collaboration – Online Portfolio

May 15, 2018 (Final Self-Reflection)

The best way to learn more about Digital Humanities is working with people who have the knowledge and expertise in the field. After learning from the best professors selected by the GMU program, I had the pleasure of working with Dr. Pamela (Pam) Henson, Historian for Smithsonian Institution Archives, and her research assistant, Lisa. During my internship with the Smithsonian for two semesters, I have gained new skills to help me complete my digital public humanities site and to teach my undergraduate students about digital humanities as an introductory course. For this Spring semester, I used what I have learned in my graduate courses as well as from my own teaching experience to design an oral history collection. Pam selected Lucile Quarry Mann to be the first from the many collections (150 and counting) for my internship project.

Before I worked with Pam, I had minimal knowledge about oral history. After reading and researching more about oral history, I realized how it is a crucial component of digital humanities and the preservation of living history. Listening to the recorded interviews, which were originally recorded with tape recorders in the 1970s, has helped me to appreciate the unique discourse of oral history interviews between an interviewer and interviewee. The concept of digitizing audio recordings of interviews is fascinating because it allows the current audience to have access to living history in different formats. I also learned the importance of keeping track of everything such as documenting each interview with detailed information by viewing the transcripts and notes that were documented by Pam.

Designing a digital platform for an oral history collection comes with several challenges. One of the challenges was to present the material in a way that would engage a broad audience. In the designing stages of the digital platform, I used the skills that I have learned from the DH courses and my teaching experience. I have been teaching online since 2007, and one of my courses introduces students to think and analyze visual content from a rhetorical perspective for a writing course. Another challenge was selecting a segment of a full interview to introduce to the audience. The interview segment had to be short (5 minutes or less). There were a couple of interesting segments that lasted 10 minutes, but they were too long. The next challenge was to select images from the archives to correspond with the interview. In addition to posting images and text with the interview segment (e.g. image carousel), I came up with an idea of creating videos that combined the audio recording of the selected interview segment with images. I enjoyed the creative process of making a video because I was able to improve my video making skills while incorporating some of the techniques and skills that I have learned from my DH courses. The other challenge was making sure that there was enough memory or space for posting images and videos on the selected web page. These challenges provided a pathway for designing a digital platform for an oral history collection.

Working with Pam and Lisa has helped me to re-envision my design for Lucile Q. Mann’s oral history collection. From our weekly teleconferences and feedbacks, we collaborated to make the oral history and video history collections website possible for future launching. The progress is steady. Their helpful feedbacks were encouraging. I also provided feedback for the introductory pages of the oral history and video history collections website. Pam created a template that was modeled after my web page designs for Lucile Q. Mann’s oral history collection for future interns who will be working to put together oral history collections for the Smithsonian Institution. I am very excited that my work helped with designing the template for future oral history collections. I am very proud to be part of their project. I enjoyed working with a supportive and intelligent group, and I look forward to viewing the oral history collection on the Smithsonian Institution website when it is completed.

This semester’s internship has given me a new perspective on how oral history plays a significant role as a component of Digital Humanities. Presenting information from the past to an audience of the present and future is less challenging when certain digital tools, theories, and skills are used. How do we keep the changing audience interested in the people of the past? What digital tools are useful for creating and designing a new digital platform to present the past? How do we try to preserve the past without losing sight of our focus? Even though the past will remain constant in a form of a recorded interview in the case of Lucile Quarry Mann’s oral history collection, it is up to the digital humanities scholar/specialist to work with others to keep it visible and interesting in the present and for the future. It is also up to a collaborative group of people with various skill sets to help preserve the past and curate it as part of living history. Therefore, I plan to continue networking with people to encourage collaboration for my own digital public humanities project on Korean American history and culture while working on honing my oral history interviewing skills for future interviews.

April 13, 2018

Since my March post, I have been working on designing and creating an oral history page for Lucile Quarry Mann. After listening to more than 30 hours of audio recorded interviews and reviewing the transcripts, I selected at least 4 interesting segments from the interviews as featured items. I enjoyed the selection process because I became more familiar with Lucile Mann’s life. Her life with Dr. William Mann was exciting and adventurous. Also, I enjoyed listening to Pam Henson’s interviewing techniques because they will help me to develop a better understanding of oral history and approaching it from a different perspective. Pam’s discourse with Lucile Mann revealed exciting stories about the couple and how they contributed to the Smithsonian history and culture.

The process of linking the images to the selected interview segments was very challenging. First, I had to research the Smithsonian Archives for images to match the interview segments. Second, I had to splice the exact point an interview segment begins and ends. Third, I had difficulty narrowing down my selections. I tried my best to stay within the 5 minutes or less for the interview selections. Fourth, I was unable to find specific images for one of the interview segments that I thought would be a great featured item to entice the audience to listen to the full interviews. Even though the interviews were audio recordings, I was determined to make a video that synchronizes the audio recording segment with the images that were from the Mann family collections (e.g. photo albums, field books, and journals). During this process, I constantly thought about my audience. I created and designed for two different personas who would be most interested in listening to the oral history interviews, especially Lucy Mann’s interviews. Here is a link to the video in YouTube: https://youtu.be/lhpLiLftZpc

In one of our weekly meetings, I informed Pam and Lisa that I was unable to find most of the images for one of the segmented interviews. Pam sent excellent files for me to search for more images. These files allowed me to explore another segment that might be interesting to the audience. Pam designed the Oral History Intro Page. Lisa designed the Oral Histories summaries page. I designed Lucile Quarry Mann’s page for the Oral History Collection. However, when we had our meeting, we provided feedback for each other’s design because it was a collaborative effort. I designed Lucile Mann’s page in a landscape layout, so that it would closely resemble an actual web page. I tried to stay within the current guidelines of the Smithsonian’s Natural History website. I used my skills from my GMU course in designing a digital platform for a public humanities and history website. For L. Mann’s page, I tried to keep it less crowded and spaced out with a main image of Lucile Mann, a short bio section, an image carousel, segment clips with transcript, and a video that combines the audio recording of interview with images in synchronization. I had to post it in YouTube because the video was too large to send via email. I also added closed caption and transcript. I included a link to access the full interviews with a short description to tap into the curiosity of the audience to find out more about Lucy’s adventurous life. For the description, I kept the language simple and engaging. I learned this technique in my GMU coursework in Digital Humanities. Also, I added a Finding Aid link and links for additional resources that reference Lucile Q. Mann within the Smithsonian Archives and website.

My project was challenging, but I enjoyed it. It made me think about ways to redesign my own public humanities website. It also encouraged me to work with people from different professions and listen to good feedback. Collaboration, Communication, and Creativity are key elements in presenting a living history on a digital platform. This project has given me a chance to work on honing my video making and audio synchronization skills. Therefore, I look forward to seeing the finished product.

Response to Readings

How have history teachers responded to technological change in the 20^th and 21^st centuries?

The technological changes in the 20^th and 21^st centuries have encouraged history teachers to think differently about teaching history. To remedy the traditional method of teaching students to memorize content or factual information such as dates, people, places, and events, history teachers have responded with different ideas and approaches to teaching history in engaging and interesting ways. Most of the history teachers agree that the textbook should not be the only resource for teaching history. In early 21^st century, Wineburg responded by informing history teachers to be aware of the “large-scale testing that was introduced to American classrooms in the 1930s” that “ran counter to teachers’ notions of what constituted average, below average, and exemplary performance” (“Crazy for History” 4). The students were generating answers that were taught to them from a textbook that probably eliminated “metadiscourse” and citations of primary sources (Wineburg 493). In late 20^th century, Wineburg argued that people need to stretch their understanding of the past because they have a tendency to “contort the past to fit the predetermined meaning we have already assigned to it” (“Historical Thinking and Other Natural Acts” 490). By encouraging students to look beyond their own experience or what they already know is challenging, but it will lead them to discovering something different about the historical evidence. Levesque responded by proposing an approach to finding a bridge between content/substantive and procedural knowledge. In Thinking Historically, Levesque argues that “the narrative should not be considered the only possible or affordable tool to present their interpretations” (137). His approach is quite structured and logical, but it makes sense as a teaching method.

Calder and Kelly responded to teaching history by incorporating procedural knowledge. They embrace the concept that teachers are able to foster historical thinking by engaging the students. Calder’s teaching method of uncovering history encourages his students to engage with both types of sources and to come up with historical questions in a collaborative, learning environment. Calder encourages his students to view a documentary film, examine primary documents, ask questions, write about their questions as an essay assignment, and collaborate with fellow classmates to share and inquire about their findings. Calder’s approach is based on routines because “routines are essential for learning,” and they “provide students with necessary scaffolding of instructional and social support as they struggle to learn the unnatural act of historical thinking” (1369). Kelly and McClymer argue the importance of digital media and technology for teaching history. McClymer’s contends that the scarcity to abundance of sources allows “students to engage with new sources” and “enables students to become more active learners” while learning history. In “The History Curriculum in 2023,” Kelly makes an excellent argument for his response to approaching history in the 21^st century: “If we want to be true to ourselves as educators and true to our students’ needs and expectations, we need to admit that the skills we have been teaching them since the late 1890s are no longer sufficient preparation for the world those students will live in once they graduate” (Kelly). Kelly provides 4 different skills (making, mining, marking, and mashing) to engage students and foster historical thinking. In each skill, Kelly mentions the importance of collaboration with other disciplines interiisuch as art, computer science, library science, graphics design, etc. Also, Kelly takes it to another level by emphasizing the possible results for students to compete in a globally competitive world if they learn to work with technology and/or hone their skills with learning how to code and to utilize different digital tools.

Then, there are historians who argue that a certain organization might be able to lead the way for history teachers and revise the curriculum of teaching history. Historians Orrill and Shapiro argue that the AHA should organize a committee or center, so “the AHA can again lead the profession in a quest for a unified educational vision” (751). With or without a unified educational vision led by AHA, history teachers have taken control by devising new approaches and methods to teaching history in the digital age.

A Reflection on the Complexities of Creating Public History for a Specific Place

Working on digital public history that is tied to a specific place has its advantages and disadvantages. The complexities include various parts of history that are to be covered about a specific place. Digital technologies have allowed the implementation of mobile devices such as the smartphone to view public history from different locations and spaces. For The Philly.org project, “Mobile augmented reality applications serve as a method for engaging with smartphone users as they conduct their daily tasks, rather than requiring them to visit a physical building or invest time in a laptop or desktop computer” (Boyer and Marcus). The audience is given access to the public history site from different locations and time in a digital space. To overcome the complexities of designing a digital public history for a specific place/location, project designers should consider the three responsive approaches: how they want it, when they want it, and what they want (Baer, Fry, and Davis). By studying these responsive approaches, project designers are able to use certain digital technologies to enable the viewing of public history from different perspectives.

Also, the implementation of digital technologies has created new ways of delivering oral history to the public. In reference to the Cleveland Historical project, Mark Tebeau explains, “Ironically, digital tools have presented us with new dilemmas precisely by presenting new possibilities, such as allowing us to more easily edit oral histories. As a result, we are brought closer to the human voice than ever before, no longer experiencing oral history as mediated by the transcript or interpretation”(33). With advanced technology, oral histories are transcribed, recorded, and presented in various ways to capture a wide audience. Paraphrasing Wineburg,“With this in mind, the Center for Public History + Digital Humanities has moved toward an activist model of curation in which team members develop interpretive stories that introduce historical and cultural contexts that challenge audiences to understand history in a new fashion—a practice in line with the process of historical research and thinking” (Tebeau 32). Instead of just listening to oral history online, the audience is allowed to think about history in a different way and derive ideas or questions that invite new approaches to the historical content.

Digital technologies have reinforced the concept of collaboration. Tebeau argues,“inspired by the promise of social history and the radical ways that oral history can restructure power relations, we moved toward curating the city in collaboration with the community, rather than curating it for the city’s many constituencies” (30). Digital technologies have enabled the concept of collaboration within the project community and with the community. “Of particular note, this collaborative oral history project pro vides a transformative way of understanding “place” and of moving beyond an emphasis on visual interpretive practice, in order to provide a deeper way of building interpretive stories for public humanities exhibitions on mobile computing devices” (Tebeau 25). Digital technologies have challenged the concept of traditional collaboration vs. non-traditional collaboration. By taking on a humanistic approach, project designers implement digital technologies to allow a wide audience to take part in contributing to the place specific, public history site.

Furthermore, digital technologies can be used to include a different type of communication and engagement with an audience in digital space. Presenting place specific, public history in a physical space versus a digital space can be challenging; however, digital technologies are being used in different ways to provide the audience with a similar experience as if they were touring the exhibit in person or sometimes presenting more ways of audience engagement. The location-based projects are user centered. The Murder on Beacon Hill project engages the audience to peer into what had happened in the past by providing an interesting narrative that speaks to the audience and takes them on a journey in digital space. The maps, images of the place in past and present, and the architecture invite an engaging communication between the site and the audience. The narrative is presented in segments to allow the audience to search different points of the digital history of Beacon Hill. Digital technologies have enabled the public history site to engage the audience audience by inviting them to explore a mysterious past and to question what had happened during that time and location.

However, there are some challenges when implementing digital technologies for a public history project. Digital technologies might inhibit the seamless transition from physical space to digital space. Some of the contents that are presented in the museum may not be available in digital space due to various issues. According to Hart and Brownbill, “The amount of content available on the app when out of the museum or exhibition is an issue for some, striking a balance between the in-museum and out of museum experience is challenging…A major challenge was to present all these types of content in a meaningful way.” Also, certain objects that can be viewed in a physical space might not be the same when viewed in digital space. For example, “Due to rapid technological changes, specifically in the technology used in mobile augmented reality or in placing objects in 3D space as in the case of PhillyHistory.org, implementing an augmented reality project requires an advanced level of technical knowledge” (Boyer and Marcus). Viewing objects in a physical space allows the visitor to have a 3D image of them. However, digital technologies need to be carefully selected to create the same effect as if the object was viewed in person in a digital space.

Another challenge is the access to mobile devices. For example, not everyone has access to smartphones. “Although the smartphone market is growing rapidly, many individuals do not own a device that would enable them to access an augmented reality application.” (Boyer and Marcus). By focusing more on mobile devices, the site begins to ignore the disenfranchised/marginalized audience.

The materials and exploration sites for Module 8 have allowed to me consider how location-based techniques can be implemented into my project. The mobile format for my project will require some modifications and additional digital tools. Creating a seamless transition from the website to mobile app will be challenging; however, it will be an exciting challenge because it will adapt to the changing ways of viewing things on a smartphone and engaging my audience. At the same time, I am wondering if Iess is more when implementing digital technologies to capture a wide audience for my project.

A Response for the Comparative Review of the Digital Public History Projects

With advancing technology and globalization, digital public history projects have progressed over time. A comparative review of the digital public history projects in three different phases reveals noticeable changes from the projects that began as content focused to projects that are content and audience focused. At the same time, the creators of the projects had to consider the digital space. For example, the digital public history work during phase 1 is more content driven. The technology might be outdated, but the historical content plays an important role in all three projects in this phase. In the first example, “Blackout History Project,” some of the hyperlinks were no longer working. Also, phase 1 includes minimal audience engagement; however, there is more audience engagement in the last two projects of this phase. The images, videos, and audio recordings provide different ways of viewing the historical content; and they allow the audience to think about history differently. “Blackout History Project” and “The Progress of a People” seem to centralize the historical content as if it was presented in an academic manner (e.g. lecture); however, I can see that all three projects were reflecting a shift or change in making public history available to a broader audience. A basic mapping tool appears in the third project: “The Great Chicago Fire and the Web of Memory.” The digital tools used in phase 1 projects convey the importance of beginning to engage the audience with the historical content through a digital space for the contextualizing strategy, which Sam Wineburg defines it as situating “the document and its events in time and place” in order to be “Thinking Like a Historian.”

For phase 2, the digital public history projects include more digital tools, audience engagement, and recognition of collaboration. In addition to educational resources, a project’s site presents other ways of engaging with a general audience. Phase 2 includes less hyperlinks and more embedded links and images that can be clicked on for more information. Also, phase 2 includes more galleries or exhibits for the scanned images of documents and other artifacts. Phase 2 projects invite the audience to think like a historian in the intermediate stages of contextualizing, close reading, and reading silence. “Jasenovac: Holocaust Era in Croatia” introduces the audience to public history that might have been hidden or rarely exposed. “A More Perfect Union: Japanese Americans and the U.S…” is another project that presents historical content that most U.S. history books only provide a snippet of information. “Raid on Deerfield” introduces the audience to view the history of English settlers and their conflict with the French and native allies. The phase 2 projects represent social injustice in different countries, and they convey the importance of global perspectives in order to share public history in a digital space.

In phase 3, the digital public history projects include updated digital tools, collaboration, and more audience engagement. The projects that collaborate with a museum and local historical society or library are “Lincoln at 200” and “Bracero History Archive.” Some of the project sites such as “Bracero History Archive” and “Operation War Diary” encourage the audience to contribute to the project. Also, some of the projects use social media to collaborate with the audience and spread the word about the project. There is also a search option in two of the projects. The digital tools in phase 3 are more advanced in presenting the historical content and engaging the audience. Some of the projects have both audio recordings with transcriptions for ADA compliance. The “Manifold Greatness…” is a great example. Some of digital public history projects have resources for further reading and for classroom purposes. By including more collaboration, audience engagement, and advanced digital tools in a digital space, phase 3 projects introduce the audience to the strategies of contextualizing, close reading, using background knowledge, reading the silences, and corroborating.

Furthermore, good digital public history work should continue adapting to the changing and advancing technology, updating websites, presenting historical content that challenges the audience to “think like a historian,” adding more scholarship, finding ways to engage the audience to understand the value of researching public history, and acknowledging a diverse audience. With all of these things in mind, it is also best to continue updating the guidelines for reviewing digital public history work.

In the field of digital public history, there are several promising new directions. It will create more grants and fellowships for scholars to think like a historian and bring awareness of missing or rarely known part of public history to a wide audience. Also, this field will steer in the direction of global digital public history projects that will reach out to an even wider audience for cultural and historical understanding. Soon, almost every major institution or organization will begin to hire public historians. This field is unique in the sense that it brings academic and non-academic passions together for a greater purpose. The humanistic approach to digital public history comes into fruition when it becomes an inclusive rather than exclusive way of audience engagement and participation along with collaboration from academic and non-academic institutions or organizations.

A Response to Grele’s “Whose Public? Whose History? What is the Goal of a Public Historian?”

Similar to the broad definition of Digital Humanities, the definition of Public History is also broad because it is constantly debated and changed. From his article, “Whose Public? Whose History? What is the Goal of a Public Historian?” Ronald J. Grele defines public history to be “moving into fields long occupied by practicing non-academic historians. It is debating issues within a long tradition of debate. It is deeply embedded within a series of ongoing tendencies in the profession” (44). Grele’s definition is enlightening because he views public history to be diverse and versatile. According to John Dichtl and Robert B. Townsend’s article, “A Picture of Public History: Preliminary Results from the 2008 Survey of Public Professionals,” the comparison of the survey results from 1980 and 2008 show the changing trends such as how many public historians were employed in academia and non-academic institutions. The 2008 survey also shows that “women comprised two thirds of the respondents (65.5 percent)” compared to the 36 percent from the 1980 survey. Denise Meringolo, author of Museums, Monuments, and National Parks: Toward a New Genealogy of Public History, defines public history to be collaborative, multidisciplinary, and engaging with a focus on communication. In the following statement, Meringolo clearly defines the role of the public historian: “Public historians can produce original interpretations that connect scholarship and everyday life by respecting the ways in which their partners and audiences use history and by balancing authority against community needs” (168).

Dichtl and Townsend argue that “Public history is one of the least understood areas of professional practice in history because the majority of public history jobs are outside of academia.” On the other hand, it can be due to two reasons: “First those of us who currently work in the field have not clearly defined what is we do, why we do it, and why it is an alternative to other forms of historical effort. Second, the debates have taken place in a historical vacuum” (Grele 41). Even though the public is ubiquitous when it comes to history, adding the term “public” to “history” seems to spark some controversy, but “another group of historians emerged to work with a non-college public: local history movement” (Grele 42). As a result, Grele argues that “it was the local history movement which offered the most thoroughgoing alternative to the historical work done in the academy” (43). However, public historians were not seen as equal to the academic historians. Meringolo also mentions two reasons or trends of thought for the debate: “Some scholars emphasize the term “public,” arguing that the environment in which historians apply their craft impacts the questions, methodology, and content of interpretation. Others underscore the term “history,” insisting that credentialed historians perform their work in accordance to the same disciplinary standards regardless of location or audience” (xvi). Both Grele and Meringolo argue that the combination of “public” and “history” sparks a debate for defining public history.

Another reason for the broad definition of public history is the debate on its origin. Grele argues that the job crisis for the academic historians was the reason for the beginning of public history because the proponents of public history “have accused the [academic] profession of ignoring the possibility of opportunities outside of the academy and monopolizing the ideological formulation of the role of the historical by accenting a narrow vision of the historian as researcher or university professor” (41). Thus, it began opening up job opportunities for historians. However, Denise Meringolo contends the origin of public history began with the National Park Service. Meringolo argues that it was Verne Chatelain (first chief historian for the NPS) who should be credited for the beginnings of public history because “it was evident to Chatelain that an advanced degree in history did not necessarily prepare historians for work in the federal government” (xiii). Therefore, in the 1930s, “Chatelain’s new technicians were among the first public historians, and they had a profound impact on the evolution of the field” (Meringolo xiv). Also, Meringolo acknowledges that it was during the 1970s that academic historians were “concerned about the scarcity of jobs for history PhDs” (xiv); but in her book, she “examines the process by which federal workers began to conceptualize the protection of landscapes and artifacts as valuable public work” (xxix) and the importance of collaborating with other professionals (e.g. scientists) and the public audience.

Public history includes both the academic and non-academic historians working together to engage the public. Also, public history is a collaboration of historians and professionals/experts in digital humanities, science, architecture, literature, medicine, textiles, folklore, mental health, media, culinary arts, art, music, religion, etc. In today’s fast-paced and social media driven society, public history plays a significant role in the form of digital public history. It not only engages the audience, it allows the public to take part in the making and preserving history. Despite the debates, a broad definition of public history allows space for more ideas of collaboration and engagement because history is never seen and told in one way. Since “Fledgling public history inherited from its late nineteenth-century origins a pragmatic approach to research and an impulse to change” (Meringolo xxxi), the broad definition of public history allows change and evolves with change.

In agreement with Grele’s statement that “Thus the task of the public historian, broadly defined, should be to help members of the public to do their own history and to aid them in understanding their role in shaping and interpreting events” (48), the types of the practice the field of public history should encourage will change throughout history; and it will include more collaboration and engagement beyond the academic setting. For example, Social media plays a big part in public history. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube probably have their own public historians; and their platforms engage the public on a daily basis. Even their audience contribute to the making of their history through crowdsourcing. Public history projects invite the public to engage with artifacts that were once lost or hidden from the public. Public history is a collaboration of historians, other professionals, public, and technology. Therefore, digital humanities public history adds another layer to the field of public history and its definition.