10 pm to 5:00 pm
Ruth Mostern, UC Merced
History classes explain how phenomena change over time, but they do a poor job demonstrating that human activity has a spatial dimension as well. In order to rectify this, I have begun to integrate Google Earth and other tools into my history classes. In this talk, I will introduce my classroom Google Earth assignments, as well as a virtual globe demo that I am developing for a textbook publisher. I will also introduce survey data about student response to the assignments, showcase student work, and reflect upon the challenges of using Google Earth in a history classroom. Finally, I will discuss the experience of evaluating digital and spatial student work: my Google Earth assignments include detailed and transparent evaluation standards with potentially broad applicability in both pedagogical and research domains.

Ruth Mostern is associate professor at the University of California, Merced, where she contribute to the undergraduate program in History and to the Graduate Group in World Cultures. She is author of "Dividing the Realm in Order to Govern": The Spatial Organization of the Song State (960-1276 CE). She was formerly the head of collection development at the Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative.

Last updated:

March 26, 2015