H-Net: Humanities and Social Studies Online

What is H-NET?

"An international consortium of scholars and teachers, H-Net creates and coordinates Internet networks with the common objective of advancing teaching and research in the arts, humanities and social sciences. H-Net is committed to pioneering the use of new communication technology to facilitate the free exchange of academic ideas and scholarly resources" - from the about section of the H-Net website.

H-Net features discussion networks in the fields of humanities and social sciences with over 100 e-mail lists. These free interactive newsletters are edited by scholars in North America, South America, Europe, Africa and the Pacific.


The Goals of H-Net

1. to enable scholars to easily communicate current research and teaching interests
2. to discuss new approaches, methods and tools of analysis
3. to share information on electronic databases
4. to test new ideas and share comments on the literature in their fields

H-Net additionally features reviews of recently published texts and job postings for academic positions in History and Humanities, Social Sciences, Rhetoric and Composition



I investigated some of the features of this website - in particular the discussion networks. Predominantly, the networks are set up to represent different topics, eras or concepts in history. There was also, though, a discussion network set up to discuss Educational Technology - called ED-TECH for short.

Some of the discussions on the ED-Tech network included an educator asking what sort of cameras that the others use for filming in their classrooms. Responses to this question included different models of cameras that others use as well as a caution from another educator about filming students in the classroom without parental consent.
Another post asked what type of keyboarding program other districts are using. There were quite a few different websites and programs suggested for keyboarding by other educators.
This network on the website seemed to be useful if you have a question about educational technology and how it is used in other classrooms and districts.

I also looked into the American Studies discussion network. This network seemed to be quite a bit more oriented toward college level and beyond scholarship wise. The discussion network consisted of various contributors asking others for suggested resources for academic papers and also of calls for academic papers on particular topics.

I chose this website to review initially because I thought that it would have more to do with my content area but it seemed to be more helpful for those in the history content area. The usefulness of H-Net for the non-history educator would be the educational technology discussion network. It would be a good resource for teachers to consult with other educators about technology in the classroom. As to the other discussion networks, I think that a history teacher might find them useful for students in a limited capacity, especially as a resource to find other source material.