So you want to be part of it? CAL Resources for New York’s Lower East Side

Abstract

First paragraph: This article reviews a number of computer-assisted learning (CAL) resources intended for use in teaching American social history of the late nineteenth-century and early twentieth centuries: first, a tutorial package on the socially sensitive photography of the progressive reformer, Jacob Riis; second, an impressive, self-contained dataset, based on the 1900 census, relating to the composition and nature of immigrant communities on New York's Lower Eastside; and third, a range of websites that provide public access to hypertext materials on urban life. Similar such reviews have appeared in previous issues of Craft and our objectives remain straightforward and functional. Our initial purpose was to assess these resources on their own terms, as teaching aids, and, as with any textual source, assess their contribution to the study of U.S. social history. But there were more practical considerations, however: whether any of these resources could be integrated into existing courses in American history at Stirling University, either with or without some modification to the curricula and teaching methods. Inevitably, the exercise raised some wider pedagogic issues, including whether cognitive problems pertaining to the use of visual images generally are too readily ignored by teachers and lecturers.