Although I am late on assessing this than my colleagues, I still thought it was valuable to express how I felt about these online exhibits.
The topic of online exhibits always causes me to hesitate. As an educator, I always had students pull up some random website telling them facts when in all reality, the information they were reading was so incorrect it was hysterical, or the website they used was out dated. This is not to say I haven’t had similar experiences. I will say, however, that for the most part the online exhibits here were at least backed by credited researchers and university and some were actually quite interesting!
The Valley of the Shadow is a prime example of an exhibit that has not been cared for in sometime. It’s structure is old, and when you click on any of the links it feels like I am back in the early 2000’s, which in the perspective of an educator and someone always looking for new sources, it will be something my future students would not appreciate. This does not mean it does not have value, it does. I just think it would be improved with an update to its website.
The Mining Dispatch is a useful tool for researchers. This has useful information and graphics that would aid any researcher with their paper or project. However, there is a point I would hesitate on using this tool with younger students. The readability of the website is clear to be for older people, such as academics and scholars, rather than high schoolers. Not saying that high schoolers couldn’t figure it out, however I can imagine those who would struggle with the larger words, and limited visuals.
Freedom on the Move was probably my favorite of the options, as its sections were clear and defined. The website uses language appropriate for most age groups to read through and explore together (I argue from 6-12). The website is intriguing and easy for students to use. I would like to use this website as a future resource in my classroom.
The National Park website was nice, however I think it radiates with the Valley of Shadows website. It is clear it has not been updated in a while and it is relatively simple to use, but maybe not in the best way. However I do like the lesson plan feature and do think it is organized better than the Valley of Shadows.
Lastly, the Newberry Time Machine was a very fun interesting website that I would use for my students. My only critic of the mostly updated and well organized website was the color scheme. I could imagine that students with color seeing issues would have a hard time navigating the website as most of it uses red or gray backgrounds. But still, the interactive-ness of the website is still very cool and I explored on this website for a long period of time.
