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Dear Educator:
As educators, we often ask ourselves, “HOW CAN WE TAKE OUR STUDENTS ON A JOURNEY OF DISCOVERY AND FASCINATION?”
In our own search for an answer to this important question, we have developed a remarkable new software learning tool designed to enhance learning. This tool is dedicated to make learning both productive and enjoyable through expanding students’ horizons in a natural and interesting way. Our software is ideal for teaching aspects of American and world culture, history and civilization, as well as providing a basis for English language learning exercises.
Electronic Learning Technology is transforming American education. Students and teachers alike are discovering that digital technologies add a new dimension to learning. From electronic Amazon rainforest adventures to electronic dictionaries to electronic turbo math, we have a bewildering variety of new learning tools from which to choose. One of the most important capabilities of today’s technology is to provide primary digital resources of items such as historical documents. Important books and magazines of the past are available on compact disks. Historical newspapers, documents and writings are slowly becoming available as well. Journey Online offers just such a collection: historical newspapers, documents and writings spanning more than 350 years of America’s history and prehistory.
Newspapers are primary source material and give us first-hand accounts of historical events, be they spectacular or common. As primary source material, newspapers provide a fascinating way to look at our country's past. It is exciting to read of General Washington's battles from first-hand reports, or to read a frontier woman's account of her daily hardships. Newspapers give us unique views of history because they are based on eyewitness accounts and observations of people actually present at the time. Newspapers have had enormous influence on this country and have helped to shape its present form. In many ways, historical newspapers gave to past generations what NBC television news gives to today's on-the-spot coverage of current events.
Historical newspapers, documents and writings available to students and educators through Journey Online’s subscription access provides a useful and enlightening way of learning why our country is what it is. Only by understanding what has gone before can we establish our own identity and place within society. Visiting history virtually, through digital technology makes the past come alive in a unique and real manner, showing that history is not archaic at all, but rather is about people just like you and me. The power of electronic learning technologies applied to historical newspapers, documents and writings allows for personal exploration and creativity. Users can examine topics at their own pace and are motivated to respond from the fascination of experiencing the past through first-hand accounts.
Historical newspapers, documents and writings available through Journey Online offer an excellent adjunct to traditional classroom subjects. Journey Online’s database contains countless themes built around specific thematic units and issues that can be related to many current ideas. Exploring through Journey Online provokes natural curiosity and wonder, making them ideal as thought stimulators.
In sum, historical newspapers, documents and writings available on Journey Online enable us to envision events of the past as they happened, to imagine what life was like as people lived it, and to experience the dramas and tragedies of bygone days – along with their everyday joys and hardships. The documents show rich details of people’s existence. Experiencing the papers and documents allow you to relive the days of yesterday -- days in so many ways very different from the present, and yet in so many other ways not different at all.
As a university professor myself, I can recommend Journey Online available through Journey Back In Time to both teachers and students. It provides a unique and exciting way of learning!
David M. Olsen, Ph. D.
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