Archives in the classroom: Reaching out to younger Canadians through archival documents.

摘要

After examining relevant archival and educational literature on the use of primary sources in the History or Social Studies classroom in Manitoba, the thesis traces the historical development of this practice in the twentieth century. The hard-copy resource kits that are still in use in many classrooms today had their origins in the use of textbook typescript in the early twentieth century. These textbooks brought primary sources to the classroom in transcript form without communicating context or material characteristics. The shift from rote learning of facts to inquiry-based learning in the history and social studies curriculum witnessed the appearance of the Jackdaw Kits of the 1960s and 1970s, and more recently, with the improvement of reproduction capabilities, the visually appealing resource kits of the 1990s. As computer technology emerged on the education scene, educational resources were produced in CD-ROM format, creating a self-contained, portable tool that was readily available to computer-equipped classrooms. As the Internet gained popularity, "virtual" resources appeared as educational components on existing websites, or were established as independent sites. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)