1) Some creative uses of the tools we’ve learned about so far. [e.g., how might you use Zotero for something other than citation/research? What could a WordPress blog be used for other than personal reflection? What creative ways can you think of to use Omeka? How might you use these tools in combination with each other or with others you’ve used outside of class.
I do not have much experience with WordPress blogs and most of that experience involved personal reflection. However, a friend and I do have a WordPress for a Church group we conduct for young ladies. On our blog, we include recommended books, saint biographies, calendars with upcoming meeting dates, and links to Google Docs that list supplies we need for meetings. Our blog was also open for comments, questions, and suggestions, so it became a way for us to interact with each other and grow spiritually. I think WordPress works well for things that you do not necessarily want published online, and you can make accounts private or only accessible to those who have the URL.
With Zotero, I do not think I have ever used this site, but I have used a similar one called EasyBib. I am unsure if this exists on Zotero, but an interesting feature could be a way to locate more sources similar to the one you are citing. For example, after you find the source you need to cite, Zotero could give you suggestions for other sources that are similar/related to the one you just worked with, making it easier to locate more. EasyBib has a feature somewhat like this where you type in the name of your source and it gives you a possible list of sources that you could be referring to. Scanning through this list could be helpful in constructing comprehensive or annotated bibliographies.
Lastly, for Omeka, I think that historians could use this tool to create ways to virtually analyze primary sources, and teach people how to approach this. In light of the Great Molasses Flood website, I think it would be interesting to take many different types of primaries, such as clothing, furniture, documents, everyday objects, etc. The way the newspaper was set up, it looked as if it was pointing out important information to pay attention to. This kind of thing would be beneficial to history educators, because from what I have seen in my practicums, primary source analysis is not prioritized, and by teaching it to younger students, this could make for a stronger base of historians in the future. These three tools, WordPress, Zotero, and Omeka could be used to build upon one another. For example, WordPress could be used as a communication forum for historians to talk with each other about digital resources, one of which could be Omeka. The blog could have a link to an Omeka site that contains interactive primary sources, cited using Zotero.
Based on your review of the Digital History websites: Think about what you like about these websites as a whole, and what you don’t. What works and what doesn’t? What elements would you want to incorporate and which do you want to avoid in your own project?
I reviewed the following websites: Gilded Age Murder, Great Molasses Flood, Valley of the Shadow, 9/11 Living Memorial Digital Archive (found under the “Omeka-based sites” link in the syllabus), and Map Scholar. As I began exploring these websites, I found that they all had a button to take you back to the home page, which makes navigating more manageable. The home pages also all had clearly-defined tabs to click to look at different things, which helped in moving around the sites. Even each tab clicked upon on the home page also leads to a whole new set of organized tabs so you never get lost. In short, the good organization of these sites is very helpful and effective. All the sites also had an interactive component. For example, the Gilded Age Murder site lets users move through a map of Lincoln, NE; the Great Molasses Flood lets you click on different parts of a newspaper front page to learn different bits of information; the Valley of the Shadow has interactive battle maps; and Map Scholar lets you build high quality historical maps. I especially like these interactive components because it complements the text and helps keep my attention better than just reading. Aside from the animation itself most of the sites with interactive components also include instructions for how to use these features.
A couple things I did not like with these websites was, in some cases, the lack of information. For example, the Great Molasses Flood is interesting in that you can interact with the newspaper, but I am unsure how all these tiny bits of information relate to each other and form a bigger picture. Also, on the 9/11 Living Memorial Digital Archive, I am unsure what the difference between “collections” and “exhibits” are and this does not seem to be explained anywhere on the site, although I do like the idea of having items grouped together and organized. After reviewing these sites, I would definitely say that for my group’s project with the Slaughter and Murray letters, it would be good to categorize the letters in some way and put them under different tabs on our website’s home page. With some of the more important letters, it also might be interesting to do interactive document pages modeled after the Great Molasses Flood. Using maps built on Map Scholar could also be useful for giving general background information about the letters and their authors, while having a graphic organizer site map like the Valley of the Shadow does would make for easy navigation for site users. I think my group needs to avoid pages with information that has not been contextualized and make sure that it is all crisply organized so that users know what we are doing, where we are doing certain things, and the purpose for it.
