Features Available on the Collaborative Study in American History
It's not actually a feature, but it's probably the most prominent section of the site. With the home page, we welcome and provide you with a brief introduction to the Collaborative Study in American History. You may have noticed the random quote each time your browser accesses the home page. The quotes are just another way we've tried to make your study time a little more enjoyable.
Having experienced the difficulty in organizing abstract ideas in the form of linear notes, the idea for a conceptual topic map just sort of came up in one of our many brainstorming sessions. The beauty of placing a concept map on the Internet is that several students can work on the same map at the same time. It merges the efficient organization of abstract ideas and the benefits of collaboration in a glorious multi-dimensional information tool.
The interactive outline is very similar to the concept map in that it allows students to analyze topics in a collaborative effort. But the outline gives students the ability to cover a much wider range of information without the detailed inter-connecting of ideas. Some have labled the outline a "cram" tool, traversing mountains of information at a time, as opposed to the in-depth analyses of the concept map.
Yes, we know. Almost every other educational site seems to have a message board. The only difference is that our site was established upon the idea of collaborative input, so a message board seems like the perfect addition to a mainly collaborative and interactive site. On other sites, message boards are made available not to be used... but to impress users and to give the false feeling of a collaboratively dynamic site. It's like placing a bit of parsley by a hamburger dripping with saturated fat to make the dish look a bit healthier.
The discussion room serves as a real-time counterpart to the message board. Discussions are a bit more fast-paced than those of the message boards, allowing users to get answers to questions instantaneously. This feature seems to be the most popular on nights preceding major exams.
The online quiz is made of two parts: an online essay grader and a multiple choice quiz. The online essay grader provides users with typical essay prompts and an automatic grading algorithm that gives an approximate computer-generated score to a submitted essay. The multiple choice quiz consists of questions derived from all areas of American history. Once a user answers each question and "turns in" the quiz, a program will automatically grade the quiz and identify the user's trouble areas.
Not only is the historical document base a good study utility but also an excellent research tool. We've included several of the most important historical documents in our nation's history and indexed them in an online search engine. Just enter in a few keywords, and a program will bring up the most relevant historical documents.
Using the same technology as was utilized in the historical document base, we constructed a knowledge base or a broad collection of notes and articles pertaining to American history. All documents were derived from lectures, notes, and and textbooks used in the 1996-97 Advanced Placement U.S. History class at Cypress Falls High School.
Sometimes a teacher talks a bit too fast or a sudden epidemic of writer's cramp spreads across the classroom, and so we developed the "Virtual Lecture Hall" to allow students to listen to their teacher's lectures in the comfort of their home. We also allow any teacher interested to contribute to the Lecture Hall.
A cheat-sheet for history teachers on how to integrate the Collaborative Study in American History with their curriculum. Also includes a list of links to other resource sites for social studies educators.
This is probably the section of the Collaborative Study in American History that we're the most proud of. In it we've included the memories of people who have actually lived through the times we study in traditional American history courses. As the site grows, we hope to expand this section as much as possible.
List of historical terms everybody ought to know.
A graphical representation of the entire site to allow users to easily navigate through the Collaborative Study in American History without being drawn into a blackhole of endless links.
A dynamic archive of external links also having to do with American history. Add your favorite site or visit some of our's. It's a modest attempt at bringing together the Internet's historical resources in one location.
Let's the user tell us how much he/she hates/loves the site we've worked so hard on. We read every single submission to the Feedback processsor, and try to maintain the site to meet everybody's needs.
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