Ken Burns & the YouTube Generation

In the USA Weekend paper there was an article titled, "Documenting the War." It is promoting Ken Burns' upcoming World War II special.

The part that most intrigued me was this...
"America's most respected historian invites the YouTube generation to join him in recording the stories of World War II - before we lose them forever."

I think this request has great potential. With all the technology we have access to today, oral histories would be a great way for our students to document our history and participate in something extraordinary.

Links from the article:
http://www.loc.gov/vets/vets-home.html

http://www.pbs.org/thewar/

I can also foresee students gathering oral histories on a variety of topics and other historical events. Follow the link below to a step by step guide on preparing oral histories.

http://dohistory.org/on_your_own/toolkit/oralHistory.html

Tags: YouTube, podcasting, video

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Permalink Reply by Kevin H. on July 3, 2007 at 3:09pm

You know, I clipped the article, too, and see great potential on many levels.
Thanks for reminding me about it.
Kevin

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Permalink Reply by Connie Weber on July 3, 2007 at 3:12pm

Great resources, great ideas. It seems we simply MUST do this! We can be anthropologists going to some culture that's fading into the Giant Homogeneity and just before its edges are blurred, forever, try to capture whatever can be captured of the essence. Does that make sense? Our last chance of weaving together the stories from first-person perspective is upon us.

(Think about how potential-filled iMovies would be for this!)

These are very important resources you've provided, Christine, on oral histories. Thank you!

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Permalink Reply by Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach on July 4, 2007 at 6:40am

This is incredible. Thanks for sharing. I have so many ideas that could filter into this but so little time right now.
If any of you do have time- maybe we should talk.

Sheryl

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Permalink Reply by Andrew Pass on July 4, 2007 at 9:03am

Christine, I think this is a great idea. Steven Spielberg did something similar for Holocaust survivors and it's worked really well, I think. Can you imagine having videos of fighters from ancient wars?

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Permalink Reply by Christine Southard on July 4, 2007 at 9:32am

Irving Roth, a Holocaust survivor, visited our school this past spring. Right before he presented I made Lisa, my co-teacher, place one of our digital recorders in his front shirt pocket. Although the presentation is not edited or podcasted yet, we now have an important oral history of Irving's story.

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Permalink Reply by Sharon Betts on July 4, 2007 at 4:26pm

I like this one. It is stashed away for next years plans. We are promoting digital stories and this really hits the mark.
Thank you

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Permalink Reply by Brant on January 14, 2008 at 3:48pm

I'm always looking for ways to use YouTube for scholarly efforts. This sounds like a great way to complete a traditional activity for a social studies class.

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Permalink Reply by Erika Johansson on February 12, 2009 at 12:59pm

Once your students record these videos, they can upload them to www.RemixAmerica.org

We're a constantly evolving user-generated archive of American history and we'd love, more than anything, to have these stories hosted on our site!