Tag Archives: history

Waldseemüller Map

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldseemuller_map

The Waldseemüller map is a world map drawn by German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller and originally published in April 1507. The map consists of 12 panels, arranged in a 4×3 grid, totaling 2.48 by 1.38 meters when wall mounted into a single piece. It was one of the first maps to chart latitude and longitude precisely; following the example of Ptolemy; and was the first map to use the name “America”. The map provides a great tool for engaging students in critical thinking, especially in relation to the development and spread of “Western” civilisation around the world. Students can be asked to consider questions such as “why were the Mediterranean and Arabic worlds so well mapped?”, “why was Australia not on the map?” and “why does America appear so thin?”. Another angle that can be taken is considering how technology has changed the art of cartography, and what the implications are for society and our sense of self.

Wikimedia (Wikipedia’s media warehouse) contains a huge digital version of this map: at 13,708 × 7,590 pixels and 19.65 MB it is big enough to crash some browsers. This gives plenty of detail for up-close inspection.

Measuring Worth

http://www.measuringworth.com

Measuring Worth is a fantastic online application which aims to give a modern day value to sums of money from the past. For example, how much was £20 worth in 1760? Even for someone with an understanding of economic concepts such as inflation and purchasing power, understanding the value of “old money” can be tricky. For example, I was taken aback when my father referred to purchasing “8 pints of beer for a pound” when he was a young man, not having realised quite how powerful inflation is, even over a relatively modest span of time.

In terms of the classroom, such knowledge can definitely help provide students with an enriched understanding of historical events. I recently had a group of engineering students with whom I used this website to work out the current value of several tens of thousands pounds from the 1880s. This enriched context provided them with a much better understanding of the scale of the project in question, and they seemed to enjoy the experience: apparently, economics can be fun.

What $8499 Bought in 1989

http://www.stephenbailey.com/technology/what-8499…

Most people know that the price of computer technology is falling. However, many people do not fully understand the scope of this change. This article shows a top-of-the-line PC from 1989, priced at USD $8,499. Working from this article, students can be asked to consider many questions including “Why are prices dropping?”, “What are the social, environmental and business implications of these changes?”, “Why have the price of, say, cars, not dropped to the same extent”.

Another possible avenue for discussion is the fact that USD $8,499 was worth significantly more in 1989 than it is now (depending on the calculation method used, it is worth between USD $14,700 and $22,100 in today’s money).

Amusingly, the price includes neither the monitor, nor the mouse, making it quite unusable.

One of the first news reports about this thing called “Internet”

http://thenextweb.com/shareables/2010/04/17/news…

This extremely dated video clip introduces video to a new craze sweeping the world: Internet. When you need something to remind students that there was life before the Net, this is the resource to use. It also provides a view of the Internet as it used to be: text only, giving students a path to understanding how technologies adapt and evolve over time. Students can be asked to consider how dependent they are on particular technologies, and how there school and home lives might be different if the Internet did not exist. How would these changes translate into the working world? What are the effects of the Internet on today’s globally connected economy?

The 10 Most Important Technologies of Modern World History

http://gadgetcrave.com/the-10-most-important-technologies-of-modern-world-history/273/

Technology; for the most part; exists to make life easier. By that definition; we’ve got it pretty good thanks to the hard work of our fellow humans. In weighing the world’s most important technologies; we ruled out the nitty gritty that led to some of the creations below — transistors; electricity and the combustion engine; to name a few — and focused on products that changed the world forever. Here are the 10 technologies; in our mind; that have shaped the world in a way we could never go back.