HISTORY MATTERS The U.S. Survey Course on the Web In July 1998, the American Social History Project and the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University are launching the prototype of a new website, History Matters. The website, which has been developed with support from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, provides college and high-school teachers with unusual and effective curriculum materials and teaching resources about the U.S. past. Organized in conjunction with our New Media Classroom project, the History Matters website will be fully operational in Fall 1998 and will offer:WWW.HISTORY -- An annotated list of over 300 history-rich Web sites DIGITAL BLACKBOARD -- Teaching assignments that utilize existing Web resources ranging from analyzing free black registries in nineteenth century Virginia to role-playing exercises about dam building under the TVA. MANY PASTS -- Approximately 80 primary source documents (including 24 oral histories) that convey the experiences of "ordinary" Americans in the past to enhance teachers' presentation of social history and assist students in their research and writing assignments. UNDER THE MAGNIFYING GLASS -- An interactive feature that explores the historian's craft, analyzing diverse types of evidence. ELECTRONIC ESSAYS -- Short hypertext pieces that use a wide range of website materials to address specific topics in U.S. history STUDENTS AS HISTORIANS -- Provides links to student work on the Web as well as a space for teachers to post students' work and comment on the process of using Web production as a teaching tool. PAST MEETS PRESENT -- Articles and resources that help teachers link events of the past with current issues and events. SYLLABUS CENTRAL -- A sampling of annotated syllabi that present approaches to teaching the U.S. history survey using new technology. TALKING HISTORY -- A discussion forum that will begin in Fall 1998 for teachers and students to talk about studying the past. We are planning moderated discussions led by prominent scholars in key fields such as women's history, cultural history, and the Civil War and Reconstruction that address content and pedagogy. WHAT'S NEW? -- A guide to new resources available on the HM site. We hope you will visit the site and send us comments..

Funding News

ASHP'S MAKING CONNECTIONS PROGRAM AWARDED BOARD OF EDUCATION CONTRACT This past fall, ASHP's program Making Connections: Literacy Building Across the Humanities Curriculum was awarded a 3-year contract totaling $1.2 million by the New York City Board of Education. Formerly known as the ASHP High School Collaboration, Making Connections is now in its ninth year and provides multimedia curriculum materials and intensive professional development services to 6,000 students and more than 100 teachers in 45 New York City public high schools. Together with continued funding from CUNY's Office of Academic Affairs, the new, multi-year contract with the Board of Education provide more enduring support to participating schools, teachers, and students.

NEW MEDIA CLASSROOM REGIONAL CENTERS, 1998-99 ASHP/CML in collaboration with the American Studies Association's Crossroads Project is proud to announce the selection of Regional Centers as part of the development of the second phase of the New Media Classroom program for the 1998-99 school year. The New Media Classroom: Building a National Conversation on Narrative, Inquiry, and Technology in the U.S. History Survey (NMC) is a humanities focused, teaching-with-technology faculty development program that serves over 25 educators from schools and colleges across the country. Sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, NMC provides faculty with an opportunity to explore the use of new educational technology resources found on the World Wide Web and CD-ROMs in the teaching and learning of American history and culture. After holding summer institutes with teachers from across the country in 1996 and 1997, this next phase of NMC turns to extending this national network through the active participation of local teachers. The 1998-99 program will start with six parallel regional institutes in June, July, and August 1998. Each institute will provide local school and college faculty opportunities to evaluate new media as a tool in rethinking the U.S. History or comparable interdisciplinary humanities survey course and, more broadly, explore the role of new media and inquiry-based learning in the teaching of humanities courses. The six centers are located in the following schools and colleges across the country: Millersville University (Millersville, Pennsylvania) Pembroke Hill School (Kansas City, Missouri) Washington State University (Pullman, Washington) Tulsa Community College (Tulsa, Oklahoma) City University of New York (New York, New York) Mt. Greylock High School (Williamstown, Massachusetts) During the ensuing school year faculty participants will implement new teaching and learning skills developed during the summer institute in their Fall courses, and coordinate two faculty development workshops to expand the impact of the program on their home campus. Faculty will also participate in a national on-line seminar as a means to promote reflective practice, share resources, and help each other develop leadership skills to guide and assist their schools in planning for and taking advantage of new electronic tools. In concert with a diverse group of history and humanities educators, media producers, scholars, and professional development leaders, the New Media Classroom aims to foster collective expertise among humanities faculty in new media-based instruction and and to help build a national network that disseminates knowledge about and practical approaches to new educational technology to teachers and students nationwide. For further information about the national program and for details about the program in your area, please contact: Donna Thompson Education Coordinator - New Media Classroom 212-966-4248 x219; fax: 212-966-4589

THE NEW MEDIA LAB In 1996-97 the City University of New York Central Office provided seed funds to help ASHP/CML launch a New Media Lab (NML) at the Graduate School. The Lab is a collaborative effort to explore the possibilities of applying high end computer applications to educational issues and problems. Co-directed by ASHP/CML Executive Director Stephen Brier and Professor Brian Schwartz of the Graduate School's Ph.D. Program in Physics, the NML will ultimately be based at the Graduate School's new facility at the former B. Altman site on Fifth Avenue when it opens in the Summer of 1999. In the two years prior to completion of the Altman renovation, CUNY graduate students employed by the Lab are working at ASHP/CML offices in Tribeca using two Digital Alpha workstations running SoftImage animation software to develop several graphic intensive multimedia projects in science, art, and the humanities for the World Wide Web, CD-ROM, and video. One such project is ASHP's The Lost Museum, an exploration of historical environments: the prototype, currently under virtual reconstruction, is a section of P. T. Barnum's American Museum, New York City's mid-nineteenth-century emporium of edification and entertainment. We are also working with Ira Flato, host of NPR's Science Friday program and his staff, to develop several science education projects aimed at the general public, including an animated video program on the history of the transistor and a Web site on the physics of automobile traffic patterns. NML Directors Brier and Schwartz will develop ties to a number of other CUNY campuses (including Baruch College and Brooklyn College) to work with CUNY faculty and staff interested in developing computer-based applications that employ sophisticated new media software and hardware for both educational and business purposes. We also plan to place special emphasis on establishing links to the growing number of new media companies in the "Silicon Alley" area of Manhattan interested in using the NML's high-end equipment and in working with CUNY faculty and students.