University History Prof. Brian Balogh hopes his students will lose themselves in U.S. history, spending hours viewing interactive maps of the Manhattan Project installations, photos of Hiroshima after the atomic bomb and reviews of the Spike Lee film "Boyz 'N The Hood" - all on the Internet.
For his HIUS 316 course, "Viewing America: U.S. History from 1945," Balogh has created a Web site so comprehensive and informative that teachers from neighboring high schools and colleges plan to incorporate Balogh's information into their own classes.
Balogh's class examines how historical events affect American lives and studies the impact of film and news on American society. So it is appropriate that he uses the Internet as a tool to teach what he calls the "electronic era."
"The electronic era is very much a part of the history I teach," he said. "I had been using visuals in my teaching for a while, but when the World Wide Web became so popular I thought it would be wonderful to make the materials available on the Internet."
Local lawyer and University Ph.D candidate George Gilliam, who teaches a similar course at Piedmont Virginia Community College, already has begun to use information on Balogh's Web site in his teaching.
"I am using gobs of his information," Gilliam said. "He provides a tremendous variety of sources that are just really hard to find. He has figured out a way to make these very rich materials available to the public."
The information could be particularly beneficial for high school students, he said.
"For high school advanced placement classes to have all of these materials that are just perfect pulled together in one place makes things a lot easier," he added.
The site, located at the Web address http://moderntimes.vcdh
.virginia.edu/HIUS316/, contains reading materials, photos, music and video clips to accent lectures and class discussions. Although reading materials do appear online, students are required to purchase textbooks for the course.
Balogh said he decided to design such an extensive Web site because it complemented the type of history taught in his course.
"I think it helps to further your understanding of what is taught in class," second-year College student Jill Barnett said.
"I wish every class had it," second-year College student Courtney Conanan said.
Balogh said he and Gilliam are working collaboratively on the project and hope to expand the course.
"There is the possibility of extending the course to the whole community college system. We'd have to get outside funding, but I don't think the idea is inconceivable," Balogh said. "If we could do this, I think it would be great"
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