With this fifth blog, we are coming to the end or our series on digital teaching tools. We hope that you’ve been inspired by some of the American Studies links ranging from the heart-warming and hilarious antics of humans and animals to the more scholarly posts on Academic Earth.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.” Mark Twain
75 years ago, the world sighed in relief. After six gruesome years and over 70 million lost lives, World War II was finally over. May 8, 1945, marked both the end of a ruthless regime and the war in Europe. The Allied Forces had brought the German Wehrmacht to its knees, and at 11:01 p.m., the war in Europe was officially over. In the U.S. and the UK, the day is celebrated as “Victory in Europe Day,” and for decades, May 8 (and in some cases May 9) has been a holiday in various European countries – but not in Germany. However, for its 75th anniversary, the Day of Liberation has been declared a one-time holiday in Berlin.
As American studies and foreign language education scholars, we sometimes tend to overlook the vast demand for teachable online resources outside of academia. My work in the transatlantic blended-learning education initiative Teach About U.S. has helped me to establish long-standing relationships with high school teachers and educators in Germany and the United States. Amid the current global health crisis, these teachers are stepping up to support their students and find novel ways to engage them in educational activities while they struggle with ‘the new normal’ during the pandemic.
As schools have been shut down for weeks, many of these colleagues have reached out to us, seeking advice on educational technology and its implementation. All too often, they are pushed to create makeshift solutions as their school servers are overwhelmed with the sudden spike in user demand. Many colleagues have shared their experience of setting up private chat and social media groups to share assignments and educational resources, unsure whether this may violate school and state rules.
With misinformation about the coronavirus on the rise, a historic presidential election campaign in the United States, and the press under attack from different sides, I would like to share some of my favorite student-friendly news media as well as resources on media literacy for primary and secondary school students.
One not so common topic in the broad field of animal studies is the interaction between different animal species. Until recently, any suggestion that interspecies relationships might be based on companionship would have probably met with derision and been dismissed as anthropomorphic illusions. These attitudes, however, are bound to change as research is gradually beginning to erode some boundaries separating Homo sapiens and other animals. If you’re interested (or like your students to get interested in) interspecies communication, these five videos might be the right ones to start out with:
When we think about relationships between human animals and non-human animals, we often think of the relationship between guardians and pets. However, there’s so much more to the topic. This week, I’ll continue our series on Digital American Studies by sharing with you some wonderful videos on human-animal studies I found useful for undergraduate classes. Whenever I teach ecocritical theory – for instance my project seminar, “Study & Save: Eco-Critical Theory in Action” – I make sure it always has a practical component. And even in seminars on North American culture, ecocritical topics (e.g. fracking, plastic oceans, deforestation, and loss of species) are always part of the deal.
Everyone is writing about the shift to digital teaching in wake of the coronavirus crisis. The focus on Twitter and diverse blogs seems to be mainly on how to use various conferencing and digital tools, such as Zoom, Flip Grid, and Padlet. Since both Maria and I live in somewhat rural areas with unbelievably poor internet connections, complete home office is not a possibility for us, and we are wondering how many students will have problems to use tools that require a high-speed internet connection. Those students won’t have the opportunity, though, to make use of university resources as we can. For that reason alone – and we are sure there are many others – most of the advice columns say to keep digital classes simple and synchronous learning limited. We would, therefore, like to offer our readers a few suggestions for the teaching of American Studies that may ease the burden. Why re-create the wheel when you don’t need to?
