Thing #6

The Web 2.0 site I chose to explore was Historypin.com (http://www.historypin.com/).  Historypin is a really fun site that allows anyone around the world to “pin” their historical photos to Google Maps. So for example, say you found an old photo in your attic of your grandpa standing in front of the old courthouse in your town you could upload the photo and pin it to the location that the picture was taken. Then you could use the street view function to compare the photo with how the location looked then and how it looks now. You can even leave a personal story about your photo for people to read. 

You can also search for photos by place or by time or even by subject. For example, I typed in “Athens” and “Parthenon” and it brought up several photos of the Parthenon dating from 1849 to 2011. I really enjoyed reading the personal story one man posted about his trip to the Parthenon. He posted a picture of himself in his Navy uniform sitting in front of the Parthenon in 1962. He wrote about his experiences in Greece and described the “goose bumps” he felt looking up at the Acropolis. 

 

Seeing these pictures and reading the stories that go with them really helps bring history to life and that's why I believe this site could be a very useful tool in my history classroom. If we are talking about a certain place or event, Historypin may have some useful photos to help create a visual for my students. For example, if we are talking about World War II and I type in “Europe” and “World War II", all kinds of pictures come up of soldiers, artillery, buildings with bomb damage, VE/VJ Day celebrations, etc. And with some pictures, people have left personal stories which helps put you in the mindset of what it must have been like to be there during that time. Rather than just lecturing about an event it always helps to have some kind of visual to bring it to life and a story to relate to, so students can feel some kind of connection to what we are discussing and really become interested in history.