"The University of Virginia Multimedia Guide to the Virginia Standards of Learning: Grade 11 Virginia and United States History" a joint report by the Miller Center for Public Affairs and the Virginia Center for Digital History

Summary: We offer this guide as a supplement to the DOE's Teacher Resource Guide, as a review of the standards and their implications for teaching history, and as an attempt to help teachers apply the vast resources of the Web to their standards-based curriculum. We plan to put online a complete edition of the UVA Multimedia Resource Guide in the 2001-2002 academic year. The online edition of the UVA Multimedia Resource Guide will cover all standards in 11th-grade Virginia and U.S. history and all subsections to the standards. All standards and subsections will have a contextual essay, a list of recommended readings, and an exhibit of multimedia resources from the University of Virginia and other high-quality library and university sites.

"The Pasts and Futures of Digital History" by Edward L. Ayers

Summary: Ayers looks at the state of history in the digital age, from publishing to scholarship, from teaching to learning. With careful analysis he examines the fate of the book, the role of the historian, and the opportunities for digital scholarship.

"In the Valley of the Shadow: Communities and History in the American Civil War" by William G. Thomas

Summary: Thomas explores the idea of digital community history by examining the Valley of the Shadow Project. How is community history enhanced through the medium of digital technology? How does this work change our view of communities in the Civil War era? A version of this article appeared in the September 1998 issue of the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography.

Aggregating and Georeferencing 1860 U. S. Census Data by William G. Thomas

Summary: Thomas describes the Geographic Information Systems development of an 1870 Jedediah Hotchkiss map of Augusta County. The map was georeferenced and households on it linked to data in the 1860 U.S. Census. Cross tabulations and frequencies were developed to explore the role of slavery in a Southern community.

Presidential Libraries Conference remarks, "Democratizing History," by William G. Thomas

Summary: Thomas looks at the audience for the Valley of the Shadow Project by examining traffic statistics from the popular site in 1998. A version of this article appeared in the February 1999 issue of the American Historical Association publication, AHA Perspectives.

Organization of American Historians remarks on "History in Hypertext" by Edward L. Ayers

Summary: Ayers charts the future for hypertext history, covering the course of the digital medium since its inception. Ayers writes, "If we can come up with some workable responses to these challenges--and that can probably only be done by actually trying it--hypertextual history might grow into the most sophisticated form of historical narrative. In that form, it might bond analysis and evidence in rigorous ways impossible on a printed page."

Technology and Constructivist Teaching in Post-secondary Instruction: Using the World Wide Web in an Undergraduate History Course by Natalie B. Millman and Walter F. Heinecke

Summary: Millman and Heinecke, both from the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia, conducted extensive research on the HIUS 403: Digital History and the American Civil War, taught by Edward L. Ayers and William G. Thomas in the spring semester of 1997. This essay examines uses student and instructor interviews to examine constructivist pedagogy using technology. Millman and Heinecke's research sheds new light on: 1. What is the role of the instructors and the students in the learning process using the World Wide Web (WWW) to present historical narratives? 2. How do students construct meaning in this type of a learning environment? 3. How do instructors adapt the advantages of technology to serve instructional needs? 4. What does it mean to "do" history? What is digital history?

Development of a Digital GIS Database for Augusta Co., Virginia, 1860-70: Overview, Outline, and Detailed Discussion of Plans and Procedures for Data Automation by Steve Thompson and Ariel Lambert

Summary: Thompson and Lambert describe the development of a digital GIS data base for Augusta County, Va. Their work is based upon the existence of a detailed map of the county draw by Jedediah Hotchkiss in 1870 and derived in large measure from existing Confederate Army maps produced during the Civil War. In addition to showing major and minor roads as well as rivers, streams, and smaller water courses, the Hotchkiss map is significant in that in shows locations of over 2000 named structures. Although mills (flouring, saw, and paper), churches, schools, mines, and a variety of manufacturing establishments (black smithies, potteries, forges) are shown on the map, the vast majority of named structures are private residences with the name corresponding either to the property's owner or inhabitant.

"With Good Reason" Sarah McConnell Interviews William G. Thomas and Nicole Tucker(requires Real Audio plug-in)