http://edchnm.gmu.edu/hidden

45 Recertification Points
Participants work through eight modules. In each module, requirements include writing a hypothesis, exploring historical context, completing a quiz, and reflecting on classroom applications. The cost is $40. Register by January 16, 2013.

3 Graduate Credits
For graduate credit, teachers participate in a related course with eight modules. In each module, requirements include writing a hypothesis, exploring historical context, reading scholarly articles, completing a quiz, and reflecting on classroom applications. Participants will design and produce a lesson on the hidden history of a historical object as the final project. The cost is $800 for Virginia residents ($875 out-of-state). Pre-register by January 16, 2013.

Visit the course website for more information.

All the members of the team will be available to talk about the project:

• Tom Scheinfeldt, project lead, @foundhistory on Twitter
• Amanda French, project manager, @amandafrench on Twitter
• Boone Gorges, web developer, @boone on Twitter
• Tammie Lister, web designer, @karmatosed on Twitter
• Rebecca Onion, content writer, @rebeccaonion on Twitter
• Ammon Shepherd, systems administrator, @mossiso on Twitter

In case you hadn’t seen, some of the new features of thatcamp.org include the following:

• A network-wide Activity page that shows what people are doing on THATCamp sites around the world
• A network-wide People page where you can search for people who’ve been to a THATCamp
• User forums where THATCampers and THATCamp organizers can ask and answer questions of one another
• Lots of new social features, including friending, favoriting, and messaging — log in and look at your own user profile or see my user profile to check them out
• Built-in collaborative note-taking with Participad (coming soon)
• A lovely new look and feel

Participad runs on Etherpad Lite and is open source software released under the GNU General Public License. Participad was built by Boone Gorges, the lead developer for CUNY Academic Commons and Anthologize. You can try the demo and download Participad at participad.org.

For more information, write Amanda French at info@thatcamp.org.

We knew we were witnessing something significant and we wanted to document and collect, preserve, and present the stories and digital record of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. In partnership with the University of New Orleans, RRCHNM built the Hurricane Digital Memory Bank in late 2005.

Following a model for online collecting established by the September 11 Digital Archive, the Hurricane Digital Memory Bank sought to help historians and archivists to preserve the record of these storms by collecting first-hand accounts, on-scene images, blog postings, and podcasts. Our target audience was anyone who was affected by the 2005 hurricanes: survivors, volunteers, concerned citizens.

In effort to keep this digital archive accessible and the collecting portion active, we recently upgraded HDMB to the newest version of Omeka and refreshed the site’s design. The HDMB project helped RRCHNM test the software that would become Omeka. This project also heavily influenced our decision to release a contribution plugin for Omeka in its early development, enabling anyone to quickly launch a digital memory bank to document or commemorate events deemed significant.

As we remember Katrina and its legacy, we encourage you to browse through HDMB where you will find a collection of photographs taken by Smithsonian staff in September 2005; a series of videos capturing Greta Gadney giving walking tours of the historic Ninth Ward, and hundreds of personal accounts detailing evacuation, displacement, and rebuilding.

We are still actively collecting, so if you have a story related to the 2005 storms, please take a few minutes to share a remembrance with the memory bank.

Scripto is an open-source tool that permits registered users to view digital files and transcribe them with an easy-to-use toolbar, rendering that text searchable. The tool includes a versioning history and editorial controls to make public contributions more manageable, and supports the transcription of a wide range of file types (both images and documents). Comprehensive User’s Guide that offers advice on project planning, software installation and setup, transcription editing and oversight, and community outreach, is available on the Scripto website. Additionally, web developers are free to contribute to the project by extending the code, and by participating in a developers’ discussion group .

Building on the models of other crowdsourcing projects like Wikipedia and Flickr Commons, Scripto allows cultural heritage institutions to take advantage of the various communities of volunteer transcribers. Volunteers—who may include enthusiasts, transcription buffs, students, teachers, or academic researchers—transcribe collections materials, correct the mistakes made by other transcribers, and make that data searchable and accessible. Scripto is currently being implemented as a transcription tool for the Papers of the War Department project at RRCHNM, and a host of projects at libraries and archives around the country.

Scripto is funded by the Office of Digital Humanities at National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Archives and Records Administration’s National Historical Publications and Records Commission.

RRCHNM is developing the website companion for the “Muslim Journeys” Bookshelf. The website will feature thematic groupings, summaries of the books, profiles of the authors, and introductory essays by renowned scholars. Also available will be additional primary sources related to the texts, bibliographies for further reading, and tools and tips for organizing, publicizing, and hosting informative and respectful discussions using the “Muslim Journeys” materials.

The Muslim Journeys website will be available in January 2013. Libraries and state humanities councils can apply to the American Library Association through September 25, 2012 for a free set of Bookshelf items.

Development of the mobile version was spearheaded by James McCartney, the Center’s Drupal developer.

Creative lead and senior web designer Chris Anne Raymond designed the WordPress site; it is part of a multi-pronged project, which also includes a documentary film directed by Laurie Kahn, perhaps most well-known for her earlier film Tupperware!