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Becoming Digital |
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 This project involves the digitization of a small of collection of physical resources as a process that moves use toward understanding what it means for historical content to "become digital." The resources presented in this activity are mostly owned by the people doing the digitization, but also representative of persons, places or events that may not be directly related to personal experiences. The primary task in this work was to make multiple digital representations of a single or small set of physical historical resources.
One approach is to focus on the digitization of resources using specific measures for a two-dimensional and static presentation. This can include multiple versions of the item at different sizes (small or thumbnail or iconic representations; medium size optimized for viewing on the computer screen; and large version of in-depth analysis). It's important to also include different perspective and angles, all aimed at representing the images in more complete form. On the left is a presentation of a book called Gothas et Berthas purchased by an American soldier returning to Paris in 1922 after having served as a solider in 1918. This project includes multiple images and presentations of the book using a web-based publishing tools called Issuu.com and Photosynth.net. Photosynth allows you to upload multiple versions of an image and represent the image in simulated 3-D. The photosynth version of the Gothas et Berthas book from book is online here.
A third approach to "becoming digital" is to create high quality digital versions of materials and then narrate some story or representation of the content related to the images. The product could even be a movie a movie or short video of the item.
Products of this work are posted on our Teaching Digital History community website at http://teachingdigitalhistory.ning.com. On the following page are links to various Becoming Digital projects. |
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Simple Digital History |
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A collection of 6 soda bottles found buried in the floor of the backyard shed, posted by Erin Klein. This project makes use of ubiquitous digital devices (cell phone, digital camera, laptop, etc) to capture pictures or video of historical artifacts or historical resource (e.g. photographs, letters, and records). Images have been uploaded along with an annotation to a public online digital history website such as our Teaching Digital History ning, Flickr, or Footnote.
There is no minimum requirement with regard to the number of items in a simple digital archive, but the work should be focused on something plural. This might include multiple pages from a book or multiple correspondences. The work might also focus on artifacts or possibly even historical structures. Another important aspect of the work is to be creative and personal in the work.
Simple digital history should be scalable on a number of levels. For one thing, we should be able to pick up the process and apply it in different context with a different collection of materials. We should also be able to do the work with people who have a range skills and access to a range of technologies.
A collection of religious items from the Roman Catholic Church posted by Lindsey Dowling Additional collections include the following
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Historical Soundscape |
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reposted from Teaching Digital History What does it mean to compose? Most of us probably think of music, maybe classical music, when we hear the word compose. Of course, a composition is much more. Compositions involve the creative and even artistic rendering of ideas using various modes to express. We might compose in text or with paint or with sound or even with physical objects. Today, compositions are taking on a new meaning with the emergence of the new technologies. In this activity, students use a free audio software program called Audacity to compose an Historical Soundscape. A soundscape is a collection of sounds that emerge from a natural or human-made environment. For this activity, students can compose sounds to interpret an historical event, place, or people. |
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Plantation Letters |
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In a two-part effort, students in a recent graduate course taught at North Carolina State University conducted individual inquires about the life of slaves on the Cameron Plantations in Orange County, North Carolina and Greene County, Alabama. The final products two two forms. Students posted to a online community ning website. These sixteen posts are available online at http://plantation.ning.com/profiles/blog/list. Look for post dated between October 25, 2009 and November 7, 2009. Students then transformed their work into historical episodes and posted these essays to The history Engine at University of Richmond. The essays are online at http://historyengine.richmond.edu/courses/view/38. This work makes use of a collection of digital historical resources digitized at North Carolina State under the direction of Dr. Kevin Oliver called Plantation Letters, online at www.plantationletters.com In one of these essays, Lindsey Ferguson examined the migration of enslaved people in the south. |
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Lincoln Obscure |
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 The project at lincoln.dhpp.org is focused on the life and times of Abraham Lincoln with special consideration for those topics that just a bit off the beaten path. Students in a North Carolina State graduate social studies class on the uses of digital history produced the material on this blog, and in fact, most of the early posts here emerged from an assignment these students completed in which they researched specific topics related to Lincoln. That work is part of a large Digital History and Pedagogy Project. If you have questions, please contact John at
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