As we begin our 24th year…

March 24, 2011

…our range of projects grows as our dedication to advancing public knowledge about the past and the history of working people intensifies. ASHP/CML may have achieved a venerable age, but we’re still eager to embark on new ventures that, we hope, promote learning about the past and stretch the parameters of *how* we learn. To name just a few ongoing activities: While continuing our fifteen-year collaborative work in New York’s high schools, we have inaugurated several faculty institutes under the federal Teaching American History faculty-development program. Our social history-rich websites are being complemented by professional development and new media projects that focus on critical use of visual evidence in exploring the past. And our New Media Lab and participation in The Graduate Center’s Interactive Technology and Pedagogy certificate program are direct interventions in shaping the future of innovative new media scholarship and teaching. Fortunately, our efforts on occasion receive recognition: most recently, the New Jersey Historical Society’s What Exit? New Jersey and Its Turnpike website, produced by ASHP/CML, was awarded the Special Web Art Bronze Award from UNESCO’s International Committee of Museums for Audiovisual, Image, and Sound New Technologies. So, as ASHP/CML nears a quarter-century, even as we face some uncertainties and obstacles, we look forward to a new year of vigorous and creative work.

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