CANADIAN SOCIAL STUDIES
VOLUME 36, NUMBER 1, FALL 2001
CLASSROOM TIPS
Jim Parsons and Dawn FordSocial Studies and telegraph communication
Dot Dash Scavenger Hunt
Social studies involves looking at the past to understand the present. Such looks include, among others things, looking at people and their culture, history, geography, economic and political systems, globalization, and communication. These things are the essence of social studies. Yet, for students today, much of the past seems irrelevant simply because they were not there. They can only imagine.
With today's technology, however, students need not imagine what the past was like. They can actually participate in the events of the past. The Internet provides such a place for these experiences. Making use of all previous media, the Internet invites students to explore history as it was lived and in the way it was lived. The telegraph, often considered the birth child of the Internet, is one way to do this.
Below is a quick and easy exercise that will help students participate briefly in the world of telegraphy. The exercise introduces them to the telegraph and Morse code. They will not only translate Morse into English, but will hear the code as it sounds over a virtual telegraph. By doing so, they will gain a better understanding of communication in the late nineteenth century. This in turn can lead to personal reflections and classroom discussions about communication and the impact it has had and still has on almost every theme relevant to the social studies curriculum. For example, students can contrast and compare the use of telegraphy during the First World War with that of the Internet during the recent Terrorist attacks in the United States. In addition, classroom discussions and assignments can centre around the increasing marriage of space and time from the onset of the telegraph era to today's global-wide use of the Internet.
Dot Dash Scavenger Hunt:
First Word •— — •••• • — —
Second Word •••• •— — ••••
Third Word — —• — — — —••
Fourth Word •— — •—• — — — ••— — —• •••• —
Instructions:
The message above is in Morse code. Your job is to unscramble the message and then listen to it via the online Morse box. Here is how:
1. Go to <http://www.zianet.com/sparks/coder.html>
2. Match the symbols in Morse code to the letters used in the Morse legend on the site.
3. Once you have the message unscrambled, type the phrase into the box and click "Morse."
4. Listen to how the message sounds.
5. Also - play around with the sounds of Morse until you can begin to decipher the letters clearly - type and listen to the sound of your own name.
6. Post a brief reflection under the telegraph discussion board. In your reflection, do not give away the answer of the message (because, of course, we are asynchronistic and others will be coming on later.) The significance of the message will naturally come up later. The point of the reflection is simply to share your own insights about the experience as it was for you and to stimulate more global discussions relevant to the telegraph.
[Note to instructors. The answer is "What hath God Wrought," the first message to be sent via telegraph. On May 24, 1844, Samuel Morse sent this message through the 40-mile telegraph line from Washington to Baltimore. There are numerous websites on the telegraph, but this one gives a synopsis of the evolution of Morse Code and the telegraph in brief: http://mirrorus.unesco.org/courier/1999_08/uk/connect/txt1.htm.]
Conclusion:
We are, as commonly expressed, living in an "Information Age." Human communication - its history and its impact - is a fundamental social studies concept. This brief activity can help your students come to understand how radically different communication is in the just over 150 years since Samuel Morse sent the first telegraph message. Extending this activity could provide an interesting critical speculation for students. How will communication change in the next 150 years? What vision do humans have already (as seen in movies and novels, for example) about communication in the future? And, most importantly, how has and will human communication change the way humans live?