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Narrative Interpretation Reading Response
I’ve learned from Modules 4 and 5 that it’s not about just putting historical items on a website and calling it digital public history website. It’s so much more than that. It’s making sure that the items that you want to highlight in your project is not only digitally available but that the historical context is highlighted. In the journal article by Tim Sherratt, “It’s All About Stuff: Collections, Interfaces, Power, and People,” he describes the process of not only obtaining the data but how to get the information out of it based on the needs of his project. Sherratt created scripts or use other open source technologies to scrape…
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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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Collections Reading Response
The process of finding the sources and uploading it to Omeka proved to be not a simple task. Not only did you have to find primary sources but you also had to make sure that you described it correctly to the best of your ability and in a standard way. I learned this in more detail through the article, “Metadata: An Introduction” by JISC Digital Media. By doing that exercise, it not only help me to prepare for my project by having some sources but also have me think more deeply as to what sources I want to show my audience. I knew that I wanted to collect newspaper articles,…
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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…
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Physical/Digital Site Comparative Review: Ford’s Theatre
For this assignment I traveled to Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. and went to the Museum inside. I decided that this would be a good place to study for this project because of its historical content and fame but also what it’s digital presence is currently. The audience could be identified as persons wanting to know more historical background of Lincoln, his life, the Civil War, and his assassination, and death. They could very well be audience member who was able to have a free ticket to the museum with their purchase of a show performance and it is available to them one hour before the show starts. I was…
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Survey of the Field
The field of Digital Public History (DPH) has changed dramatically over the past twenty years. With the rise of the Internet and all the new technologies and software being developed, it has made the DPH field reevaluate how they are displaying their information to the public. Based on the activity of comparing digital exhibits from the late 1990s to 2014, one can see how the format and finding the right audience and has changed. The era of all text and reading page after page has become extinct and in favor of more interactive pages that the audience can get more excited about. The qualities that I believe should of markers…