Monday, November 25, 2013

Review of Ford Museum Website

Henry Ford, for all you non history nerds out there, was waaaay more than just a car guy.  He's one of the more interesting characters in American History.  He tried to build utopia in the South America, obsessively controlled (and spied on) his employees, gouged the US war department and was a noted anti-semite.  None of this is a joke.  SUPER FUN to teach about.  The website though, predictably, really didn't go into this kind of thing as the Ford family is still around and protects the 'brand' quite vocally. The reason I chose to review this site was my background knowledge on the subject and curiosity regarding bias/editing.

The things that were of interest...
  • Great links to other historical websites discussing the same era such as the Wright Brothers, Detroit Publishing, and a pretty cool 'Picture of the Month' section.
  • A couple of the 'channels' had innovation lessons that could be used, but it's a stretch.  Perhaps for a technology  or business class or for supplemental material? 
  • Decent video library, but your lesson would have to be planned around it.
That's about it.
Things that flagged for me...
  • Didn't read like a 'education' website.  Felt like education was secondary (or a requirement) to fund the brand. 
  • The majority of the links were directly to do with visiting the museum or paying ... Visit, Tickets, Donate, Membership, Shop, Museum (paid), Factory Tour (Paid), Innovations (about the products you can buy), many of the historical resources were fee based, and private events to pay to rent the space).
  • Broken links on the Research Center Page for their flagship exhibits (Digital Dress and Herman Miller, both HTTP 404)
  • Even the research center felt 'for profit'

Student Focus Group:  9-12
Subject Alignment:  History
SSUSh12:  Analyze the importance of American Industrial Growth
SSUSH13:  Major efforts to Reform American Society and Politics in the Progressive Era
SSUSH16:  Key Developments after WWI (Directly mentions Ford)
SSUSH19:  Domestic Impact of WWII

Not a huge fan of this site.  Would require substantial effort for me to do anything other than use it for myself or provide direct links.  Wouldn't suggest allowing students just to browse this one.  It really would be hard to defend letting students look at this for 90 minutes in a lab  With the exception of writing a paper directly about the most public aspects of Ford's life, there are better resources (like the Smithsonian) that cover this time period in a more academic fashion. 

Review of The Mount Vernon Website

I chose to explore the Mt. Vernon website, simply because I'm a Jefferson fan and I wanted to compare and contrast with the Monticello site as a bit of friendly colonial competition.
I really enjoyed this site, and once I got past the capitalist hoopla the educational materials were aces.  Here are the highlights...
  •  I especially liked the videos of the historical interpreters as I am constantly reminding kids that there is more to the story than what is in the history books and that these were real people. 
  • Many, many lesson plans were just first rate and looked like actual fun.  I am particularly interested in political cartoons as it reiterates the above point.  To understand them, you have to have a pretty good working knowledge of the time period and this site has extensive lessons to make those links.
  • There are some very, very good historical videos that could be integrated into my PPT or lectures that are free for educators to use.
  • The lesson plans (multimedia or not) were created by their research fellows and as part of a summer program that they run for teachers.  The plans have been peer reviewed and tweaked in a very competitive workshop environment.  Barring me tweaking them for my own likes/dislikes they really are some sterling examples of best practice in history education.  I really liked that I can back up my reasoning to use these lesson plans with the academic weight of the people that created them.

Student Focus Group:  9-12 (and I think I could pull off advanced 8th)
Subject Alignment:  History, Social Studies, PolSys/Civ
Core Standards...
US History (GPS) SSUSH2-5
  • Economy and Society in British North America
  • Primary Causes of American Revolution
  • Ideological, Military, and Diplomatic Aspects of American Revolution
  • Key Events that brought about the adoption of the US Constitution
American Gov't/Civ (GPS) SSCG2-5
  • Natural Rights Theory and nature of Gov't in relation to Declaration of Independence
  • US Constitution
  • Organization of US Gov't
  • Federalist System of Gov't & Constitution
NSS-National Social Studies Standards:  NSS-C9-12.2-3
  • Foundations of the American Political System
  • Principles of Democracy
NL-ENG National Literacy Standard NL-ENG.K-12.5
  • Communication Strategies
 
To be completely honest, I think this site probably hits EVERY core standard for SS,CG, and Literacy across the colonial studies board at some point.  The ones above were relevant to the lesson plans I was viewing regarding political cartoons.
 
Great site!  Will be poaching (with acknowledgement, of course!) for a very, very long time.