After months of planning and attending meetings, recording videos, taking pictures,capturing 3D images, editing digital footage and creating a website through WordPress, my group successfully produced a website featuring 3D scans, videos, object-file information and still images of six objects at the James Monroe Museum and Memorial Library.
Our journey to complete the website included some successes and some challenges.
We were successful at finding a plugin to embed the 3D file on our WordPress website and every week we were able to rent a videocamera,tripod, iPad scanner and camera from the school to complete our project. We also did a good job of communicating as a group using group text messages and meeting at the James Monroe Museum and Memorial Library and in the computer labs at the HCC to complete our project outside the classroom.
Unfortunately, throughout the course of our project we also had some challenges. It took us a few weeks to capture the first 3D scan because we had to learn how to use the scanner and the first scanner we tried to use did not meet our expectations and the second scanner we attempted to use did not work. Luckily, the third scanner we attempted to use, the iPad scanner, worked to our satisfaction and was a successful capture of a 3D rendering of a museum object. Also, we were not able to host our website on Omeka as we had initially planned, so we generated our website using WordPress.
In addition to the successes and challenges we encountered during the semester we also had to accommodate for some changes. While we had proposed in our group contract that our website would become part of the James Monroe Museum and Memorial Library Website, we did not received permission from the museum, therefore, our website will not be directly linked to the main website. Although we did provided multiple links on our website to the museum’s website for easy access to internet users to encourage them to visit the museum. Additionally, we did not arrange to link our website to social media platforms or to historical organizations as we had planned in our group contract. Throughout the course of the semester many changes were made with regards to the division of labor. While our contract said, “one person is in charge of 3D uploads and working on the object files”, these two tasks were completed by Jon and Mary respectively. Also, in addition to recording the videos, Mary and I also edited and wrote close captioning for all but one of the videos, we took photographs of the objects, and we communicated with Dr. Meadows, Mr. Kearney and Mr. Harris by email throughout the semester. All group members assisted in the editing process and the web design.
In conclusion, I believe that while we had successes, challenges, and changes to our group contract about the website we were ultimately successful in creating a interactive website of 3D scans, videos, and still pictures of six objects from the James Monroe Museum and Memorial Library. We created a website accessible to and for students, teachers, researchers to enjoy. I think that this website will encourage people to visit the James Monroe Museum and Memorial Library view the six objects we included in our website in person.
