Article 3: March on Washington

In this article, Teaching the March on Washington, author William Benedict Russell gave some advice for history/social studies teachers on web sites that will help aide learning about the famous March on Washington that occurred just over fifty years ago. The March on Washington is a standard historical event taught in classrooms all over the United States. It is most known for the place in which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. made his “I Have a Dream Speech”. This lesson and its historical significance to our country are taught at many different levels, varying from elementary to high school ages. The web sites he provided would allow students to be interactive with history, rather than just working from a textbook.

I really enjoyed this article because I am looking to become a history teacher. I think the web sites that the author gives us are great because it allows students to work on a technological level observing firsthand accounts, audios, and visuals of the event. It puts history on a level students can understand with a medium they are comfortable with, technology. It makes history more modern. I looked at some of the web sites he recommended and I really found them easy to navigate and really interesting. I liked the ability to look at clips and hear audio from the event. I think that would make it more interesting that reading about it out of a history book or me just lecturing about it.

I believe that this falls under the ISTE NETS for teachers because it allows me to create a curriculum that is technology based while using different types of ways to show primary and secondary sources to my students. With technology, the students are able to get a better feel what it was like during the March of Washington through seeing visuals, movies, and listening to audios as well as getting first hang accounts from the internet.

Russell, W. (2009, February). Teaching the march on washington. Learning and Leading, 39(9),