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Blogging the Past: Recreating History and Creating Community with Bound for South Australia
Darren Peacock, Sweet Technology with Margaret Anderson and Allison Russell, History SA, Australia
http://www.boundforsouthaustralia.net.au
Abstract
Bound for South Australia 1836 is a digital reenactment of the sea voyages made 175 years ago to establish the British Province of South Australia. Using captains’ logs, passenger diaries, letters, and other original source material, the Bound for South Australia blog retraced—through weekly real-time updates—the journeys made by nine vessels from England to Australia between February and December 1836. Over ten months, website visitors, email subscribers, and social media followers were able to relive and engage with the unfolding story of the first 500 settlers as they made their way to an unknown land across the globe. The Bound for South Australia experiment demonstrates the possibilities of history to engage and connect communities using contemporary web technologies. It explores blogging as a narrative form and shows how the retelling of historical events can create and sustain communities of interest and identity.
CANCELLED Blogging the past: Recreating history and creating community with Bound for South Australia 1836
THIS SESSION HAS BEEN CANCELLED DUE TO CIRCUMSTANCES BEYOND THE AUTHORS' CONTROL, BUT YOU CAN STILL READ THE PAPER.
Gaming the museum
Martha Henson and Danny Birchall, Wellcome Collection, United Kingdom
http://www.wellcomecollection.org/
Abstract
What makes a good museum game? Credible learning outcomes, compelling gameplay, or sympathy between the two? During 2010 and 2011, Wellcome Collection have been developing a series of games. In this paper and the workshop, we present four games of very different types as examples of our work so far and attempt to outline some of the underlying principles that have guided it. In the workshop itself, we will brainstorm the ways in which a variety of game platforms and formats might, or might not, work with the themes and content of museums and archives.
Keywords: games, strategy, education, archives, history, syndication
Bringing Citizen Scientists and Historians Together
Fiona Romeo and Lucinda Blaser, National Maritime Museum, United Kingdom
http://www.oldweather.org | http://www.solarstormwatch.com
Abstract
This paper outlines how citizen science projects Solar Stormwatch and Old Weather play to the potentially different motivations of science and history enthusiasts. It draws on informal feedback from the forums and other social channels but also references well-documented crowdsourcing projects Galaxy Zoo and the Australian Newspapers Digitisation Program. It concludes with recommendations for attracting both lightweight contributions and sustained collaboration in online volunteering projects.
Keywords: citizen science, crowdsourcing, digitisation, communities, science, history
DocsTeach
The U.S. National Archives’ new website DocsTeach.org invites teachers to bring history to life for their students and gives them a powerful set of tools that they can use to create rich, interactive online learning activities.
Bringing citizen scientists and historians together
The National Maritime Museum invited the Naval-History.net community to join the Zooniverse citizen science platform to help extract meteorological data from historic ship logs. The data generated via the Old Weather website will be used by scientists at the Met Office to build better climate models.
19th Century Whaling Through a Child's Eyes: an Interactive Exhibit
In 1868, a young girl from Edgartown Massachusetts embarked on a 3 year whaling voyage with her father, the Captain, mother, and brother. While on board, she kept a journal as part of her schooling. The journal remains and provides a unique perspective on the 19th century American whaling industry.