In incorporating DH into the classroom, the DH community offers a plethora of options. The tool that I found most interesting as a pedagogical too was History Pin, a space-modeling tool that allows users to attach historical events to locations on a map. Further, the website allows users to curate their own collection of locations that others may peruse and explore using the map. I find this tool valuable for the classroom, in part, because its content and purpose involves physical space that goes beyond the classroom. The idea is that students may be able to associate seemingly mundane locations they are familiar with historical importance. This can hopefully encourage students to see their own communities and dwellings in a different, historical light that they may personally engage in. Further, the ability to curate allows the instructor to create assignments whereby students may collect certain locations and present them in a way that spins a narrative or brings new information to light about their community. Perhaps students can be encouraged to physically visit these places and speak to those in the community about them. As a result, this tool, in theory can engage students in physical and digital spaces and encourage them to mentally link them in order to see their communities in new ways.
History Pin as a Pedagogical Tool
This seems like a great tool! It seems to lend itself to the ever important “culturally relevant pedagogy” praxis that calls on educators to embed learning in the local contexts and cultural specificity of the particular students in their classes. To have students learn about their own history in a dynamic way tied to concrete places and spaces that they inhabit on a regular basis seems phenomenal. It could allow them to connect with the learning on levels not possible through simple textbooks or internet searches and reports. Great find!