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Final Reflection
This class was a learning experience for me to make sure that I chose a topic that I was interested in and I could complete the technical requirements as well. I had some wins and losses in terms of the final project. I had issues with getting the reCAPTCHA working, trying to figure out which plugins to use, and trying to get my website to not crash with every click. What I learned was to use a different version of reCAPTCHA, use only the plugins that are necessary, and don’t download too many plugins otherwise it will crash your website. The wins I achieved was finally finding Public Domain sources…
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Final Progress Update #4
The challenges I’ve been facing over the past four weeks was finding sources that I was able to use. I believe that this topic has been widely researched so trying to find sources shouldn’t have been that difficult. I might have been making a mountain out of a molehill. I struggled to find sources and to make sure that they were in the Public Domain. I think that I was so worried about finding free and open sources, that yes is an important issue, but it became a blocking factor in my research. It made me question as to whether this was the right historical topic for me and whether…
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Final Project Progress Update #3
Some challenges that I’m facing are not being able to find sources that are in the Public Domain for my topic on the Great Potato Famine and my website is not looking the way I envisioned. I’m not sure if I’m looking in the right places or if I should change my historical topic. Hopefully if I can find more sources then it will prove that the Omeka plugins I installed will work for this project. Another issue is trying to make my website be interactive and fun which at the moment it is not. It’s bare bones which I guess is fine for now but I need to find…
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Final Project Progress Update # 2
Some challenges that I faced this week are getting the ReCAPTCHA working. I’m still stuck on that. Another challenge I had was to narrow down my topic based on the Great Potato Famine. What I’m going to do is focus on the emigration of the Irish to the United States as a result of the Irish Potato Famine. I’m still trying to find sources based on census records and other primary sources as well. I would like to focus on a couple of people to talk about their journey from Ireland to the United States. I believe that this will help the audience understand what some of the Irish immigrants…
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Final Project Progress Update # 1
In the “Local Sites and Community History” Module for the course, I’m giving an update on my final project progress so far. You will know what challenges I’m facing as well as what I plan to do next. What I have done so far on my project is downloaded various Omeka plugins that I need to have on my website. These plugins should give me the functionalities that I need on my website to make it interactive and more intuitive. Those plugins that I downloaded and tested as I went along are: User Profiles (Created two users so far. One is admin and the other is Contributor) Simple Contact Form…
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Building Your DPH Project Infrastructure
As I went along in this assignment, I learned that it is not only important to have sources to make your exhibit, but also the way you will present them. I was able to find some sources of newspaper articles from Irish and British newspapers which is great, but I also have to make sure that I am using them in a way that is inviting for my users to want to learn more. As I am in the process of building my exhibits, one of the first items that we as a class had to do for this module was create a storyboard. This is important because it let’s…
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Project Proposal
My project proposal for the George Mason University’s Digital Public Humanities Graduate Certificate Digital Public History assignment revolves around the Great Irish Potato Famine during the middle of the nineteenth century. This is an event that has been discussed in schools whether in law, medical, history majors, grade school, etc. I would like to make it more accessible to the by the public putting the resources in one place but also letting the public contribute to the resources. While the general history of the subject is important to recount, I am much more interested in the public reaction to the event. The questions that I wish to explore for the…
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Personas Revised
Persona 1: Name: Macy Demographic: Female, 24, middle class, lives in the suburbs Descriptive Title: Enthusiastic Internet Surfer Quote: Surfing the internet enhances your general knowledge A Day in a Life Narrative: Gets up and get dressed for work at a software developer company. Arrives at 8 am and works until 4 pm. She then makes her way back to her two bedroom apartment where she then eats dinner in front of the tv for an hour and then is on the computer internet surfing until bedtime at 11 pm. End goals: To use my final project to understand more about the history because she happened upon my website. She’s…
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A Summary of Audience, Dialogue, and Co-Creation
In this past module I have learned concepts that will help me improve my final project in the upcoming weeks. For example, in the article, Creating a Dialogic Museum : The Chinatown History Museum Experiment by John Kuo Wei Tchen, I learned that it is not only important to know what the historical topics that you wish to show your audience but also how to engage and include them in the exhibit. Tchen discussed the importance of engaging the correct audience whether it’s Chinese New Yorkers, non-Chinese New Yorkers, East Side, Upper West Side, etc. To know your audience is to know how to engage them. Making it interactive will…
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User Research Findings
I am still trying to figure out what exactly my final project should be on and how I’m going to do it in terms of software. I do know that I would like to do some kind of historical reenactment game. Even though I’m smoothing out the rough edges of my final project ideas, this exercise of interviewing subjects was beneficial in my thought-process. I was able to interview two 20-somethings from the background of history and computer science/computer games to get their opinions about the two fields and why. Their responses proved valuable as I am now taking away comments that will help me build a better project. A…