For introductions this week, let’s do something a little different than the same general intro in other courses and talk about something specific to history but also easy for everyone– historical sites that are near you or located in/near places where you used to live or would like to visit. Please use the history website / mobile application Clio (named in honor of the muse of history). Clio is a site that connects people to nearby landmarks, museums, etc., and I hope you love it!)

Local History and Introductions

Contains unread posts

For introductions this week, let’s do something a little different than the same general intro in other courses and talk about something specific to history but also easy for everyone– historical sites that are near you or located in/near places where you used to live or would like to visit. Please use the history website / mobile application Clio (named in honor of the muse of history). Clio is a site that connects people to nearby landmarks, museums, etc., and I hope you love it!)

Before the end of the week, everyone will post an introduction and reply to two classmates. APUS requires that students post during the first week or they will be removed from the course, so please be sure to post at least one response in the first five days of the course.

A little about Clio… this is a website and a smartphone app that began in 2013 as a local history project in one of my classes. Other people liked the idea, so we made it possible for organizations to add entries and tours in their cities and now there are entries and walking tours and more nationwide. Clio is mostly limited to the US for now, but you can also browse and search from any location. Since this is primarily a U.S. history course, please pick either your present location or a U.S. city/location of your choice. Clio www.theclio.com is named after Clio, the ancient muse of history and I hope that it will inspire you.

I think you will enjoy using Clio to see nearby sites and also browse by city, and this video which serves as an introduction to Clio shows how it can connect the public to the history that surrounds them. If the link does not work for some reason, simply search for “Clio-Your Guide to History and Culture” on Youtube and Google.  

After you check out Clio, share with your class what you learned about nearby historical landmarks related to any topic that you discovered either by searching nearby locations or by browsing using the search by city feature. I think that this will help us introduce ourselves to each other in a way that also includes our interests in history.  And if you are interested, anyone can suggest a new entry in Clio and their entries go into draft mode until one of the historians who run Clio approves the entry, and this usually takes less than a week or two. Each week, Clio gets better and I think you will enjoy using this whenever you travel to a new place in the US.   

So for this week, create a post that does the following:

1. introduce yourself and identify the kinds of history you are most interested in learning about in this class.

2. Talk about some of the landmarks and museums you discovered in Clio-either near your location or browsing various U.S. cities.

If there are any landmarks or museums you would like to see added to Clio, you can contact local history organizations and suggest that they add them-that is how the site has grown. You can also share the site on social media or directly with people in your life who might enjoy Clio- it’s been great for military families moving to new areas as a way to learn about some of the local landmarks, places to visit, and the history of buildings and other landmarks.  

Also, please reply to two of your fellow students by Sunday night.

To post your introduction, simply click on the blue “Start a New Thread” button. Remember, your post needs to be over 200 words. I won’t be counting your words, but the computer records how many words you post and will actually remove a student who does not fully participate by making a substantial post in the first week.