HIT: Oral History

["Shaffer, Margaret" <mshaffer@UMD5.UMD.EDU>]

Thanks to everyone for the response.

The original post:  Has anyone done anything with students producing oral
histories?  We are considering having small groups of students conduct
interviews with some senior citizens in the community to see what it was
like growing up in our community 'back then.'  We are planing on using
both audio and digital video recordings and showing them at the local
historical society.  What items do we need to take into
consideration?  Any suggestions?


You might want to check out this Canadian site for
ideas:  http://generations-canconnect.ic.gc.ca/

I did a similar project a few years ago. Students produced either books
with pictures and drawings or videos. One thing you need to consider is
equipment for editing and titling video productions. Also, you should be
sure to have enough equipment for groups to use so that there is not a lot
of wait time as students contact citizens for interviews.  One issue we
had was with release time for students and chaperones. Teachers and our
administrators were very cooperative so that students were allowed to go
out on assignments during class times. Parents served as chaperones for
groups of students working on the same projects. Because we had only one
set of editing equipment, students did work after school at times to
finish the video projects.  Good luck. Students and you will learn a lot
in the process and they will have the excitement of doing authentic work.

One thing that comes to mind is the massive storage you'll need,
especially for all the video files. A CD Read/Write drive should be good
for that. Sounds like a neat project. Will you put the final results up on
the Web?

I work with South Carolina ETV and we are working with BellSouth on an
oral histories/digital storytelling project.  A sample is available at
http://www.knowitall.org/bellsouthdigitalstoryteller/  We are conducting
summer training in June and July and this will become an Internet based
project-all information will available online.  We should post the
information online in August and you are welcome to visit and share!

I was in charge of the oral history project for the City of Cypress.  Just
a few tips:
1) a good tape recorder placed close to the interviewee.
2)no more than two people in the conversation; otherwise you can't tell
who is talking or interrupting gets confusing
3) a still camera to record the scene of the interview to go with the
recording.
4)Transcribing oral histories is a big pain.  It takes a really good
typist and hours and hours. Edit the transcript as you go - cut out the
backtracks and the err's and um's.
If you do this, the rewards are tremendous.  I put my transcripts into
acid proof files and the local community college asked to have them stored
there.

Yes, I did an oral history project with my students many years ago.  I put
together a teacher's resource book that is available from the Alberta
Teachers' Association.  I also compiled the students' work into an
anthology.   In answer to your second question, the first thing that
popped into my mind was that you should get written permission for the
oral history to be recorded.  Good luck!  It was a very exciting project
and well worth the time and effort.

I have books and paper copies of forms, etc. but the easiest thing to pass
on is webpages. These are from my oral history bookmark file, I haven't
done it with kids before, but I think its a great thing to do.
http://www.indiana.edu/~ohrc/pamph1.htm
http://www.rootsweb.com/~genepool/oralhist.htm

I did a long interview with my mom before her memory vanished, and I hit
upon a wonderful idea.  She was self-conscious about being filmed, but
loved talking about the family photographs more than anything.  I simply
filmed the photographs, and even left the camera rolling as I changed
photographs. She told me the whole family story as she talked about the
photographs, but she wasn't self-conscious because the main focus was the
photographs. At the end, I filmed a minute of her.  After she passed away,
my cousins and brothers and I had a very intense time listening to the
stories.  I suggest this because I think so many people are nervous about
being so "on the camera". If you can shift the focus to something else and
let them talk, they are more comfortable.  Perhaps you have (or they
have) old pictures of things the way they used to be.....Good luck with
your neat project!

We featured a teacher who has done oral histories with his 10th graders on
our Teaching Through Technology Web site. You can go there and read a
description of the project, see his Web site and contact him with
questions: http://www.ecb.org/ttt/program18.htm

It's been about 10 years since I did this with 6th graders. We didn't use
technology to conduct our interviews, but had the students record their
interview notes the old fashioned way...paper and pen.  Considerations
that come to me off the top of my head, was preparing students for working
with older patients in a senior citizen type community. Our place was
actually a floor of the hospital, where patients were having in house care
versus medical care. The staff there helped us select patients that would
be able to communicate with our students. We prepared the students for
other patients they might see or come into contact with as well,
however. Students were spoken to at school by  the facility director, then
by students who had participated in similar activities in previous
years. We also had students who were going discuss family situations they
were familiar with.
     Our interview topic was pretty defined, it was Christmas
customs. Students developed their own questions based on the theme of
Christmas customs, we of course reviewed them before attending.
     You may want to also be aware, that many of our students were very
taken with this project and wanted to make return visits. Since some
parents weren't in a situation to continue visits we made one return visit
to share our final papers with the students partners. Some students
brought gifts, they all brought thank you notes.


Margaret Shaffer                                Easton High School
Library Media Specialist                        723 Mecklenburg Ave
410-822-4180x118                                Easton MD 21601
410-819-5814 (fax)

Maryland Technology Academy Fellow, 1999
http://www.tcps.k12.md.us/ehs/lib/lib.html

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