David Gracy II, Professor, Center for Cultural Records, Texas University<
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Abstracts:

The paper describes the project "Khrushchev Years in Soviet History" - online course for university students in Russia and the United States.





The project pioneers an innovative teaching format that draws heavily upon digitized archival footage and still photos of Khrushchev era (1950-60s). These media objects would be used as primary sources of objective information, rather than just supplementary materials for teaching. Text written by scholars from Moscow State University and the University of Texas at Austin will provide a unifying thread for the course. Both media objects and text are incorporated into and available to instructor and students through a web presentation.





An important issue of the project is the use of streaming video as a new information technology for education which is especially helpful for teaching history.





The graphic interface and the software for this course is developed by scholars from Keldysh Institute for Applied Mathematics and the University of Texas.





To evaluate the created course the usability testing and the analysis of its results is included as a part of the project.





The project was supported by Carnegie Corporation in 2003.