Stepping into the past: using images to travel through time

Hello All.
I looked at Callie Sugarman-Banaszak's article, "Stepping into the past: using images to travel through time". She looked at the Holocaust and discussed a few different lessons she used with her History class. In the beginning of the year with her grade 9's she would ask the students to bring in an image that represents the 20Th century to them. Then they were asked to write about why they chose that image. Later, the teacher would show the students her family's photos and start showing the students how history shaped her family's past, why they moved, where they moved, industrialization, immigration etc. This builds a place for students to refer back to when they are learning about an area one of the photos depicted or the teacher described. The lesson is meant to help students link the past to the present and be closer to history. Banaszak outlined some interesting activites that one could do with their students. I really liked this idea as I saw it in action while I was on my observation. The teacher I was with would talk about the people in her family and how they contributed to a certain battle, or the deaths they saw, and this helped students relate to the history. Instead of it being an old event, they now knew how it affected theur teacher, and could think about the family, the event, the person more personally. I think this is a good idea and that if well executed it will help students learn more. Lots of information needs to be shown in different ways but it could be a lot of fun if presented properly.
Hope you like this too.