Abstract:

Incorporating web 2.0 projects challenges undergraduates to use digital methodologies to achieve more complex understandings of historical events. This presentation discusses the use of Dipity, a web-based timeline tool that allows events to be viewed either chronologically or spatially, for a class project analyzing first-hand accounts of the Haitian Revolution. Rather than submitting traditional papers analyzing the historical significance of documents describing the slave revolt and its repercussions, students uploaded their individual primary source analyses onto a shared Dipity timeline. This digital framework affected their historical research in two significant ways. First, the shift to a public platform encouraged students to think carefully about their work as a piece of public history, considering their analysis, audience, and communication. Second, the incorporation of a digital tool that underscored the chronological relationship and geographic networks between a range of the revolution’s participants and observers helped students to a deeper understanding of how to place the Haitian Revolution into the wider framework of Atlantic World History during the Age of Revolution.

Keywords:

Pedagogy, web 2.0, student projects, geomapping.