Finding Voices: Bringing the Archive into History Classrooms

Abstract

Finding Voices explores the relationship between archives, technology use, and history classrooms and textbooks. Through recent studies and projects, history textbooks have continuously omitted racialized and marginalized histories in Canadian education and often privilege settler-colonial perspectives. This sidelining creates an erasure that negatively impacts students’ capacity for historical analysis. This research aims to shift this paradigm through augmented reality, archival research, and curation. The research questions include: How might engaging with history through artefacts open conversations, inquiries, and curiosity on social justice issues? How might the use of augmented reality combined with pedagogy transform Canadian history learning? How can the method of a/r/tography support the Ontario Ministry of Education’s learning expectations and outcomes while introducing difficult knowledge (Pitt & Britzman, 2003)? What are the pedagogical and creative approaches that teachers and curriculum developers can use to help students learn about, and learn from (Pitt & Britzman, 2003) silenced histories within the classroom? This research was done in four stages: 1) finding archival materials from various archival institutions; 2) creating an app prototype using website-based AR and creating an archive box with the archival materials collected; 3) recruitment of BEd Teacher Candidates; and 4) collecting user experience data across multiple contexts (observation notes/conversations, multiple surveys, workshops, and participatory collaboration in the form of an exhibition). Findings conclude that the participants found this method of learning history engaging and inspired them to consider ways archived-engaged AR pedagogies could be utilized in their own practice.