By: Cassandra Hendry
Can you imagine a course where students become archaeologists, all from the safety of their computers, by participating in a virtual archeological dig?
How about one where students create an augmented reality catalog for the Canadian Museum of Civilization, where 3D models of flat images can be accessed by scanning a smartphone over the page?
If this sounds like fiction, then you haven鈥檛 taken a class with Shawn Graham.
An assistant professor of history at 杏吧原创, Graham has received acclaim for his unique teaching style: incorporating digital media and game-based learning into the curriculum.
鈥淎ll of my teaching has been trying to explore the ways digital media allows us to ask new and impossible questions in history,鈥� he says. 鈥淭he skills of the historian are the skills needed for the modern digital world.鈥�
In April, he was one of five recipients of the for his creativity and ingenuity in the classroom.
What makes Graham鈥檚 teaching style so unique is how he wields new media as a tool to explain and experience the rich historical world.
He doesn鈥檛 see it as a gimmick to get tech-savvy millennials to pay attention, either. Graham says it can be used to develop a student鈥檚 critical approach to what they鈥檙e studying, whether it鈥檚 new software, print resources or historical archives.
And anyway, for this professor, it鈥檚 just second nature.
鈥淚鈥檝e never taught any other way but this,鈥� he says.
This approach can be seen in his virtual archeological dig, which takes students on an engaging adventure into what real archeologists do at a site, all from the comfort of a computer screen.
鈥淚n a regular excavation, if you make a mistake, the best case is maybe a bit of info is lost and the worst case is that someone gets hurt,鈥� says Graham. 鈥淭he virtual excavation is a way of making it safe to fail.鈥�
Graham鈥檚 fusion of digital media and history doesn鈥檛 end there. Currently, he鈥檚 co-authoring a handbook called The Historian鈥檚 Macroscope that discusses analyzing digital data patterns for historical benefit.
The kicker? It鈥檚 so anybody can follow along as he writes it. This seems only fitting for a professor whose creativity in the classroom rivals his imagination in the digital world.