Historian
Online Classes
– IGY, Steely Dan
I've taught online since 1993, when I offered course on the Renaissance. Not over the Web, but via RBBS, a bulletin board system! I had all of four students, only two of which made it through to the end. That experience at least showed me that the concept was valid. The drawback was the technology.
I was in the process of discovering the Web, so I at once undertook to offer the course online. I have preserved that very early effort, which I called the Electric Renaissance. Back then, when everything was new, we tended to make up silly names like that. I've long since revamped the course as Europe in the Late Middle Ages. The title is more accurate and more boring.
Meanwhile, in 1994, I developed a course on Western Civilization. I first offered that one fall semester 1994, and continue to offer it each fall semester.
Rather more ambitious is my course on the Crusades, first offered in 1998. This one has a fairly large ancillary site that explains how medieval pilgrimages to the Holy Land worked. It's called the Virtual Pilgrim.
Finally, I have a course on the Protestant Reformation, first offered in 2004. With four online courses now, I guess I'm done. I offer Western Civ each fall, then I rotate through the others each spring.
Education
I got my B.A. in history from Boise State University in 1977, having begun my college career at Portland Community College in 1972. I took my M.A. in medieval history at the University of Utah under Glenn Olsen, an outstanding medievalist, graduating in 1980. I took my Ph.D. in early modern European social and economic history under Miriam Chrisman, graduating in 1984.
Publications
"The Lower Orders in Early Modern Augsburg" in The Process of Change in Early Modern Europe. Phillip N. Bebb and Sherrin Marshall, eds. Ohio University Press, 1988.
Dissertation, The Guilds of Augsburg, 1984.
Master's thesis, The Conversion and Destruction of the Wends, 1980.