A Student Journey through the Ancient and Medieval Worlds: A Web-based Undergraduate Instructional Tool

The classroom use of and student access to digital images, along with the convenient organizing of electronic documents, articles, links to other sites, and course-focused student chat rooms offered by platforms such as Blackboard, can provide the essential foundation for undergraduate courses. But use of these electronic versions of traditional resources does not address concerns about differing learning styles or integrated experiences of material culture. We have embarked on an effort to provide a more interactive experience for students of the introductory art history survey course covering the ancient and medieval worlds. As this course is an important recruiting tool for majors in art history, the interactive engagement of students with this material is a high priority.

Our project is a Blackboard-based web site for Spring Semester, 2003, including a multimedia presentation of select monuments from the survey course. The goal of this project is to move beyond basic course materials to create an interactive site. Our site integrates our own video clips of experts demonstrating techniques such as pottery making and firing, stained glass design and construction, or book making; these clips will be linked with an examination of specific monuments such as Greek pottery, the windows of Gothic cathedrals, or early medieval manuscript illumination. We also will have "walk-throughs" and "walk-arounds" of major sites and structures covered in the course, some of them video clips with ambient sounds, and others virtual constructs. These videos will be combined with additional available resources on the focus monument, including self-grading quizzes and an extensive collection of photographic details, to create a comprehensive study tool.

This site will utilize the extensive resources available at Louisiana State University, particularly the Interactive Multimedia Digital Library, a web site allowing students to select from a course list linked to sets of printable images and data.