In the near future, students at Berkeley using multimedia technology, will be creating learning environments that are based in the data of archaeological research that will challenge the traditional way in which the interpretation of the past is presented, thanks to Ruth Tringham, Professor of Anthropology and recipient of the 1998 Presidential Chair in Undergraduate Education.
The Presidential Chair is a three year appointment that is intended to encourage the development of new courses or to enhance the quality of already existing courses. It provides an opportunity and resources to implement new approaches to undergraduate teaching.
Professor Tringham proposes to take the lead, with a group of her colleagues, in developing a series of anthropology courses using multimedia technology. A major focus of this effort will be "multimedia authoring, "in which students and faculty develop and produce archaeological models of all kinds, including reconstructing Neolithic villages in Europe, constructing the life-histories of people and houses in prehistoric Anatolia, writing the prehistory and early history of the Berkeley campus, creating a web that links clay figurines to "the Goddess," and writing a detective story involving the arson investigation of a prehistoric house-fire.
Tringham looks to the wealth of anthropological archaeologists (as well as archaeologists in other fields such as Classics, Near Eastern Studies, and Art History) at Berkeley who are engaged in active field projects to provide abundant data for such models.
"Multimedia technology," says Tringham, "provides a medium through which the complexities of archaeological practice--the variety of plausible prehistories that can be written from any database--can be grasped and appreciated. It enables students to enter into and participate in the research process. And it allows them to be more confident in critical thinking as well as in constructing their own interpretations. They become active participants in their own education."
Initially, Tringham will develop multimedia authoring for three courses: Archaeology of Architecture, European Prehistory and Multimedia Authoring for Archaeology. Tringham's goal is that the material developed for these three courses will be applied not only in lower division courses such as Anthropology 2: Introduction to Archaeology, but also in a new course "The Poetics of Time and Place: Viewpoints on Millennia," with colleagues Margaret Conkey and Rosemary Joyce.
Other faculty in Anthropology will be working on aspects of the project, for instance, helping to develop modules in their own areas of expertise. "Professor Tringham will take the 'bugs' out of using the multimedia technology," says Professor Kent Lightfoot, "so that even 'Neanderthal' level techno-sophisticates like myself can take advantage of these new and exciting pedagogical practices."
Stanley Brandes, Chair of Anthropology, says, "The field of archaeology is particularly well-suited to the use of new instructional technologies that promote the interactive nature of the learning process, that deploy visual and other multimedia modes of presentation, and that promote critical thinking. This is the ideal time for this project to be realized. There is a trend to encourage more participation by students in their own learning process; there is a movement toward the presentation of greater complexity of the practice of inquiry and the ambiguity of 'facts.'"
Professor Tringham joined the Berkeley campus in 1979. She received her M.A. and her Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh (UK). Among her research specialties are European pre-history, Mediterranean archaeology, analysis of archaeological architecture, and the feminist practice of archaeology.