You have probably heard about OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Microsoft’s Bing Chat or Google’s Bard. They are all based on Large Language Model (LLM) architectures that produce human-like text from user prompts. LLMs are not new, but they seem to have recently crossed a virtual threshold. Suddenly, artificial intelligence—or AI for short—is everywhere. While it is true that they sometimes “hallucinate,” producing factual errors and quirky responses, the accuracy and reliability of LLMs is improving exponentially. There is no escaping it: generative AI like ChatGPT is the future of information processing and analysis, and it will change the teaching and practice of history. Although some of its effects can be felt already, its long-term implications are not as clear.
Jackson Pind and Sean Carleton Many Canadians are finally coming to terms with the truth that the Canadian government, in co-operation with Christian churches, ran a genocidal school system targeting Indigenous Peoples for more than a century. What most people do not realize, however, is that Canada’s system of “Indian education” was not limited to Indian Residential Schools. It also… Read more »
ActiveHistory.ca is pleased to announce that its application to the Canada History Fund, made in partnership with McGill University (grantee), HistoireEngagée.ca, and the Asian Canadian and Asian Migration Studies Program at the University of British Columbia, was successful. Our project, “Active History on Display,” has been granted $99,958 to create two digital exhibits: one on the lived experiences of Asian… Read more »
Sam Huckerby Piece by Piece uses images, maps, and public-friendly text to show that 19th century English clothing materials connected to everything from bird preservation movements to slavery. Born out of a desire to start filling in the gaps of how we talk about historical dress, Piece by Piece shows that clothes are more than just aesthetics: they have history… Read more »
In collaboration with Histoire Source | Source Story, a video series for history educators, Active History is recruiting writers to write complementary posts on themes related to one of seven Histoire Source | Source Story conversational videos. While the videos were designed for a K-12 teaching audience, they are rich in content for a broader audience. Thus, we envision these… Read more »
Krista McCracken The Shingwauk Residential School operated in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario from 1874 to 1970. In 1971, Algoma University College – today known as Algoma University – moved onto the Shingwauk Site. Since 2010, I’ve been part of the staff at the Shingwauk Residential Schools Centre (SRSC) that seeks to promote sharing, healing, and learning in relation to the… Read more »
Elizabeth Mancke Academic press editors are notorious for advising future and recent PhDs to remove the historiographical chapter as a first step in revising their dissertation for publication. This begs the question: If press editors do not consider historiographical chapters publishable material, why do so many dissertation committees require them? Why are they deemed a necessary part of the doctoral… Read more »
Krista McCracken My work at the Shingwauk Residential Schools Centrecurrently includes a Canada History Fund funded project to create education modules connected to Residential Schools and colonialism. These modules are geared toward high school aged students and will be used as part of ongoing educational programming. When I wrote the grant proposal I included the idea that the modules would… Read more »
Jon Benson From its early embrace as a recreational activity upon its arrival in the 1800s to hosting a world champion at a race downtown in the 1990s to a community of folks working diligently to build up and maintain an infrastructure making commuting here safe and enjoyable for everyone year-round, Winnipeg has a long history with the bicycle. But… Read more »
With the start of the new year,[1] the editorial collective at ActiveHistory.ca thought it would be useful to share some data about the performance of the website, along with some brief analysis of what this data tells us about how it is being used by readers. At the end of this piece, we invite readers to chime in and tell… Read more »
