Boxes of History

The internet is full of so many great tools and resources for teaching social studies.  I just had to comment on a site that was brought to my attention by my professor.  It's called Museum Box.  I'm very intrigued by this site since I love museums, history and cool ways to use technology in the classroom. The site allows you to make a virtual box where you can display anything from a text file, picture or video.  You can use the virtual box (boxes) to tell about an event, person, historical period, invention, place or really any topic.  The boxes can be divided up into a number of little boxes.  And in each box for each item you have a cube with six sides that can describe more about the item.

It's like being a curator of you our own museum.   You pick the exhibition, write the label copy and decide what you think will be important to display to tell the story of your topic.  I'd love to make my own museum with Museum Box.  Teachers could use this site for so many different things such as a way to get to know their students.  Each student would make a box divided up with items that tell something about themselves.  Or students could be given a period in history such as the Industrial Revolution, Revolution War, Civil War or Western Expansion for example and then they could develop a History Box with different layers to help tell about different aspects of that time period.  The Museum Box would make a great way to do a biography.  It would be an interesting way to tell about a piece of literature, like a kind of book report.  And it would be an amazing way to make a visual poem, a.k.a. Joseph Cornell.

Check out the site here:
http://museumbox.e2bn.org/

What really made me so excited about this site, is how much it reminded me of one of my favorite artists, Joseph Cornell.  If you haven't been introduced to him before, check out this fun web site devoted to him.
http://www.josephcornellbox.com/menu.htm

 Joseph Cornell was not an artist by training but a collector.  He is known for his boxes where he displayed his collections in "visual poems in which surface, form, texture, and light play together.  He was kind of a magician, turning everyday objects into mysterious treasures."  (from http://www.josephcornellbox.com/menu.htm)  Most people, even those that don't really like art find his work interesting. 

The Museum Box site says it got its inspiration from a Thomas Clarkson, an English abolitionist from the 1700s. He used a box to display his collections of craftsmanship of Africans that were part of the slave trade. The website, Museum Box, is apparently from a British developer.  But I was struck by how much the site reminded me of the American, Joseph Cornell and his work.  I wonder if anyone else sees a connection to Joseph Cornell's boxes?  Knowing a little about Thomas Clarkson and Joseph Cornell gives me a lot of inspiration to use this site in the classroom!!

Joseph Cornell's Boxes

 

Virtual Box of Thomas Clarkson's box on Museum Box