Creating Thinkers

http://www.canadianmysteries.ca/indexen.html
This is one of the cooler websites I have seen related to Social Studies. I discovered it in an article in the Canadian Social Studies magazine (long before Peter even knew it existed!) and thought it was perfect. It was almost as if the creators of this website were working hand in hand with Dr. Price. The whole idea is to create students who think and process information and historical events, as opposed to just memorize facts. The basis of the website is that it presents historical Canadian events that have no firm answers around them. This is where the title comes from, Great Canadian Mysteries. What the website does is present historical primary artifacts from these events. It does not tell the students what they mean, or what they should think about them. What it does instead is guide them through exploring these documents and making decisions of their own. At the same time the website has numerous links for teachers as to how to best use this information to help their students succeed. It also does an amazing job of leaving the guidelines firm enough that students can stay on task, but vague enough that what the task really is, can change with the individual. The article suggests using different ability levels to place them into different categories of learners. Based on what category they are in you can help guide them through the primary documents. For some it may be as simple as trying to come up with their own opinion on what really happened with these mysteries based on the documents. For others the documents may simply be a starting point to explore different aspects of culture or society related to them.
What in my mind makes this website so amazing is that it does a great job of using technology to help create thinkers in the Social Studies realm, not just robots who spit back your own facts to you. "CRITICAL NOT CYNICAL"(Trademark Rob Kinnear incorporated.)