The Southeastern Librarian
Volume 50 | Issue 4 Article 9
Winter 2003 Off the helS f and Into the Classroom: Working with K-12 Teachers to Integrate Digitized Collections into Classroom Instruction Tara Zachary Laver Louisiana State University, [email protected]
Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/seln Part of the Communication Technology and New Media Commons, Elementary Education and Teaching Commons, Junior High, Intermediate, Middle School Education and Teaching Commons, Library and Information Science Commons, and the Secondary Education and Teaching Commons
Recommended Citation Laver, Tara Zachary (2003) "Off the heS lf and Into the Classroom: Working with K-12 Teachers to Integrate Digitized Collections into Classroom Instruction," The Southeastern Librarian: Vol. 50 : Iss. 4 , Article 9. Available at: https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/seln/vol50/iss4/9
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@Kennesaw State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Southeastern Librarian by an authorized editor of DigitalCommons@Kennesaw State University. For more information, please contact [email protected].
Off the Shelf and Into the Classroom: Working with K-12 Teachers to Integrate Digitized Collections into Classroom Instruction
Tara Zachary Laver
Tara Zachary Laver is Assistant Curator for from New Orleans, English settlers, exiled Manuscripts, Louisiana State University Special Acadians, free people of color, slaves, and Collections, LSU Libraries, Baton Rouge. She Native Americans interacted with Americans can be reached at [email protected]. from neighboring regions. These groups ______competed for position, power, and predominance of their respective views on In April 2003, the United States will celebrate the government, law, and race.2 Given the bicentennial of the Louisiana Purchase, the $15 historical significance of the Louisiana Purchase million land acquisition between Thomas to both Louisiana and the United States, and the Jefferson and Napoleon Bonaparte that doubled rich but place-bound holdings of the LSU the size of the young American republic, and Libraries and the New Orleans City Archives that added a vast region that extended from Canada document the era, a goal of the grant was to to the Gulf of Mexico and from the Mississippi enhance K-12 teaching and learning by working River to the Rocky Mountains. At Louisiana with Louisiana teachers to integrate the use of State University, the Special Collections the digital collection into their classroom Department of the LSU Libraries and the LSU activities. The digital collection’s availability on Digital Library have been preparing for this the web would also give access to any teacher, historic event since October 2000 with a grant anywhere, who had an Internet connection. funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Entitled “The Louisiana Purchase: A Background Heritage Explored,” the project’s goal is to In October 2000, the Institute of Museum and digitize, catalog, and make available via the Library Services awarded Louisiana State World Wide Web selected documents and University a $219,000 Leadership Grant to publications from the era of the Louisiana digitize, catalog, and make available on the web Purchase that are held at the LSU Special through the LSU Digital Library published and Collection and the New Orleans City Archives at unpublished French-, English-, and Spanish- the New Orleans Public Library. language documents created or published between 1800 and 1815. The materials are The Louisiana Purchase was the most drawn from the holdings of the Louisiana and significant event in the westward expansion of Lower Mississippi Valley Collections (LLMVC) in the United States. It added territory that was the LSU Special Collections3 and the New eventually divided into the thirteen states of Orleans City Archives in the New Orleans Public Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Kansas, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and 2 Ibid. Louisiana. Additionally, it amounted to what grant author and director Faye Phillips called “an 3The LLMVC is an integrated research center experiment to incorporate a substantially dedicated to documenting all aspects of the different culture….[into] the predominantly history and culture of the state of Louisiana and Anglo-Saxon Protestant, adolescent United Lower Mississippi Valley region, in all formats. It States of America….an encounter with comprises a comprehensive collection of books, 1 diversity.” Within the borders of what would periodicals, maps, prints, pamphlets, Louisiana become the state of Louisiana, Creoles of state documents, microfilm of Louisiana French and Spanish descent, Germans upriver newspapers, and over 5000 manuscript groups encompassing over 10 million items. Louisiana 1 Faye Phillips, “The Louisiana Purchase State University Special Collections, “Louisiana Bicentennial: A Heritage Explored” (grant and Lower Mississippi Valley Collections,” application to the Institute of Library Services,
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Library. 4 Included in the digital collection from following events: the Purchase itself in 1803; the LLMVC are personal and political letters, the creation of the Territory of Orleans in 1804; legal and financial records, political tracts, state massive immigration of French, African slaves, and federal government documents, published and free people of color to New Orleans from and unpublished diaries and travel accounts, Saint Domingue after an 1809 slave revolt; the scientific and religious works, maps, and land largest slave revolt in U.S. history in St. Charles surveys. The City Archives contributed Orleans and St. John parishes in 1811; statehood in County and New Orleans City Court criminal and 1812; the Creek War in 1813-1814; and the civil records, ca. 1804-1812.5 Upon completion, Battle of New Orleans (1815) at the end of the the digital collection will include approximately War of 1812. The battle united the formerly 260 items from LSU and 830 from the City disparate groups in Louisiana in a common Archives represented in over 28,000 images or cause as Americans, Creoles, Acadians, free digital objects. men of color, and Choctaws fought together, marking the full entry of Louisiana and her Though the Purchase occurred in 1803, people into the national community of the United documents created or published between 1800 States.6 Including materials from 1800 to 1815 and 1815 are included in the digital collection. provides an important context for understanding During this time span, Louisiana evolved from a the Purchase and its effects. colony of Spain and France to a U.S. territory and later, to a state. It was also during that time Using the Dublin Core metadata elements, the that the experiment in diversity was most digital project librarian cataloged these selected evident, for it was then that the various ethnic, materials at the item level. From the catalog religious, political, and racial groups contended record in the LSU Digital Library,7 patrons may for power as the French colony-cum-U.S. access an image reference file and a digital territory reacted to and experienced the table of contents, an HTML document that was created to allow navigation of multi-page items. 8
4 In addition, transcriptions and translations are The Library is the official repository of the available in .pdf format for most manuscript records of New Orleans municipal government items from the LSU collections. (1769-present), and the City Archives contains more than 1200 manuscript volumes, over 3500 Integrating the digital collection into the K-12 cubic feet of unbound records, and large classroom collections of maps, architectural drawings, Digital projects such as the one herein described photographs, videotapes, and sound recordings. provide teachers with excellent resources to Included among these holdings are the records meet many social studies state curriculum of the Orleans Parish civil courts (1804-1926) standards. For example, the materials in “The and criminal courts (1830-1931). New Orleans Louisiana Purchase Bicentennial: A Heritage City Archives, New Orleans Public Library, Explored” address the following Louisiana “NOPL Archival Inventories,” Department of Education standards for high
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[geography]…. comparing and evaluating the elementary teacher represented pre- essential characteristics of various systems of kindergarten through fourth grade teachers, the government and identifying historical and middle school teacher represented grades fifth contemporary examples of each [civics and through eighth, and the high school teacher government]….analyzing causes and covered grades ninth through twelfth. In consequences of worldwide economic addition to assisting in selecting teachers for the interdependence [economics]….and interpreting panel, the liaison made sure the other teachers and evaluating historical evidence presented in prepared their assignments, held meetings as primary and secondary sources [history].”9 necessary with other teachers, planned teacher Matching curriculum standards with digital workshops, assisted with the project content is critical to the success of any project evaluations, and served as the liaison between that hopes to be useful in K-12 instruction. Such the project director, the project panel, and the congruence ensures a project’s usefulness and members of the advisory panel. The teachers appeal to teachers. collaborated and consulted with LSU Special Collections staff in three ways: developing But simply making this material available on the lesson plans based on the digital collection; web is not enough. If you build it, they do not making suggestions on the collection’s usability, always come, so to be certain our project image quality, content, and value-added reached teachers and achieved its goal of information that would assist them and other enhancing K-12 teaching and learning we teachers in preparing lesson plans; and helping sought the assistance of teachers themselves— in training other teachers to use the digital who better than they to advise and collaborate collection to prepare lesson plans and class with us to ensure the finished product’s activities. accessibility, usability, and relevance for teachers? Thus, a four-member advisory panel Teachers prepared lesson plans, accessing the comprised of the liaison between Louisiana digital collection via the web as items became State University and the East Baton Rouge accessible through the LSU Digital Library. Parish School Board and an elementary, middle Each teacher wrote five to six lesson plans, school, and high school teacher was formed. which included the following elements: introduction; content area and grade level for Louisiana State University and the East Baton which the exercise is applicable; the curriculum Rouge Parish School Board are fortunate to standards the lesson meets; an overview of and have a liaison who oversees a program to train procedure for implementing the lesson; the and mentor pre-service education majors at LSU resources needed (with the link to the relevant through an experimental school. Utilizing that digital object in the collection); entry level skills existing relationship and the liaison’s knowledge and knowledge students need to accomplish the and familiarity with local teachers, Project lesson; and the method of evaluating the Director Faye Phillips asked the liaison to students’ performance. These lesson plans will recommend teachers for the panel. The liaison be made available on the LSU Special interviewed twelve teachers and provided a list Collections website, of suggested finalists. From those twelve, she
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the items in the digital collection as they became access a document’s image file(s) and catalog available provided feedback about the site’s record. Therefore, the utility of the catalog user-friendliness and image quality. Their records for retrieval was not readily apparent, so experience with the collection also revealed teachers’ comments were restricted to the what contextual and background information usefulness of the information provided in the was needed on the site for teachers to use the catalog record. In general, they found that this digital collection effectively. In addition to the information, which includes date of publication or informal response given at meetings of the creation, title, a description of contents and project team and the panel, the project team biographical information about the creators of surveyed the teachers after they had prepared manuscript materials, and subject indexing their lesson plans to document systematically terms, to be somewhat helpful. However, the their reaction to and experience with the site. related question of what additional value-added information they needed showed the catalog The survey addressed four main areas: the record usually was not sufficient. Consequently, teachers’ general thoughts on the materials and the teachers preferred an exhibit-like content available; what, if any, problems they presentation of the digitized content. In such a encountered in using the digital collection and design, project staff would provide introductory what problems they anticipated other teachers topical essays, a list of documents or and students would have; the quantity and publications relevant to the subject, and quality of the information provided about the explanative text that details how the item items in the collection and its organization; and illustrates the chosen theme. One respondent specific concerns associated with teachers and wrote in favor of the exhibit approach: students using the manuscripts included in the “Background info is provided up-front (students collection, such as difficulty reading the can have this at their fingertips) and documents manuscripts because of the 19th-century supporting this information can be linked to handwriting and the need for contextual or directly.” According to the respondents, the explanatory information. The panel’s need for “background info” is especially true for overarching concern about the materials and manuscripts. Additionally, they expressed doubt content was the availability of appropriate about students’ and teachers’ ability to decipher resources for the lower grades. The materials handwriting in the manuscripts. To address this included were primarily textual, and the lack of concern, project staff prepared transcriptions for pictorial and graphic items, they feared, would most of the manuscripts, as well as translations mean the collection offered little for pre- for non-English original documents. kindergarten through fourth grade. In regard to the usability of the website and problems they The third function of the panel was to assist in encountered or anticipated other users might training other teachers to use the digitized have, the teachers reported difficulty searching materials in developing lesson plans. Therefore, the collection and identifying relevant items to in addition to providing model lesson plans, use. This experience was not unexpected, panelists participated in a free teachers’ however, because at the time they were workshop on integrating the project’s digital preparing lesson plans, full searching of the resources into classroom instruction. As part of digital collection had not been enabled. This the workshop held in summer 2002, the teacher hindrance was a result of the design of the LSU liaison gave an overview of teacher involvement Digital Library, which does not allow for in the project, and bibliographic instructors from searches until all image files and catalog records the LSU Libraries’ reference department have been entered. Additionally, the panel discussed locating and evaluating Internet expressed concerns unrelated to the site itself, resources. In addition, the LSU Special such as teachers’ slow or unreliable Internet Collections’ assistant curator of manuscripts connections. As an alternative, one suggested introduced attendees to the department’s making the digital collection available via CD- holdings, discussed the concept of primary and ROM. secondary sources and published versus unpublished materials, pointed out the benefits As mentioned above, teachers could not search of using primary sources in instruction, and the digital collection when they prepared their lesson plans. Instead, they had to scroll through a list of digitized items, from which they could 38
conducted an exercise in analyzing them.10 Lessons Learned Next, the digital project librarian gave an This grant was an IMLS national leadership orientation to and demonstration of the digital grant, and as such, it provides a learning collection’s website, and teachers from the opportunity for other libraries and archives advisory panel presented their lesson plans. contemplating or beginning similar digital Finally, attendees were given time to work on projects. Indeed, the experience of working with their own lesson plans and to ask questions of K-12 teachers offered many lessons. available project staff and panel teachers. As indicated earlier, a primary concern The pre-workshop survey revealed that 85.7% of expressed by the teachers and realized by attendees were elementary school teachers, and project staff was the lack of materials suitable for 14.3% taught middle school. Unfortunately, no use with younger students. Not surprisingly, the high school teachers attended.11 Of the holdings and services of most special collections elementary school teachers, all taught social departments, especially those associated with studies, but 57% also taught math and science, universities, lend themselves more readily to use and 28.6% also are responsible for language by scholars, researchers, and graduate students arts. The middle school contingent teaches both than by pre-kindergarten to fourth grade reading and Louisiana history. All had Internet learners. The LSU Libraries Special Collections access in their classroom, and 71.4% reported are no exception, and, indeed, the original using the Internet to plan lessons at least once a audience for the grant was a scholarly one. month; of those, 60% said they used it at least Granting agencies are, however (and archivists once week. Further, 7l.4% had previously should be) concerned with wider public created web-enhanced classroom activities. In applications for such projects, but by the time the post-workshop survey, 80% reported they the teachers became involved in this project, the were more likely after the workshop to use materials to be digitized had already been sources from the LSU site in their lesson plans. chosen. As one teacher suggested, including The remaining 20% were as likely to do so as more pictorial items or resources about topics before the workshop. All planned to use them in which naturally interest children would make a their units on the Louisiana Purchase. digital collection more accessible and applicable Comments on the post-workshop survey to younger students. Two examples teachers indicate that those who attended found the gave for this project were materials related to content useful and that it contributed to their children’s lives during the era of the Louisiana excitement and knowledge about integrating Purchase or Native-Americans in the territory. project materials in their instruction. Though Involving teachers in the early stages of turnout for this workshop was lower than selecting materials for a digital project would anticipated, offering stipends and placing press also improve its effectiveness and relevance to releases in professional newsletters could boost both teachers and their students. participation in similar workshops given by other institutions. Another lesson is the need to educate potential users of these digital collections about the unique types of materials held by special
10 collections. The general public, including The exercise employed the document analysis teachers, often has little knowledge of or sheets available from the Digital Classroom at experience with primary sources, such as letters the National Archives web site at and diaries. Not surprisingly, these groups may
11 types of documents. For example, one The liaison handled getting the word out to panelist’s response to the survey showed a Louisiana teachers about the workshop. To misunderstanding of the word “manuscript.” She advertise, she contacted the social studies referred to each item in the digital collection as a supervisor at the Louisiana Department of manuscript, regardless of whether it was a book, Education and emailed the curriculum advisors map, or unpublished letter or deed; she in each parish (county) in the state. She also associated the term with the item’s presence in handed out fliers at local and regional meetings the digital collection, not its inherent qualities. in spring 2002. This confusion led project staff to realize the
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need to provide introductory information about mentioned earlier, one of the teachers’ concerns the differences between published and was the lack of materials appropriate and unpublished materials and primary versus intellectually accessible for lower grades. Early secondary sources at the teachers’ workshop teacher participation in selection of holdings to and on the website. Similarly, practices that be included in a digital collection could alleviate make sense to librarians or archivists may seem this problem. Similarly, as indicated by the nonsensical to the layperson. For example, the panel’s difficulty in locating enough relevant teachers questioned how project staff had items in the collection because they were using designed the presentation of transcripts and the site as it developed, participating teachers translations. Proceeding linearly from the scan should not be asked to prepare lesson plans of the original document, project staff had until the site is fully functional and complete. provided the transcription of French or Spanish Again, this problem was a function of the timing language documents, followed by their English of their involvement. As project staff worked out translation, giving the version closest to the the bugs of workflow, project management, and original document first. The teachers, however, technical issues, we were asking the teachers to wanted to immediately access the English use the site, which was not yet fully searchable, translation. They commented that some users, to make lesson plans. More thoughtful planning upon seeing the transcription of the foreign- by project staff and adjusted expectations of language document, would become discouraged granting agencies would instead make the and stop pursuing that resource. To meet both creation of lesson plans one of the final steps in groups’ concerns, a hyperlink to the English the project. Feedback from teachers during the translation was added at the beginning of the “middle phase” of a project—the scanning and transcription. Taking into account users’ cataloging of materials and the creation of the expectations and base of knowledge, and project’s web site—could be based on a test making necessary adjustments, will make a sample. At that time, their comments on the digital project more accessible and user-friendly, site’s usability and suggestions on site design while at the same time educating them about the and needed value-added information would be holdings of special collections. most useful and relevant. In conclusion, a phased approach to teacher involvement—input A related lesson is the need to provide value- on selection of materials in the beginning, added information such as historical context and feedback on samples of image files, cataloging explanative labels about the digital objects. information, site design, and contextual content Such content is critical to illustrate the materials’ as the project progresses, and creation of lesson pertinence to a topic because users come to plans based on the final product—would offer these materials with unequal subject knowledge. the most effective use of teachers’ expertise. Consequently, the website for “Louisiana Purchase: A Heritage Explored” will offer both Conclusion exhibit-like and database approaches. “Topical As these “lessons learned” illustrate, K-12 modules,” authored by Special Collections and teachers have something to teach library and New Orleans Public Library staff, as well as by archival professionals as well. Making the scholars, will feature introductory essays holdings of special collections libraries interspersed with links to relevant, illustrative accessible to teachers and their students via documents and publications in the digital digitization projects, and working with those collection. Possible topics to be included are teachers to integrate their use into classroom land settlement, travels and voyages, instruction, is a rewarding, though sometimes commerce, Native Americans, culture and challenging, undertaking. If it is to be a religion, government, the Louisiana Purchase successful one, archivists and librarians need to itself, the batture question, the War of 1812, consider both what expertise they can offer to slavery, and agriculture and plantations. teachers and what special knowledge the teachers can offer them. Further, thoughtful Perhaps the most important conclusion project planning of teacher involvement can result in members reached as a result of working with the more effective use of each participant’s assets. K-12 teachers is the advantage and necessity of appropriately timing teacher involvement. As
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Bibliography
Louisiana Department of Education. Louisiana Social Studies Content Standards: State Standards for Curriculum Development. Baton Rouge, La.: Louisiana Department of Education, 1997. Document online.
Louisiana State University Digital Library. “The Louisiana Purchase Bicentennial: A Heritage Explored.”
Louisiana State University Special Collections. “Louisiana and Lower Mississippi Valley Collections.”
New Orleans City Archives, New Orleans Public Library. “County of Orleans, County Suit Records.”
New Orleans City Archives, New Orleans Public Library. “NOPL Archival Inventories”
Phillips, Faye.“The Louisiana Purchase Bicentennial: A Heritage Explored.” Grant application to the Institute of Library Services, 2000.
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