kBlog

It is apparent to all of us that Google is now embedded into the fabric of our lives.  This week they have deepened our searching habits in a way that opened a door for us to look at history more closely.  We can now search millions of photographs from the LIFE photo archive, stretching from the 1750s to today. Most were never published and are searchable through the joint work of LIFE and Google.     While the applications for this new search tool is certainly obvious for teaching and learning, it hit me on a very personal level as a visual time machine kind of experience.   My father and grandfather were soldiers in the British Army during both world wars; this tool allows me to take a visual journey through some places where I know they fought (and died in the case of my grandfather in 1914).  I remember the war stories my father would tell;  can’t imagine having this tool in front of us as he spoke. So find an elderly relative, friend, anyone who would be able to deepen the storytelling that these pictures already tell.  Use them to drive learning in your classroom, or tell your own story with pictures to your students, children or grandchildren.  It’s all history, from yesterday back to 1750.