ChronoZoom TimeBooks: Library of Congress Edition
PROJECT SUMMARY: U.S. History TimeBook: Library of Congress Edition provides training in the use of primary source materials to teach U.S. history within a nesting context of local, regional, and national perspectives by leveraging the
innovative opportunities of digital technology.
Central to this project is the use of an emerging new technology called ChronoZoom, a free online timeline tool that allows students and teachers to create nested timelines and see the interconnectedness between events as represented by primary source documents. ChronoZoom provides users with tools for standards-aligned education of historical thinking, introduce students to exciting technologies and demonstrate how they can be used even if your school has limited infrastructure, and empowers teachers with non-digital tools and techniques to encourage your students to collaborate and practice higher-order communication. Once created, ChronoZoom allows for critical analysis of individual digital assets as well as narrative analysis of the relationship of documents, events, and choices. In this project, teachers have used ChronoZoom to explore their understanding of this complex topic as well as their teaching of these understandings in the K-12 classroom.
Each timeline is seeded with relevant digital assets, including documents, audio and video files, contextual powerpoints and short vignettes. As a foundational spine, the Library of Congress TimeBook allows teachers the flexibility to expose students to pre-selected LOC resources that illustrate key historical moments, to model the historical thinking pedagogy of the Teaching with Primary Sources program, and to feature LOC materials as the centerpiece for continued student exploration and discovery.
Access the master copy of the U.S. History TimeBook: Library of Congress Edition here.
PARTNER ORGANIZATION: Program in the Humanities, University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill
FUNDING & SUPPORT: Funding was made possible by the Teaching with Primary Sources: East Region Program of the Library of Congress.
