[NB: This post originally appeared in the blog hist.net.]
The January issue of Academic Commons highlights the results of several years of research on the intersections between digital media and student learning in the humanities and social sciences. The various essays presented in this issue — and a second issue due out in February — are drawn from the work of participants in the Visible Knowledge Project based at Georgetown University. Focusing on a variety of issues related to the ways that digital media are transforming student learning and the relationship between teaching and learning, the strength of the work presented here is that it is (mostly) drawn from evidence, rather than anecdote. Too often claims about teaching or gains in student learning are made entirely from a complete or almost complete lack of evidence. The essays in these two issues offer a pleasant corrective to this tendency.