Software review of His Name Was Lincoln

Click the books to go HOME

Ms. Tager’s Resources for

Teachers & Students

HIS NAME WAS LINCOLN

Sunburst Communications

914-747-3301 http://store.sunburst.com/

Grades 7-12

Social Studies

Debbie Tager

SOFTWARE DESCRIPTION: In melodies reminiscent of the late 1800s, photographs pulled from family archives, and diary pages ripped from history and read aloud, His Name Was Lincoln effectively introduces users to layer upon layer of Lincoln’s life framed within the context of the Civil War. The two-CD ROM set respectively entitled “Peace” and “War” allows users to gain as little or as much knowledge as they wish about the man, his family, and politics from Lincoln's birth and heritage through the Civil War. The set provides a nearly inexhaustible store of resources from primary documents to modern scholarship in a series of nine chapters and an epilogue. Though the depth and breadth of information is overwhelming, the easily navigable format of this program allows users to manipulate it for their own purposes. With the right guidance (the Resource Guide is a good place to start, but lacks focus), His Name Was Lincoln proves a valuable resource for students in Civics or American History classrooms. Despite the excellent features this program has to offer, its lack of compatibility with newer computer systems creates some significant drawbacks (see Technical Quality below)

ACCURACY OF CONTENT: His Name Was Lincoln provides a variety of technical features such as audio commentary, primary documents and picture slideshows in a way that flows well and engages the user without feeling overdone. The set accurately represents the stages of “Peace” and “War” in 19^th century America (1809-1861 and 1862-1865, respectively), looking not only at Lincoln, but the political, social, and industrial climate of his time. It is important to remember, when sitting down with the program, that author James McPherson approaches this breadth of content with the Civil War in view.

A strong collection of primary source pictures and documents accompany the program, in addition to a printed source list (User’s Guide) extending suggested resources beyond books to mainly government maintained websites. While the depth of content provides a full picture of Lincoln as a man struggling with the rights of black Americans, users who skim the surface of each chapter could easily take away the picture of Lincoln as a champion of abolition and civil rights. On the surface, the first few chapters represent Lincoln as a man destined to free the country from slavery; users need guidance to dig deeper into the information and uncover the real motivations of the man in his time. Nevertheless, chapters such as the one that covers the Lincoln-Douglas debates provide audio text in which Lincoln’s approach to the issues of black American rights and slavery are clear.

In addition to providing a thorough picture of Lincoln, the program does an excellent job representing women’s voices and diverse perspectives at this time in history. The user will hear remakes of African American spirituals within a few of the chapters as well as audio text of quotes from politicians to housewives in American History. Representing each of these features well is certainly a challenge that many textbooks do not confront. The presence of such features makes His Name Was Lincoln a worthy investment. Take time to dig in the material to find out where it is strong and weak.

TECHNICAL QUALITY: An unfortunate drawback for the program is its lack of compatibility with newer computers. It requires that Windows systems run in 256 colors at a resolution of 640 X 480 when most modern computers run at a resolution of 1400 X 1050. While a modern Windows system provides for resetting compatibility to the program in 256 colors, I was not able to get my computer to run at a resolution of 640 X 480 and was therefore unable to run the fully installed program.

His Name Was Lincoln may be run from the individual disks (without installation), but elements of the program such as photography or video that accompany audio feedback in the documentary sections of each chapter do not run in-time or at all. Running the program from its disk, I was unable to access the “Tools” feature from the main page that provides access to an alphabetical index of topics and sources, as well as an extensive picture gallery.

Despite issues of compatibility, this multi-sensory program is easy to navigate and relatively easy to digest. As stated, there is a large amount of information to navigate, but with the right guidance, students can easily find their way through. I attempted to familiarize myself with the program prior to reading the User’s Guide and found that the only thing I could not figure out was how to exit from the documentary feature without closing the whole program. Early on in the easy-to-read Guide of less than twenty pages, I found out that the spacebar provides a default exit to the main page of the program. With this tool in hand (or should I say, thumb!), the program is a joy to play through. It requires a minimal amount of computer savvy and takes less than an hour to grow familiar with, as each chapter has the same format.

USE OF TECHNOLOGY: While users may navigate through His Name Was Lincoln following a time-line progression of events, it just as easily lends itself to a non-linear progression, with the exception of having the content between two discs. The program is strictly informational and uses the various elements of audio, video, photography, and primary source documents to enhance the user’s interaction with each element of a chapter. For example, each chapter’s documentary section has ten to twenty minutes of narration accompanying a slideshow of pictures, while the sections entitled, “Words of Lincoln,” show a picture of Lincoln’s desk with clickable drawers that contain primary documents for the user to read on-screen.

Teachers with set goals and objectives for how they want to use the program within the context of a U.S. History or Civics class can encourage students to go to various places in a chapter depending on their learning preference. The program makes excellent use of different learning styles; students that can easily read on-screen are given that opportunity, while students that prefer to listen & look, have that opportunity as well without sacrificing the quality of the content.

ROLE OF STUDENTS: If there are any drawbacks concerning content at this point, it is that some documents and audio commentary are too long. While students in both middle and high school may easily navigate the program, younger students may lose attention when reading or listening to longer portions. Nevertheless, longer passages provide content that is more challenging for students in upper grades. Teachers need to be aware of these sections if they are going to use His Name Was Lincoln to supplement their curriculum; there is the potential for differentiation given the array of materials embedded in the program.

Students in all grades will not be able to navigate the different elements of the program without direct guidance from a teacher. The User’s Guide recommends having students use the program in groups with each student researching one of six chapter-elements such as “Voices From The Past” (audio readings of primary source documents linked through on-screen quotes) and then taking their information back to the members of the group to compare and contrast; this is a viable suggestion. While the diverse use of technology allows students at varying levels and learning preferences to access the information in His Name Was Lincoln, students in all grades will need direction from their teacher on what to look for in each chapter and how to use the information they are reading.

ROLE OF TEACHER: His Name Was Lincoln aligns with state and local standards of American History and Civics/Government classes, incorporating direct links to the Civil War, advancements in technology, and political parties of the 19^th century. Its content is very specific to a place and time, but chapters may be used in isolation to enhance the curriculum at a specific point in time. The most important thing to remember is that teachers need to be familiar with the program before they release students to navigate it.

In order to prepare students to use the software, teachers need to know where students are going before they get there in order to guide them in navigating the diverse elements of the software. For example, if students were going to use the program to discover the causes of the Civil War, then a list of guiding questions beginning with the Resource Guide and then connecting with specific content standards of the district would help students to navigate effectively the different elements of set chapters and dates in the timeline.

CLASSROOM USAGE: While the content of each chapter may be too much for a single student to navigate, it lends well to group work where the content can be split up into sections and studied in-depth. The best way to use the whole program would be to divide students into groups that study 2-3 chapters apiece and then present their findings to the rest of the class in a modified Jigsaw activity. In most cases, the program would not be used in-whole but in-part.

Teachers may show their classes a segment of one chapter to enhance a day’s lesson, or use a few chapters to support part of a unit of study. The quality of the sources incorporated into the program, and the display of those sources on-screen, lend the program to a variety of uses in middle and high school classrooms taking into account the level and background knowledge of the students.

CRITICAL SUMMARY: The quality of the program in its use of historical documents and pictures, the display of those resources in a variety of mediums, and the depth of each chapter through a critical period of American history is unparalleled. Unfortunately, users are denied access to many of the program’s best features because of its compatibility issues with newer computers. Though mentioned as an award winner in the 1997-98 Technology & Learning Software Awards (http://www.techlearning.com/articles/11.97.awards.php), with no updates in sight the program is becoming quickly out-dated and unusable.

OVERALL RATING (SCALE OF 1 TO 10): 7 out of 10

EXPLANATION OF RATING: It is unfortunate that such a wealth of resources so excellently put together and presented are inaccessible because the program has not been updated in over a decade. If this was not the case, and an updated version of the program was on the market, the program’s rating would be a solid ten. Without access to the excellent features of His Name Was Lincoln, its score will continue to drop as technology progresses beyond the program’s use.

Homepage | Review of His Name Was Lincoln | Lesson plan for Inspiration 8 Software