What if Abraham Lincoln Had a Facebook Page?
W hat if Alexander the Great had a Facebook profile and updated his friends about
his conquest while hundreds of miles
away from Macedonia? And imagine
if Alexander Hamilton and Aaron
Burr had a Facebook duel.
Assign a biography report to your
students and watch them slide into an
educational coma, but talk about Facebook and see them come to life. You
can pique your students’ interest in history by supplementing the traditional
biography with an assignment to create
a Facebook page for a historical figure
that they can present to the class.
Would You Friend Lincoln?
If a student had to do a biography
on Abraham Lincoln, she could create a Facebook page that would list
all his basic info, such as birthdate,
hometown, current city of residence,
schools attended, past and current
work experience, relationship status,
religious and political affiliation, and
contact information. She could post
pictures of important events in his life
and use information from her report
to write captions under each photo.
She could post a status update that
says something like, “Abraham Lincoln
is at Joe’s Tea Shoppe preparing for a debate with Stephen Douglas.” She could
post some video clips of modern actors
portraying Lincoln giving a speech and
comment about the highlights.
She could “like” pages that conform
to Lincoln’s preferences and hobbies or
names of people he respected and admired. She could write a “note” about
how Lincoln is dealing with the harsh
reality of losing a child to illness.
Facebook has a feature that allows
users to create a poll, so she could
have Lincoln poll citizens about how
he should respond to the attack on
Fort Sumter. She could post photos
of his political adversaries and com-
ment on how they are an impediment
to his agenda. She could post a link
on the wall of a song that the Union
Army would sing and explain its sig-
nificance. She could create an event
for the signing of the Emancipation
Proclamation.
Facebook and Human Conflict
Facebook documents the evolution of
a relationship, like a real-life form of
digital storytelling. If you’ve been on
Facebook for awhile, you’ve probably
seen Facebook friends develop new
love interests. And you’ve probably
also seen some of those relationships
go bad. In history class, your students
can use Facebook to document historical conflicts in much the same way.
One way to make this happen is to
assign each student to create a page
for a person or country involved in a
particular conflict.
For example, students could document the evolving relationship between the United States, the Soviet
Union, and Cuba during the Cold
War. Students could start by filling in
the About Me sections to illustrate the
differences in geography, history, religion, economic theory, and government philosophy. Facebook “likes” can
highlight cultural differences, such as
the Soviet Union liking Karl Marx,
communism, and hockey, whereas the
United States would like Adam Smith,
capitalism, and football.
Using status updates and comments,
students could show how the Soviet
Union and the United States worked
together to defeat Germany during World War II, but after the war,
they became “frenemies” as the Cold
War began. The Soviet Union and
the United States may “poke” or send
friend requests to other countries,
enticing them to join their side during
the Cold War. The Soviet Union could
post an event for invited guests to join
