A recent donation will allow Northeast Georgia History Center in Gainesville to begin offering live-to-classroom broadcasts and other content next month for social studies and history classes in northeast Georgia.
History center officials said the effort is a partnership with the Cottrell Foundation which provided the donation.
"I truly believe our future is strongly rooted in our past," history center director Glen Kyle said in a press statement. "And if we don't understand our past, how can we know where we are going, much less how to get there."
The broadcasts and downloadable content are being produced at the Cottrell Foundation funded digital studio at the history center.
The work isn't just about fun for students.
"Focusing our content directly to Georgia Performance Standards is a central factor in our educational programming," Ken Johnston, Curator of Education for the History Center said. "We’re still able to tie local and regional aspects of our shared past into those performance standards."
The Cottrell Foundation support will allow the center to provide the programming to 13 counties in the region at no cost for the next two academic years. Kyle hopes to garner enough community support to sustain the no-fee model in the following years.
"It's an ambitious goal, but it's important to give the students of this region a connection with their own past," Kyle said.
Available programming:
Museum to Classroom Broadcasts
- Interactive, direct-to-classroom internet broadcasts of third- and first-person interpretive programs, including specialized programming for GPS requirements.
On-Demand Webisodes
- The History Center is producing an ongoing series of 5- to-30 minute documentary digital films about a wide variety of local and GPS-focused topics that will be available in a download-on demand format.
Virtual Field Trips/Exhibits Tours
- 20-to-45 minute live and interactive Virtual Field Trips of History Center exhibit galleries, gardens, and historic houses.
Subject Specific Lessons
- If teachers require a subject-specific presentation, the History Center can work with them on a case-by-case basis by contacting topic experts and arranging for a unique, custom-produced presentation for each class, grade, or school.
Source: Northeast Georgia History Center
