Links to the Past: French Culture Through the Lens of History

Janet R. Horne, French

1997 TTI Fellow

Project website: http://cti.itc.virginia.edu/~jrh9e/links/

Language courses are frequently confronted with the need to initiate students to major themes and events in the culture and history of the language being studied. Yet, traditional methods of exposing students to interdisciplinary sources of information have frequently proven cumbersome and inefficient. One of the strongest promises of technology in education has been to simplify and expand access to such resources. Professor Horne’s project involves the development of a multi-media learning environment for her undergraduate course FREN 351: “The History of Contemporary French Civilization.” She will author a hypertextual web-based sourcebook and a series of interactive modules on CD-ROM to convey the rich dynamics between the variety of disciplines on which the course will draw such as history, literature, anthropology, art, architecture, and music. This project will provide a model for many other courses involving interdisciplinary issues. The web-based sourcebook will include a class home page which will function as the central workshop and bulletin board for the course. The CD-ROM will provide interactive modules containing high-quality slide shows as well as audio and video segments with narrative commentary.