Online, from ☕ to 😴
This course introduces historical thinking skills with digital tools, sometimes called the digital humanities, while covering the history of humanity from 4000 BCE to 1400 CE.
As a college-level history course in 2025, this course requires you navigate new digital environments, such as this web page. Please ask questions, on our discussion boards, during student office hours, by email, and phone.
The thematic question we’ll ask this semester is how did pre-1400 CE peoples access, use, and make meaning with fresh water? 💧
🏗️ You’ll be part of one of five teams this semester, building a research report over the course of the semester. The five projects involve writing research reports for: a historical novel, a historical role playing video game, preparing a disaster response team, creating a shoe and clothing brand, or project managing one of these four projects.
Details and dates for assignments are on our schedule page.
To access most of our course page, you’ll need the password that is posted to our D2L announcement page.
| Instructor | Professor Jack Norton |
|---|---|
| Course page | https://jacknorton.org/1-current_courses/1101-fa25-04-online_only/ |
| Meeting Times | Teams will meet regularly, on their own self-arranged schedule |
| Meeting Location | College Services 3040 |
| Student (Office) Hours | 9-10 am 11- noon, Mondays and Wednesdays |
| Noon to 1, Tuesdays | |
| College Services 3050 and Online | |
| [email protected] | |
| Phone | 952-358-8911 |
World History 1 (1101) from Prehistory to 1400 with Jack Norton
“True peace required the presence of justice, not just the absence of conflict.” ― N.K. Jemisin, The Killing Moon
“Learning is always rebellion . . . Every bit of new truth discovered is revolutionary to what was believed before.” Margaret Lee Rubneck
There are no prerequisites for this course, and you do not need any specialized knowledge. The class will be taught in English, with occasional cheesy jokes and mild vulgarities in Spanish.
Studying history has changed dramatically in the last 20 years. People today publish more lies about the past than evidence-based history. For your parents, finding historical information was the challenge. For you, sorting credible from non-credible information will be the defining feature of your historical work, and indeed your information life.
I want you to learn about the past, learn new skills about how to analyze and present about the past, and learn new ways of how to learn (called metacognition). The learning goals, or outcomes, fit in these three groups. The goals for this course are below. I may sometimes call these learning outcomes, or the stuff I want you to be able to do by the end of this course.
You will be able to: