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World History Teachers' Use ofDigital Primary Sources: TheEffect of TrainingAdam M. Friedman aa University of North Carolina , CharlottePublished online: 31 Jan 2012.

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Theory and Research in Social EducationWinter 2006, Volume 34, Number 1, pp. 124-141© College and University Faculty Assemblyof National Council for the Social Studies

World History Teachers’ Use of Digital Primary Sources: The Effect of Training

Adam M. FriedmanUniversity of North Carolina, Charlotte

AbstractThrough surveys, interviews, observations, and field notes, I examined the beliefs and practices of six high school world history teachers regarding the use of digital primary sources and the potential added value of formal training in technology as a tool for instruction. Access to equipment (namely computer projectors and school computing facilities) was paramount in terms of digital primary source use; teachers with high levels of access to computing equipment were high-frequency users of digital primary sources, while those without access were not. While formal training did not necessarily result in an increased use of digital primary sources, it did affect the manner in which they were used. Teachers with low levels of technology training tended to use digital primary sources as an additive to their instruction instead of as a vehicle from which to engage students in historical thinking.

Introduction

In his 1984 book A Place Called School, John Goodlad described his-tory teaching in terms of teacher-centered lectures, work assigned from a textbook or worksheet, and tests at the most basic level of Bloom’s Taxonomy. More recent research suggests that little has changed (e.g., VanSledright, 1995; Martorella, 1997; Lee, 2001; Risinger, 2001). While it is certainly important for students to know and recall basic history content, instruction that emphasizes this type of knowledge does not necessar-ily promote the evaluation of different types of evidence, which Barton (2005) and others deem essential for understanding past events.

A growing body of research on best practices in history teaching advocates a focus on historical thinking as an alternative to traditional teaching methods (e.g., Wineburg, 2001; Booth, 1993; Levstik & Barton, 2001). Booth (1993) describes historical thinking as a “process by which

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meaning, or potential meaning, is abstracted from a discrete source of evidence and drawn to a common center” (p. 116). Certainly, it is dif-ficult to quantify historical thinking; the study of history is not an exact science (Booth, 1993). Rather, Greene (1994) offers that it is “an act of judgment made on the basis of historical evidence and a historian’s interpretive framework” (p. 92). This includes the investigation and interpretation of primary sources and is referred to as the “doing” of history (VanSledright, 2002; National Center for History in the Schools, 1996; Levstik & Barton, 2001).

Historical inquiry is “an instructional approach that brings together new understandings about the discipline of history as well as recent developments in cognitive research, especially in regard to children’s historical thinking” (Hartzler-Miller, 2001, p. 672). Levstik & Barton (2001) advocate the use of inquiry in teaching history in order to help students to understand history’s interconnectedness, rather than emphasizing “isolated trivia” (p. 14). In a K-12 social studies class, the use of primary sources might provide opportunities for students to accomplish this task if such sources help students to experience history through examination and exploration of particular issues (Cremer, 2001; Levstik & Barton, 2001; VanSledright, 2002; Kobrin, 1996).

Nonetheless, a logistical question remains as to whether and how social studies teachers are able to acquire and use these sources. In their 2004 study of high school social studies teachers around the country, Hicks, Doolittle, & Lee found that the teachers valued primary sources and that the majority of those surveyed used these sources on a weekly basis. However, the teachers in their survey used “classroom-based” primary sources (those derived from “texts, ancillary text materials, and primary source packets”) to a much larger degree than they did web-based or digital primary sources (sources that could be found on the Internet) (Hicks, et al., 2004, p. 223).

In the past decade, there has been an increasing push to infuse technology into all levels of the K-12 curriculum (Berson, Lee, & Stuckart, 2001; Cuban, 2001; Cuban, Kirkpatrick, & Peck, 2001). Researchers studying the use of technology in the teaching and learning of history have noted that technology in general, and the Internet in particular, offers access to difficult-to-find primary sources (VanFossen & Shiveley, 2000; Warren, 2001). While a growing body of research is documenting teachers’ use of the Internet to find and use primary sources for United States history, few studies have examined world history teachers’ use of primary sources, especially in the context of technology.

This is a particularly important issue in world history, because the Internet can make available “sources and material” (such as pho-tographs and speeches) “that it would otherwise not be possible to use” (DenBeste, 2003, p. 492). Because 99% of public schools had an

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Internet connection as of the fall of 2002 (National Center for Education Statistics, 2003), it could be assumed that the majority of world history teachers have access to this material. However, the mere availability of the technology needed to access digital primary sources does not guarantee that teachers will actually use these resources. In a study of secondary social studies teachers in Indiana, VanFossen (1999-2000) discovered that even though most teachers in his survey (95.8%) had access to the Internet in their schools, the overwhelming majority used the Internet for little more than collecting information, and almost half of the teachers surveyed were “low-frequency users” of the In-ternet (p. 99). Cuban, Kirkpatrick, & Peck (2001) affirm this finding, asserting that even in schools where computer hardware is available, many teachers do not necessarily use technology in their instruction. The authors explain that teachers do not have the time to “find and evaluate software” (Cuban, et. al., 2001, p. 826). Hicks, Tlou, Lee, Parry, & Doolittle (2002) agree, stating that “a great deal of preparation” is necessary for “both the teacher and students” if the Internet is going to be used “to support inquiry” (p. 2). Furthermore, training in how to use different technology resources is “seldom offered at convenient times” (Cuban, et. al., 2001, p. 826). However, VanFossen (1999) also found that if teachers are given training, they are more likely to use the Internet, thus alleviating this potential barrier.

Another potential hindrance to teachers’ use of technology is lack of technical support (Diem, 2000). Bowman, Newman & Masterson (2001) concur that it is critical to give teachers extended time, support, and training when they are first planning lessons that integrate technol-ogy; they contend that teachers adopt technology into their curriculum through a gradual process involving high levels of support and con-sultation throughout. This finding is also reflected in Hsu, Cheng, & Chiou’s 2003 study, which found that a supportive school administra-tion was integral to increasing teachers’ Internet use.

In this study, I examined the beliefs and practices of six world history teachers regarding digital primary sources in order to discern factors that facilitated and inhibited their use, as well as the extent to which the teachers used digital primary sources to support historical inquiry. Although it was not my initial focus, it became clear to me through interviews and observations that the world history teachers in this study perceived either a high or low degree of access to computer hardware (such as computers, projectors, and laptops), and a high or low degree of training not only for hardware and software but also for specific applications of the technology to the teaching of world history. Teachers with a high level of training had participated in a social stud-ies-specific technology integration undergraduate course, in which they learned how to use various hardware and software such as computer projectors, digital primary sources, web design, and PowerPoint in

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order to plan historical inquiry lessons. On the other hand, the teachers who had a low level of training had not participated in such a course, nor had they received training from their school (this distribution is further illustrated in Table 1). Therefore, the research question in this study was: How did formal technology training as an instructional tool influence world history teachers’ use of digital primary sources?

Table 1. Access to Equipment and Training

Access to Equipment and Technology Training(Please note that the names of the teachers and schools are fictitious.)

Access Low Access High

Training-High

Ms. Lewin-Lakefront High School (suburban)

Mr. Mitchell-Eastside High School (urban)

Ms. Mather-Plains High School (rural)

Mr. Lukas-Mountainview High School (suburban)

Training-Low

Mr. Clark-Lakefront High School (suburban)

Ms. Pullen-Eastside High School (urban)

Methods

To identify a selection of teachers utilizing digital primary sources at different rates, I surveyed thirty-four World History I (pre-1500) and World History II (post-1500) teachers from five public high schools in Virginia about their frequency of use of primary sources and how these primary sources were acquired. I surveyed teachers from five high schools to obtain variability in terms of school size and socio-economic status of the surrounding region. Including variety in the schools studied increased the likelihood that results from this study would adequately describe supports and barriers that were experienced in different school environments.

The survey asked the teachers to rate their use of primary sources on a scale from 0-3 for each Virginia Standard of Learning (SOL) for World History I or II, where 3 was every day, 2 was at least twice dur-ing a unit, 1 was one time during a unit, and 0 was never. In addition, I asked teachers how they acquired this primary source(s). If a teacher indicated that s/he acquired a primary source(s) from the Internet, s/he was considered to have used a digital primary source for that particular SOL (see Table 2 for a sample SOL from this survey).

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Table 2. Sample SOL From Survey

WHII.14The student will demonstrate knowledge of the influence of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism in the contemporary world by

a) describing their beliefs, sacred writings, traditions, and customs;b) locating the geographic distribution of religions in the contemporary world.

3 2 1 0

___ Textbook (print) materials ___ Other print resources___ Textbook CD-ROMS ___ Internet resources ___ Other

A wide range was evident in teachers’ use of digital primary sources. Some teachers did not use digital primary sources for any of the SOLs, and at the other extreme, some teachers used digital primary sources for every SOL. Teachers who used digital primary sources for at least 90% of the SOLs were considered high frequency users, those who used digital primary sources for less than 15% of the SOLs were considered low frequency users, and a middle-frequency user was defined as a teacher who used digital primary sources on 54% of the SOLs (see Figure 1 for a flow chart depicting the participant selection process).

Figure 1. Flow Chart of Selection of Participants

34 World History teachers given SOL-based survey on their use of digital primary sources

Teachers broken into categories of high, middle, and low fre-quency users based on percentage of SOLs in which digital primary sources were used

Six teachers (3 high-frequency, 2 low-frequency, 1 in the middle) chosen to be interviewed and observed

From these survey results, I chose six teachers (three high-fre-quency digital primary source users, two low-frequency, and one in the middle) to participate in one in-depth (1.5 hour) interview, one or two unannounced observations (depending on the teacher) over a three-week period in which archival evidence (such as lesson plans and websites) was collected, and three 15-20 minute informal interviews.

Four teachers, Ms. Lewin, Mr. Mitchell, Ms. Mather, and Mr. Lu-kas, reported that they had undergone specific training in their teacher education program that focused on the integration of technology and digital primary sources into their instruction. Each of these teachers was an undergraduate history major, and with the exception of Ms. Mather,

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had earned a Master’s degree in Social Studies Education. While Ms. Lewin and Mr. Lukas were in their second year of teaching, Mr. Mitchell was in his third and Ms. Mather in her fourth. Conversely, Mr. Clark and Ms. Pullen had not participated in any type of technology training (either from a university course or their school); Mr. Clark was an undergradu-ate history major with a Master’s degree in Social Studies Education, while Ms. Pullen was a political science major as an undergraduate and had not earned a Master’s degree. In terms of teaching experience, Mr. Clark was in his eighth year, while Ms. Pullen was in her twelfth.

For this study I used analytic induction, a design described by Erickson (1986) in his chapter Qualitative Methods in Research on Teaching. In this approach, it is recommended to have more than one method of research, since different methods may each have potential weaknesses, but their combination, or “triangulation,” will lead to more accurate findings (Erickson, 1986, p. 140). Thus, my data col-lection included interviews, observations, and collection of archival evidence. Erickson (1986) argues that it is the researcher’s duty to construct explanations of why teachers act the way they do and how those actions affect student learning. He also deems this a “primary concern” of conducting this type of research, which may be carried out through observations in order to ensure “particularizability, rather than generalizability” (1986, p. 130). Equally important to this study was understanding what the teachers’ actions represented. Therefore, I conducted interviews to “probe analytically the significance of the concrete details reported” (Erickson, 1986, p. 152). The collection of archival evidence served to further delineate what I saw during the observations and discussed in the interviews.

Results

Two major findings emerged that provide insight into the influ-ence of formal technology training on world history teachers’ use of digital primary sources:

1. Although all of the world history teachers felt that digital primary sources added value to their instruction, access to equipment (specifically computer projectors and school computing facilities) directly influenced the frequency of digital primary source use in their instruction. Teachers who had access to this equipment used digital primary sources more frequently than those who did not.

2. Technology access barriers mitigated high levels of technology train-ing and impaired the use of digital primary sources. Technology training alone did not influence the rates of world history teachers’ use of digital primary sources, but did influence the manner in which they were used.

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Importance of a Computer ProjectorA computer projector is a digital projector connected to the cen-

tral processing unit of a computer, and its function is to broadcast, or project, the image that is on a computer screen to a wider audience. My data suggested that access to such equipment had a strong influence on the use of digital primary sources in instruction; teachers who per-ceived greater access to computer projectors were more likely to utilize digital primary sources. Of the world history teachers interviewed and observed in this study, the three who were the most frequent us-ers of digital primary sources, Mr. Clark, Ms. Pullen, and Mr. Lukas, had unlimited access to a computer projector for their classroom. The other three teachers, Ms. Lewin, Mr. Mitchell, and Ms. Mather, faced an assortment of barriers that limited their ability to acquire this projector. Every school in this study had at least one computer projector available for teacher use, but institutional barriers did not allow all teachers to have access to the projector at the same rate. For example, Mr. Mitchell described his school’s cumbersome procedure to obtain a projector (he had to obtain it himself in between classes and subsequently return it), while Ms. Mather did not “want to fight over” her school’s one projector. Some teachers reported more barriers than others; further, the amount of barriers that a given teacher faced was inversely related to projector access and directly influenced the frequency of digital primary source use. The following two examples highlight this disparity.

Teaching with a projector. Ms. Pullen reported being a high-fre-quency user of digital primary sources as a teacher at urban Eastside High School. She said that she used them every day in order to “enhance” her lectures and discussions, and that they were “very important” in helping students to “picture” history. She reported that this past school year she had added to her repertoire by showing students images related to the topic being discussed. She described accomplishing this by finding images from the Internet that pertained to a particular topic and then projecting them to the class through the equipment hooked up to her computer, explaining that she “find[s] primary sources on the Internet, and boom, I can just display them.” Ms. Pullen’s school had a staff of over 100 teachers and a total of six computer projectors. However, one of the six computer projectors resided permanently in Ms. Pullen’s classroom. Although it was not the newest, sleekest model of projector on the market -- Ms. Pullen described it as a “dinosaur” -- it was fully functional for her needs. Because of her contacts with those whom she portrayed as the “right people,” and by being in the right situation at the right time, she felt very fortunate to have, in her words, “scored” this projector for her personal use. This access clearly made a difference in the frequency with which Ms. Pullen used digital primary sources. She stated, “The

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first few months of the school year I didn’t have it. I was checking it out, but I was using it one-third the amount of time I’m using it now with having it housed in my room.”

Ms. Pullen recognized that she was in a unique position among her colleagues. Not only did she say that she used the projector “every day,” but she had spoken to her colleagues about its benefits for her instruction. She said that she continued to tell anyone who would listen that “…if the state is really serious or the district is serious about us integrating technology, and integrating the Internet specifically into the classroom, then we should all have one of those digital projectors.” And although she was a self-reported high-frequency user of digital primary sources, Ms. Pullen did not have a self-perception of being technologi-cally savvy. In fact, she stated that she did not feel particularly at ease with technology. Ms. Pullen attributed this to the fact that she

…graduated [from high school] in 1982. I just missed the com-puter age. I’ve just been playing catch-up…it’s just not my thing. As a matter of fact, my test on World War I is handwritten. I’ll handwrite something before I use the word processor. I’m not anti-technology, but it’s just not my thing.

Yet even though technology was not her “thing,” Ms. Pullen used digital primary sources at a very frequent rate and described the reason for this as nothing more than access to equipment, particularly the computer projector. Imagining herself without a projector, she described the usual procedure at her school:

…You have to pre-register for the digital projector, you have to do that a couple of days in advance, you have to go pick it up and bring it back, and what ends up happening is you might teach world history 3rd, 4th, and 7th periods, but you can only get the projector for 3rd and 4th period, so now you have to come up with something different for 7th. If one teacher signs it out right after you signed it out, you have to wheel it to where the other teacher is. It’s a real hassle.

Because of this complicated procedure, it seems very likely that if Ms. Pullen’s computer projector were taken away from her, she would no longer use digital primary sources so frequently.

Teaching without a projector. Mr. Mitchell also taught at Eastside High School. His description of his teaching style sounded remarkably similar to Ms. Pullen’s, with Mr. Mitchell recounting a “routine” that involved “reading out loud, worksheets, and taking notes.” He, too, believed that digital primary sources were “critical” for teaching world history. Yet though these two teachers’ instructional approaches seem

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similar on paper, they are at two extremes in terms of frequency of digital primary source use. In the survey, Ms. Pullen reported that she used digital primary sources for 93% of the Virginia SOLs, compared to just 7% for Mr. Mitchell. Interview and observation data revealed that posses-sion of a computer projector was one of the most significant differences between these teachers, and that this might account for the disparity in use of digital primary sources. Specifically, Ms. Pullen had a computer projector in her classroom that she could access at any time, while Mr. Mitchell had to share the remaining five computer projectors with the rest of the faculty. Also, while Ms. Pullen was able to use her computer projector whenever she wanted for as long as she wanted without hav-ing to plan in advance, Mr. Mitchell had to decide the day that he would like to use it, check on availability, go to the media center to check it out before his class, set it up, and then disassemble it and return it to the media center after class. This is not to say that Mr. Mitchell did not like to use it, but with the situation the way it was, it was often more of an aggravation than a benefit to use the computer projector. He stated that he would like a computer projector of his own, and he observed that if there was one way that he could improve his classroom, he “would have a larger projection screen” in order to enhance his instruction by

…run[ning] multimedia presentations off it, either video clips or audio clips, or stuff like going to web sites and having access to primary source documents, if nothing else to flash a picture of the Magna Carta or something. This is what a book looked like in 1750. How do they look different today?

Given Mr. Mitchell’s ideas for how he would utilize a computer projec-tor, it is likely that if Mr. Mitchell had a computer projector in his class-room and Ms. Pullen did not, he might be considered a high frequency digital primary source user while she might not.

Access to Computing FacilitiesEvery school involved in this study had at least one facility to

which teachers could take their students in order to work individually with computers. In order to use this facility, teachers had to sign up in advance on a first-come, first-served basis. Some schools also had classroom sets of laptop carts that could be checked out. Ideally, each teacher should have had the same access to computing facilities. In reality, however, different teachers had different rates of access for their classes, and this access affected their use of digital primary sources. Simply put, teachers who perceived greater access to computing facili-ties used digital primary sources more frequently.

Easy access. In this study, although the policy at each school called upon teachers to share computer equipment equally, some teachers

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found it easier than others to access computers. Mr. Lukas, Ms. Pul-len, and Mr. Clark (all of whom were high-frequency users of digital primary sources) interpreted access to equipment as “easy.”

For example, Mr. Lukas described access to technology at subur-ban Mountainview High School as “really great.” He stated that digital primary sources were “useful” for teaching world history, and although he did not have a computer projector stationed in his room, he said that he never had trouble accessing one, nor did he have a problem obtaining a set of laptops for his classroom. Describing the process, he said, “I go to the library, say which periods I need it…and just check it back in when I’m done.” He used both the computer projector and the laptops on a frequent basis in order to expose his students to digital primary sources and described an example of a lesson rich in digital primary sources that focused on different forms of government. In this particular lesson, he said that he utilized both the computer projector and the laptops. He started the lesson by using the projector to show a PowerPoint presentation with directions for the class assignment, which asked his students to analyze “four or five” different digital primary source documents related to a limited monarchy system and an absolute monarchy system by considering the author, date, and country of origin.

During a lesson I observed in which the overarching objective was for students to review some of the major events of the 19th century and write an essay that traced the foreign policy history of different nation-states, Mr. Lukas assigned students to groups that were to act as advisors for their particular nation-state. Each student within the group researched an event of the 19th century and wrote a paragraph on how the nation-state reacted to that event; the group then recon-vened to write the essay. All of the students were able to utilize laptops (which had a wireless Internet connection) to access information from websites that contained digital primary sources pertinent to their re-search question. Students were instructed to navigate to a read-only Microsoft Word file on the computer’s hard drive in a folder with Mr. Lukas’ name. Since the computers were on a wireless network, the hy-perlinks contained in the Word file were live and took students directly to the website. This saved instructional time and cut back on potential roadblocks for students, since they did not have to type the URL into an Internet browser. Additionally, the students had no technical dif-ficulties at any point, which suggests that the use of laptops in class was an ordinary occurrence. Mr. Lukas would not have been able to do this activity the way it had been designed without the laptops, but whether or not he would have been able to obtain the laptops for that day’s class was the farthest thing from his mind. He simply walked to the library before school, reserved the laptops, and then used them in his class a few hours later.

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By assigning his students to examine digital primary sources and reach their own conclusions, Mr. Lukas engaged in “best practice” with regard to teaching history – that is, students were clearly engaged in historical inquiry and interpretation. This could be explained by the fact that Mr. Lukas had access to the requisite equipment, coupled with his participation in a technology integration course in which he learned effective methods of utilizing technology to support history learning.

Barriers to access. For various reasons, not all teachers had the same access to computing facilities. In this study Ms. Mather, Ms. Lewin, and Mr. Mitchell perceived barriers to accessing equipment. In one ex-treme instance, the school’s computer labs were not available for social studies teachers, while other teachers described barriers, both real and perceived, that prevented their use of both classroom labs and rolling laptop carts. These barriers clearly had a negative impact on teachers’ use of digital primary sources.

The typically unlimited access described by Mr. Lukas was an anomaly for Ms. Mather. Her school, Plains High, was located in a rural district and had what she described as “huge computer labs” that housed “150 computers or something crazy,” and because she believed that digital primary sources were “very important” for teaching world history, this would appear to be a good situation. In actuality, however, her school only had 16 computers. This was because for each period of each school day, use of the computer labs was reserved for math classes. The only computers she was able to access were the 16 located in the library—obviously an inadequate number for each student to have his or her own to use. Not only would some students have to share computers, but Ms. Mather also had to share access to this space with every other teacher in the building (other than the math teachers); thus, she had to plan in advance when she wanted to conduct a lesson utilizing computers. Complicating matters further in terms of logistics, the library at Ms. Mather’s school was far from her classroom, and she felt that between bringing the students to the library, repeating her directions, getting them motivated, and then leaving herself enough time to get back to her classroom before the end of the period wasted “20 minutes of instructional time.” Also, the Internet connection was not dependable; she attested that it went down “at least once a week.” In fact, the last time she had created a lesson where her students were in the library using computers, the connection went down and she wound up having to modify her original assignment.

Another teacher, Ms. Lewin, taught at suburban Lakefront High School. Although she said that digital primary sources were “a great idea,” she too perceived barriers in terms of access to equipment. Her school had a computer lab and laptop carts, but there were logistical issues that she believed she had to overcome for each. She used the computer lab whenever she could, but she said “it’s hard to get spots

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down there.” To make matters worse, once when she scheduled her class for the lab, she found a locked door, and the person who had the key to the room could not be located. When she and her students finally were let in, they found that all of the computers were turned off.

Access Mitigates TrainingAmong participants in this study, there was no association be-

tween the amount of technology training and perceived technology skills in terms of the participants’ use of digital primary sources. In some cases, the world history teachers who reported high levels of training and technology confidence used digital primary sources less frequently than teachers who reported lower levels of training and confidence in their computer skills. From interview and observation data, it was clear that rates of access for hardware and software exerted the most influence on teachers’ use of digital primary sources.

As indicated above, four of the six world history teachers inter-viewed and observed in this study reported that they had undergone specific training in their teacher education program that focused on integration of technology and digital primary sources into their in-struction, while the other two had not. Although these four teachers described the training as effective, it was clear that this formal training in and of itself did not necessarily translate into the use of technology in general, or digital primary sources in particular.

Teachers with high levels of technology training. Mr. Mitchell took an intensive technology integration course in his teacher preparation program that emphasized how to use content-specific software, in ad-dition to a methods course that focused on using technology as a tool for teaching social studies. He recalled that during these courses, tech-nology skills were not taught in isolation. Rather, skills were integrated into the creation of learning experiences for students in social studies. During this course he

…had to learn to use all sorts of technology, not just like how to browse the Internet, but we had to put together videos. [We used] scanning, our own audio and video clips, web page creation, we even skipped over the whole PowerPoint thing. We put together our own website on the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Because of this social studies-specific technology training, Mr. Mitchell believed he was well versed in not only technical skills but also peda-gogical approaches that facilitated the use of technology and digital primary sources in his instruction. It was apparent that Mr. Mitchell had the technology skills and abilities to utilize digital primary sources. However, he reported his use of digital primary sources as “low-fre-quency.” In an interview, he described why he seldom used digital

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primary sources, stating that, “Unfortunately, at this school, I think technology [access] is a bit of an issue.” Thus, the barrier of access to equipment appeared to override his technology training, despite his self-reported high degree of efficacy regarding technology use.

Ms. Mather also received formal training in integrating technol-ogy into her instruction and, because of this experience, was very confident in doing so. However, she utilized technology in general, and digital primary sources in particular, at a comparatively low level. She also reported that if she had access to the proper equipment, she would use digital primary sources “every day.”

Mr. Lukas was a classmate of Mr. Mitchell in their teacher educa-tion program and participated in the same technology integration and methods courses. While he could vividly recall learning how to teach social studies with technology and used it “quite a bit” in his instruction, he stated that he was not totally secure in his technology skills:

I do feel pretty comfortable. I wouldn’t ever qualify or call myself a technology wizard, but just using the technology…I think [my teacher education program] did a good job of teaching me how to use things to my advantage…I feel good about it, because my learning curve was pretty steep. I feel like I didn’t grow up us-ing computers…maybe more than someone older than me, but not really.

It was clear that Mr. Lukas had some technology skills and confidence as a user. However, because it seems unlikely that his skills were markedly different from those of Ms. Mather, Ms. Lewin, and Mr. Mitchell, it is doubtful that his technology skills in and of themselves caused him to be a high-frequency user of digital primary sources. Rather, it was his perception that he had virtually unlimited access to technology.

Mr. Lukas was the only teacher who possessed the combina-tion of perceived high access to equipment and a high level of formal technology training. From interviews and observations, I concluded that the technology training Mr. Lukas received seemed to have added value in terms of the way that his students interacted with the digital primary sources. The major difference in the way that Mr. Lukas uti-lized digital primary sources was that he designed learning activities for students to actively learn from these sources. For example, rather than simply projecting an image of a particular person or place, he had students search for digital primary sources themselves, evaluate each one individually, and then relate its deeper meaning to the historical period being studied.

Teachers with low levels of technology training. Ms. Pullen had a high level of access to equipment but low technology training. During a les-son on the Second World War, she gave the students hand-written notes

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from a traditional overhead projector about Nazi Germany’s actions in the late 1930s and Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. The lesson involved questions and discussion, and while she rattled off the names Adolf Hit-ler, Benito Mussolini, and Emperor Hirohito, the students continued to take notes. As the students were finishing their notes, Ms. Pullen turned on the computer projector and walked over to her computer. She sat at her desk and performed an image search on the Internet for “Hitler.” Within seconds, she had a choice of hundreds of images from which to choose. She asked one of her students to “hit the light real quick” and another to turn off the traditional overhead projector. At this point, a photograph of Hitler in his Nazi uniform was prominently displayed for the class. She repeated the same steps for Mussolini and Hirohito, showing images in order to give her students what she referred to as a “visual narrative.” After the last image of Hirohito was shown, Ms. Pullen walked back to the computer projector, turned it off, and handed out a map that the students were to fill out for homework. In doing this, Ms. Pullen accomplished her goal of “enhancing” her lecture by allowing her students to be able to “put a name with a face.” However, contrary to Mr. Lukas’ lesson on 19th century Europe, what transpired in Ms. Pullen’s classroom did not necessarily encourage students to engage in historical thinking. Rather than analyzing documents and drawing conclusions, students were simply looking at pictures that happened to be on a computer projector.

Despite his lack of formal technology training and his perception that he was “somebody in the middle” in terms of technology skills (similar to Ms. Pullen), Mr. Clark reported himself as a high-frequency user of digital primary sources, describing their use as “invaluable” to teaching world history. Although he taught at suburban Lakefront High School with Ms. Lewin, he did have a computer projector housed in his classroom. However, the manner in which he used digital primary sources was similar to Ms. Pullen and markedly different from Mr. Lukas. This could be explained by his lack of training. While Mr. Lukas assigned his students to evaluate and analyze digital primary sources, Mr. Clark described his approach as, “I am using the technology, and students, I guess you would say, are consumers.”

For example, during a teacher-centered lecture on economic imperialism in Africa, students were given notes from a PowerPoint presentation. During the first three slides, Mr. Clark was the dissemina-tor of vocabulary words and terms, and the students passively wrote them down. By the fourth slide, however, students became aghast at the contrast in images on the PowerPoint slides that represented black and white, rich and poor. On the left side of the slide was an image of Belgian aristocrats in their opulent clothing and jewelry, smoking cigarettes. On the right was an African boy, no older than 12, wearing a rag around his waist, with his left arm missing below the elbow. A few minutes later,

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while talking about the violent racism that Africans faced, Mr. Clark brought up an image from a soap advertisement from the late 1800s that described the “White Man’s Burden” of having to care for the “savage” Africans. This image evoked a strong response from the students. Thus, while this lesson did not necessarily fit with the conventional wisdom on “best practice” in teaching history, Mr. Clark explained that he often was able to use images of this sort to “get [students’] attention.”

Discussion

Although computer projectors and computing facilities could be found in every school included in this study, the perceived availability of these resources to world history teachers varied. Teachers’ percep-tions of technology access clearly had a direct influence on their use of digital primary sources. High-frequency users of digital primary sources reported virtually unlimited access to this equipment, while low-frequency users described a number of barriers to acquiring this equipment for their instruction. For some low-frequency users, the complicated procedure required to obtain a computer projector deterred their digital primary source use, while others had to follow difficult procedures to use a computer lab.

Historical thinking emphasizes the idea of students constructing their own understandings of what occurred in the past from different sources of historical evidence (Booth, 1993; Greene, 1994). More often than not, teachers in this study conceived of primary sources as adding value to instruction by engaging students in the lesson, or as Ms. Pul-len said, by presenting images that “backed up” her words. In many instances, teachers viewed digital primary sources as an “additive” – something that might add zing to their PowerPoint or give students something to look at during a lecture. Rarely did teachers describe meaningful student engagement with the sources or consideration of key issues in historical thinking, such as author, motivation, perspec-tive, and bias (Wineburg, 2001). Only one teacher, Mr. Lukas, spoke of and demonstrated the utilization of digital primary sources in a student-centered, inquiry format, although it did not hinge upon exten-sive technological knowledge. Rather, he appeared to understand the underlying philosophy of historical thinking and could teach students the process of inquiry with technology as the vehicle. Conversely, Mr. Clark and Ms. Pullen used digital primary sources to supplement their instruction in a “show and tell” fashion.

The results of this study affirm Hicks et al.’s (2004) recommen-dation that schools go beyond providing the requisite hardware and software for teachers to utilize digital primary sources and provide training in conjunction with the infusion of equipment. Ms. Pullen and Mr. Clark had access to projectors and computing facilities but did

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not have formal training in using digital primary sources to support historical inquiry. On the other hand, Mr. Mitchell, Ms. Lewin, and Ms. Mather demonstrated that schools must provide particular types of equipment to accompany the training. These three teachers all had technology training and were comfortable using digital primary sources to support instruction, but did not have access to the necessary equip-ment. This issue is of particular importance to these teachers, because if they are not given a chance to use the skills that they were taught, it is likely that they will continue to develop their own style of teach-ing without technology and may lose altogether their interest in using digital primary sources.

Conclusion

This study illustrates that Internet knowledge and access are neces-sary but insufficient conditions for digital primary source use. Whether the teachers were able to utilize digital primary sources depended to a greater extent on their access to computer projectors and school com-puting facilities rather than on formal training. Each of the schools in which this study took place had at least one computer projector, but I could find no statewide statistic on school projectors. And in terms of Internet access, while 99.84% of Virginia public schools are connected to the Internet, the average classroom in Virginia has only one computer connected to the Internet, thus emphasizing the importance of computer projectors in exposing students to Internet resources (Virginia Depart-ment of Education, 1999; 2001). In this study, it was apparent that there was a disconnect between teachers’ level of training and their access to equipment in terms of their ability to utilize technology, particularly digital primary sources, to foster historical thinking. Only one teacher had the combination of easy access to equipment and a high level of training, and his instruction was markedly different from the others.

Although the Internet is an excellent resource for acquiring digital primary sources (Warren, 2001), and recent statistics show that nearly every public school in the country (99%) has Internet access (National Center for Education Statistics, 2003), the results of this study demon-strate that while this nearly ubiquitous connectivity might increase the amount of time in which world history teachers use digital primary sources, it does not necessarily ensure that their students will engage in historical inquiry. Simply having access is not enough to move teachers from what VanFossen (1999-2000) refers to as “glorified information gathering” (or in this case, glorified information showing) towards the goal of deeper historical thinking (p. 104). Instead, this goal must be accomplished by the combination of access to equipment and con-tent-specific training on how technology can best be used to support historical inquiry.

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