20 Questions With Bill White

If you drive down to the southeast corner of Virginia you’ll find one of the most amazing places in all of these United States. There, on a peninsula between the James and the York Rivers, is a place where time has been turned back to the 18th century. Every building has been lovingly restored to appear as it did in the years when America was born. It is a well known destination of history buffs and their families and the only place I know where one can get a good bowl of peanut soup. What those history buffs may not know is that the folks behind this incredible glimpse of the past are working just as hard to push history education into the future. Bill White, Colonial Williamsburg’s director for Educational Program Development, is argueably the hardest working man in history education and it’s his passion to keep history alive using any technological means necessary. He’s worked his way up from playing in the fife and drum corps at CW to running a state-of-the-art eLearning center that includes an impressive video production studio and a team of web developers, designers, writers and editors. His latest project is “The Idea of America,” a fully digital high school civics course offered online through Pearson starting this fall. We were lucky enough to participate in this groundbreaking project. We were also lucky enough to get a few minutes of his time to interview him about how it all began and where Colonial Williamsburg is going next.

You’ve just completed production on The Idea of America, an online history/civics course for high school students. Tells us about it. What was your philosophical approach for this project?

The foundation of The Idea of America is an original instructional framework that views America as—at its very heart and soul—an enduring debate. Individual citizens and citizen groups engage that debate to shape the course of the republic for their time and for the future. This unique and enduring American debate is about the values that we as Americans hold most sacred: our unity, our diversity, our freedom, our equality, our private wealth, our common wealth, our law, and our ethics. The debate is essential, because “we the people” must determine how we will balance and express these values for our time.

The opposing values—unity vs. diversity, freedom vs. equality, private wealth vs. common wealth, and law vs. ethics—are represented in each of the 65 digital case studies. By examining the debate over time through the historical case studies, students learn how citizens of the republic interact and direct the progress of our nation. They learn and practice the critical analytical skills of engaged citizens. The program provides a consistent framework and context for student investigation of American history as well as current events.

Were there any particular ideas or individuals that influenced how you approached the course?

Michael Hartoonian, professor at Hamlin University, is the one who conceived the intellectual framework we employed here—the enduring debate and value tensions structure. His work is the very heart and soul of this program. Colonial Williamsburg’s hand’s on, interdisciplinary way of examining history is another critical component—an approach that highlights the careful examination of primary sources and artifacts and in developing critical thinking skills. But I also have to say that Rick Parris of Standard Imagination has been a remarkable influence on the project. Rick envisioned and gave form to our content and instructional objectives in a rich collaboration that, I believe, helped us (Colonial Williamsburg) find the most creative solutions.

How did you use technology to teach this subject?

We employed digital technology and its mixed media capabilities because it best reflects Colonial Williamsburg. Mixing video, audio, text, interactive elements, self constructed activities, debate formats, etc. makes for an experience that is very much like a visit to a living history museum. It is a tactile engaging experience that allows students to discover and engage the past as well as uncover the relevance of history.

Why did you want to go all digital and eliminate the paper-based text book?

I think about these things in the context of tools. Video, audio, print, Flash, etc. are part of a tool palette. It is up to us to evaluate the project and select the most appropriate tool(s) from the palette—the tools that best accomplish our objectives. In this case, digital was the tool that allowed us to create the kind of interactive environment that best conveyed the mission of our program.

While we did not create a printed textbook, it might be a misnomer to say that we went completely digital. There are significant components of the program that take place in classroom interactions. Students and teachers print out handouts to help them interact with digital content. Students engage in activities and debates that are outside the digital interface of the program. All of the assets are delivered digitally, but digital is not the sole student interface.

How long have you been leveraging technology for education and how has it changed?

Colonial Williamsburg has been using technology to reach teachers and students since the 1950s. That was the era of 16mm educational films and classroom filmstrips. We produced the media and then sold or rented copies to teachers and libraries around the country. I began working with the Colonial Williamsburg production group in 1998. We had just launched a series of live television broadcasts distributed through C-Band educational satellite television. Within a couple of years cable television drops at schools across the country made the C-Band educational television system obsolete and we began distributing our program through public television and cable channels. In the last five years we have been steadily shifting our delivery system to the Internet. Today most teachers and students experience Colonial Williamsburg’s K-12 education programs in some sort of interactive web experience.

Where do you see technology and education going over the next ten years or so?

I believe that the school’s huge investment in technology infrastructure is finally going to pay off for students and their classroom experience. So far, most technology has been geared to administrative support and only a nice “supplement” to the teacher’s instructional strategy. Today, however, we are finally seeing the personal computing devices (laptops, PDAs, and a new generation of devices like the iPad) become affordable. We are finally reaching the point where it is possible for every student to have a device. That trend will be accelerated by a new generation of teachers leaving college now who will demand a personal computing educational experience for themselves as teachers as well as their students. Finally, I believe that the current financial crisis in education will accelerate digital curricular materials. So far, we have witnessed a dual purchasing system—buy digital and also buy textbooks. The financial crisis will force school districts to choose one or the other and I believe they will move rapidly to digital curriculum. At the moment, however, there is not enough good digital curricula. We—the providers of curricular material—have a lot to do to catch up.

What are technology’s strengths and weaknesses when it comes to education?

Technology’s capacity for interaction is the greatest strength. We do not learn history by memorizing facts and dates. We learn history by asking good questions and investigating the past to try and answer those questions. The digital world gives us an unprecedented opportunity to interact with the primary sources (manuscript text, printed text, graphics, artifacts, etc.) to investigate those questions. Technology also allows us to customize instruction in some important ways—to provide glossaries or audio assists for struggling students, for example, while also providing detailed footnotes and deeper content for advanced students. We can also create instructional interfaces that allow students to facilitate collaboration among students and teachers even across distance and time. The benefits are significant and I think I could go on for too long.

The challenges are also significant. Can we actually provide every student with the infrastructure and tools they need to be successful—a device and access to networks? I am also concerned that technology provides too much information and that we are not doing a very good job teaching our students how to evaluate the information they receive. We must insure that we—young and old—become sophisticated consumers of information, but technology, I’m afraid, encourages us to skim across the top and take far too much (including the veracity of our information) for granted.

Is there a stigma in academia against digital publication or a favoritism for paper-based text publication?

I don’t think that it is fair to say there is a stigma against digital publication in academia—at least not in the field of history. There are actually several very important and very good history related digital initiatives. Take a look, for example, at The Virginia Center for Digital History at the University of Virginia, The Virtual World Heritage Laboratory also at UVA ,  and George Mason University’s Center for History and New Media.

I think there are well founded concerns about digital publication. Academics seek to sponsor a conversation about their work that leads to a deeper understanding and interpretation of history. To accomplish that, their writing, exhibits, and other work needs to be examined and reviewed by peers who question and challenge the work. Digital publishing, however, is often also “self publishing.” Students, who by their very definition are “learning,” are not sophisticated consumers of information and consequently teachers and professors often find them selecting poorly vetted sources.

Unfortunately the response from instructors has often been to restrict the use of digital resources by their students. I personally think it is the wrong approach. The digital age requires that we teach our students how to become sophisticated consumers of information—to evaluate, analyze, and carefully select the information they will use in their academic work and in their roles as citizens of our republic.

What are the barriers keeping all education from going online?

Five years ago I would have said it was the technology infrastructure, but as I mentioned above, I don’t think that is any longer the case. The problem is that although we have the infrastructure we have not created the digital curricular resources. We have not created the content. Printed textbooks are still the most concise purveyors of content.

That is not to say that we have not published text online. There is lots of text online. Unfortunately, simply transferring the text online does not make good digital curricula. The digital platform is a new media platform. It is not print. It is not video. It is not audio. It is distinctive, with distinctive characteristics and distinctive capabilities. We—the creators of digital curricular materials—must begin to design and create our materials for digital media. We are just now beginning to take on the challenge.

At the same time, I would question whether we actually want instruction to go completely online. First of all, the “one on one” or “face to face” exchange between teacher and student is critical to learning.  And then we have to also consider that the potential for tactile learning far exceeds keyboard and mouse skills. What about the close examination of historical artifacts or the debate and discussion between peers? All these and more are critical to a successful classroom. While technology can enhance many of these pedagogies, I am not certain that it should replace them.

How often do you interact with teachers and how do they feel about educational technology in general and the CWF programs in particular? How has The Idea of America been received?

We are in constant touch with teacher. More than 5,000 will participate in our teacher development programming this year. In addition, we consult teachers on the design of just about everything we create. Teachers and their classrooms beta test our programs. It is an essential part of what we do.

Teachers are increasingly tech savvy. They increasingly have access to technology in their classroom (even elementary teachers). And we are beginning to see a new generation of teachers who were raised with technology and expect some pretty sophisticated levels of technology infrastructure.

We have been watching this carefully with The Idea of America. We created an all digital course not because we were convinced that the 2009 classroom demanded it but because we wanted to be ready for the classroom of 2015. As we worked through alpha and beta tests I’ve been impressed by how much easier it has become to implement a technological curriculum in the classroom. Just in the course of months I have watched schools catching up. And the response from teachers and students has been exciting.

Were teachers involved in the production of The Idea of America?

Absolutely. We involve teachers in just about everything we do. For The Idea of America we started by pitching the intellectual framework to teachers, getting their reaction and suggestions on how to improve it. Teachers helped us create the case study model and then they helped us outline the case study content and the kinds of activities they use in their classroom to teach that content. Then as the program was taking shape teachers review the activities we had created and they helped us conduct alpha and beta tests with their students.

Can you describe the team you assembled to create this course?

Colonial Williamsburg’s education group is a very small team and in this case there were basically three full time members of the Colonial Williamsburg team who served as part of the core The Idea of America project. We were fortunate to contract with Cindy Greene, a really great K-12 editor/project manager. We also brought on a couple of contract editors who could work with our staff and serve as case study team leaders. We contracted with Standard Imagination to serve as our technical and design team. We also contracted with a video/audio producer who was responsible for shooting and recording all of the video and audio.

Did the size of your team matter?

Absolutely. We had a small team for such a large and complex work (65 case studies, 631 activities, 6,928 screens, plus 2,389 pages of handouts). But working with a small team meant that each member of the team was vested in the end product. When we had problems we sought creative solutions. When we had to make quick decisions we could turn on a dime. Because we were small and compact the team leadership shared the mission and vision of the program. It was hard extremely hard work, but I believe that because we were a small team we were able to create an innovative product on a compact time schedule with extremely high quality standards. I do not believe it would have been possible with a larger organization even with considerably more resources.

What advice would you give someone approaching a big course like this for the first time?

Planning, planning, planning and more planning. We invented a lot. It was unavoidable. We tackled issues related to digital curriculum that others simply had not addressed. We spent a lot of time planning, but even with all that time we did not manage to adequately evaluate the hurdles facing us. As a result we had some setbacks—periods when we had to regroup. For example, we grossly under-projected the number of screen types. When it became obvious that the number of screen types would have to increase it also became obvious that editors (not programmers) needed to be able to edit text and materials. The solution was to create a content management system. But that is a “big ticket” solution. I cannot actually count the number of times we were on the phone tackling a problem and wondering why we had not foreseen the need or the issue before it became critical.

How are you distributing the course?

Pearson Education will distribute the program for us. Colonial Williamsburg does not have a national sales force. Our objective is to deliver this program to as many high school classrooms as possible and we need an organization with a national sales organization to do that.

We know that you don’t sit still for long, what are you working on now and what’s coming up for CWF

We are hard at work on the teacher development program associated with The Idea of America. It will be our first large foray into distance learning for our teacher development programs. (We have done distance learning programs for students, just not for teachers.) We are also working on a university association that will permit us to grant undergraduate and graduate credit for our teacher development programming.

We are just beginning work with Pearson on a new elementary curriculum. We would also like to begin work on a middle school program. And we would like to be able to reach pre-service teachers.

I also think you will see The Idea of America as a program for the general public. The intellectual framework is a great way for citizens to carefully examine their role in the republic and engage in the great debate. I would like to see Colonial Williamsburg as the forum for that national civic debate. It’s a new role and a new way for us to engage the public with our educational mission.