V. Conclusion
Should we hail the arrival of new media as a revolutionary breakthrough in history education? Is it on a par with the efforts of Herodotus and Thucydides? Is it comparable to the development of Johannes Gutenberg’s printing press? The scholarly conventions accepted by the academy today did not sudden appear from that first press. Five centuries of development and refinement followed the printing of Gutenberg’s first bibles. This is a transitional period. Everyone is exploring the new playing field created by a digital world. Whether or not we perceive the incorporation of new media in education as a revolutionary development will depend on how it is done.
Fundamental changes must be made by teachers and students. Students who have grown up with technology may not have much trouble adapting to new media based learning, but their instructors may have to make more of an effort to fulfill their part. In education, everyone is in search of that “teachable moment” discussed by Judith Sandholtz and her colleagues. It may seem at times as if technology offers all flash and no substance to education. Sustaining a student’s interest and developing an engaged learner increases a teacher’s opportunity to connect with a student.
Bolter and Grusin do not consider new media a particularly revolutionary development. To a certain extent I would have to agree with them. If we merely replace traditional methods of teaching with computer instruction, we have not fundamentally altered education. We must keep in mind the question, “What can new media do that other forms of media cannot?” If we only replicate traditional media we have squandered the potential of a powerful educational tool.
Thucydides did not discover history, he merely wrote it down. Digital technologies have not yet revolutionized the study of history, but looking back centuries from now history education’s introduction of new media will unquestionably be viewed as the new Thucydides.