One of the first people I ever met at George Mason was Kelly Schrum, the Director of Educational Projects at the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media (RRCHNM). At the time, I was visiting George Mason as a potential school at which to pursue my Master’s degree in History. After meeting with Dr. Schrum, witnessing her enthusiasm for what she did, and hearing about the diversity of engaging projects being created not only in the Educational Projects Division, but across the entire Center, I thought, “I HAVE to be a part of this!” Three years later, I am excited to finally join the Center in my role as a Digital History Fellow.

Naturally, I was delighted to begin my journey at RRCHNM by spending my first four-week rotation in the Educational Projects Division. While I have had little formal training in classroom-based education (educational theory, lesson plan writing, etc.), I have always been passionate about history education and have held several jobs and internships executing museum-based history education. Also, my interest in using digital tools to help create resources for classroom teachers had been piqued while taking a class called “Teaching and Learning in the Digital Age” as part of George Mason University’s Digital Public Humanities Graduate Certificate (which, coincidentally, is partially administered by the Educational Division at RRCHNM.)  

While the Educational Division is somewhat separated from the rest of the Center by a hallway, it was clear right away that it is an integral part of what the Center does. There are multiple different projects that the division juggles at the same time, from creating education websites with partner organizations, to teaching and managing online courses in history and digital tools for classroom teachers and learners of all ages. The Educational Division keeps itself organized with a giant whiteboard, where progress is reviewed in a weekly staff meeting, and with To-Dos, messages and comments through project management software like Basecamp. Because of these organizational methods, it was easy for the DH Fellows to see the status of each project and know what needed to be done next. This allowed us to jump right in and start completing tasks that helped the division move forward on their projects. During what seemed like a short but productive four weeks, we focused on two main projects, Understanding Sacrifice and Eagle Eye Citizen.

Understanding Sacrifice is an ongoing program through the American Battlefield Monument Commission (ABMC) that allows teachers to research a fallen U.S. military hero buried in one of the ABMC cemeteries, write a short biography and eulogy for the fallen hero, travel to the cemetery where that hero is buried, give their eulogy at the hero’s grave, and then write a lesson plan for their students based on what they have learned through the process. This year, the teachers focused on fallen heroes from World War II in the Pacific. Therefore, the cemeteries they visited were in California, Hawaii and the Philippines. For this project, we worked directly with Jennifer Rosenfeld, the Associate Director of Educational Projects.

This project gave me experience doing a wide variety of tasks, as we worked to get this year’s lesson plans, source materials, educational resources, fallen hero profiles, and eulogy videos formatted correctly and uploaded online. Since this project uses a Drupal interface and required us to write basic HTML code, I was thankful for my previous internship at the Smithsonian Institution Archives, where I learned these skills.

Tasks for this project included transcribing audio interviews to be used in some of the teachers’ lesson plans, using YouTube to add closed captions to the eulogy videos and other content videos, inputting and uploading content to the ABMC Education website (images, hero profiles, lesson plans), double checking the sources for each lesson plan, and making sure sources were cited properly and linked to the correct websites. In addition, each online lesson plan also includes a printable PDF version of the lesson plan and applicable handouts. Once these PDFs were created by other GRAs in the division, we were tasked with proofreading them, not only for grammar, but also for content, formatting (spacing, bold, italics, font size, etc.), and consistency between what the teacher originally wrote, what had been added into the website, and what was in the printable PDF. Then we offered suggestions for improvement, which had to be sent back to the teacher for their response and approval before the necessary changes were made on the PDFs and on Drupal.

Out of all the tasks for the ABMC project, I most enjoyed adding the captions to the eulogy videos. First of all, it was a lot like video editing, with which I have previous experience  and which I enjoy. Secondly, it allowed me to learn a lot about the fallen heroes–their lives and the sacrifices that they made for our country. Because I know little about WWII in the Pacific, this was very insightful. Thirdly, through the videos of the teachers reading their eulogies at the fallen heroes’ gravesites, I could hear in their voices how much they felt for the the fallen heroes’ families and see how much hard work they had put into recognizing their hero’s sacrifice. This made me want to work even harder to do what I could, to make sure that the teachers’ work in honoring these heroes and teaching their students about them would be ready and available to others.

The second project we worked on is Eagle Eye Citizen. This website was developed by RRCHNM in partnership with the Library of Congress. It teaches civics to middle and high school students by allowing them to solve and create challenges in a game-like environment using primary sources provided by the Library of Congress. As the students solve and create challenges, they earn points, badges, and can even level-up. All the while, they are learning about topics such as voting, political parties, rights and civic responsibilities. The site also offers students a chance to reflect on each challenge at the end, telling how they solved the challenge or giving rationale for their selections when creating a challenge. For this project, we worked primarily with PhD candidate Sara Collini.

When we started our rotation, the site was mostly complete, leading up to soft-launch and then the official launch a few weeks later. Therefore, one of our primary jobs for this project was to “break” the site. We spent hours testing, making sure that all of the interactive elements worked, that students could not move on without completing each task, that the audio clips played, and that all of the links worked. One of the features of Eagle Eye is a “Look Closer” button, which gives students a larger view of each primary source. We checked if that was working. We also changed roles, logging in as a student and then as a teacher, checking to see if teachers could create and manage a class of student users, as well as review their students’ reflections and challenges they had created. We tested the site on different operating systems (Mac vs. PC) and browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, etc.) to see how it might respond. Through doing this work, I realized how hard it is to describe with words what, where, why and how something is not working correctly. In the end, I eventually reverted to taking screenshots of issues and then annotating them with text, arrows and circles to point out the irregularities. Finally, at the end of the testing, we even had a chance to create challenges of our own that would be used when the site launches.

Although I only got to spend four weeks in the Education Division, I feel like I did and learned a LOT! Not only did I learn new content (information about ABMC heroes, how a lesson plan is formatted) and skills (how to create bulleted lists in HTML), I also learned about the workflow of a digital history center and how to balance working on different projects at the same time. While I had read a lot about how centers like RRCHNM function (both during the Certificate program and at the beginning of the semester), it has been really beneficial for me to see how the Center’s work is carried out on the ground, on a day-to-day basis, and to be a part of it.

It is also exciting to feel like the small role I played was actually useful for these projects, and that I was doing something that really mattered. Even as we move on to the next division, I am excited to see both of these projects launch and to hear what feedback the division gets from the teachers who are incorporating both projects in their classrooms.

Before becoming a Digital History Fellow here at Mason, I taught American History to students in grades 7-12 for fifteen years. In planning lessons over those fifteen years, there were some online sources I returned to repeatedly, such as Herbert Hoover’s “Success of Recovery” campaign speech in 1932. Students liked being able to both hear and read the President’s words: “…the gigantic forces of depression are today in retreat.” It wasn’t until I began my fellowship that I learned that the site I bookmarked—History Matters—was created here in the Education Division of RRCHNM, the product of a collaboration between the center and the American Social History Project. As I continue this transition from full-time teacher to full-time student, I appreciated beginning my work in this division.  

The first project, Understanding Sacrifice, has two components. The first is a professional development program for teachers across subjects, who conduct research and develop lesson plans using the resources of the American Battle Monuments Commission. The second is an online repository of these lesson plans, as well as supplemental teaching resources for teachers. During my rotation, my work focused on the online repository, inputting images and sources into the project website; proofreading and editing lesson plans and associated materials; and captioning both eulogy videos honoring fallen service members and short PD videos for teachers. Inputting the images and sources on Drupal gave me an opportunity to use HTML, which gave me a flashback to the days when I used Adobe PageMill. I was able to lean on my classroom experience to effectively proofread and provide feedback on the lesson plans and materials. Having shown many a YouTube video clip in classrooms filled with a wide range of learners, I know how important having accurate captions are; captioning the eulogy and PD videos allowed me to learn more about the individual service members’ lives and develop a new skill. 

The second project, Eagle Eye Citizen, is an interactive designed for middle and high school students which encourages them to explore civics and history by way of primary sources at the Library of Congress. I found myself moving toward almost exclusively using primary sources in my classes in the last few years, so I was eager to see and use this interactive as it moves toward going live. I worked on testing Eagle Eye Citizen for functionality–Does this link work? Does the link open correctly? Does the image open in a new tab?–using different operating systems and internet browsers. This was a time-intensive task, but I enjoyed exploring an interactive and investigating it for possible issues. It also reminded me of how much we take for granted that when we click on a link that it will take us to the correct place. In testing, I had the opportunity to create various challenges within the student portal, which allowed me to review Library of Congress resources and design questions. I appreciated this functionality of Eagle Eye Citizen, because it places students in a position to both apply what they already know and create new knowledge. 

Supporting the production of two online projects utilizing primary sources, designed to encourage civic and historical understanding in classrooms over the last few weeks has been insightful. I look forward to seeing both go live in the weeks to come. 

On February 08, 2016, we started our time in Public Projects working with Sharon Leon, Megan Brett, and Alyssa Fahringer. We began by taking a look at the work the public projects division had done so far in order to have an understanding of the kind of work the division did.

The next task was a familiar and welcome one for me, testing. I have had a lot of fun testing the various projects for all of the divisions this year. In public projects, I did some testing for Omeka.net, Omeka S, and Liberian Journey. I particularly enjoyed doing the testing for Liberian Journey because it was a new experience for me: testing the mobile capabilities of the site. I found myself looking for issues I had not previously needed to look for in a site such as how easy it is to move around, if content runs off the screen, how different does the page become depending on how the phone is held? However, I also felt limited on what I could test as I was only able to test its functionality on an iPhone.

Another task I had was to review pieces for Mall Histories and go on a hunt for a photo for a Mall History biography piece. I did broad searches in engines and through digital collections such as the Library of Congress and was not able to find anything. However, through a Google search for the individual I found a pdf of a finding aid from a law school, the individuals alma mater. The finding aid allowed me to see that they had multiple photos of him. However, they were not digitized so I wanted to see what I could find before emailing the institution. Luckily, the archives had digitized many of their yearbooks, so my next step was to find him in them. With only being able to estimate when he would have graduated from the law school, I looked at about ten yearbook before I found him. The picture would be small, but it was definitely better than nothing. I emailed the institution to ask if the yearbook photo could be used for Mall Histories and, unfortunately, they have yet to give an answer.

The remaining, and majority, of my time was spent preparing for and advertising the five year anniversary of Paper of the War Department. First, Andrea and I sat down to brainstorm on the audience we would like to reach and how we could go about it. After meeting with Megan and Alyssa, the four of us created a plan and divided up the audiences; I was assigned the Native American studies crowd. Before any groups could be contacted, though, we needed a press release. Over the course of a week, Andrea, Megan, Sharon and I wrote a general press release. I then edited the release to target the Native American studies crowd. Knowing my name, as a new scholar, would not have any pull in the community, I contacted Dr.Joseph Genetin-Pilawa to post the targeted press release to his Facebook page as well as on the Ethnohistory and NAISA Facebook pages. I personally posted the targeted press release on H-Net in the AmIndian, West, and FedHistory channels. Lastly, I created tweets using #Indigenous and #NativeAmerican to be scheduled on Twitter with the PWD account.

Overall, I am highly satisfied with the work I accomplished with working in Public Projects. I took a look specifically at the amount of accounts created on PWD from March 17-April 4 (after the initial anniversary outreach) and out of 23 new accounts, 7 were created with a motivation of Native American studies; this is more than any other motivation with specific research and genealogy tying for second at 5. After looking at all of the data, I would have to say that the 5 year anniversary outreach was a success.

The second rotation at RRCHNM was research for Andrea and I. We worked with and were supervised by Stephanie Westcott. Although the first assignments had us working with Stephanie, the majority of our time in Research had us working along-side the graduate research assistants Mandy Regan, Amanda Morton, and Josh Catalano.

My time in the research division started a little differently than my time in Education. The first thing we did was familiarize ourselves with documentation for PressForward. We read over all posts from its conception to PF3 in order to prepare us help Stephanie do some research for a white paper. The experience research for a white paper was interesting. When I have done research in the past it had never been on something related to the digitl realm where all sources will be online. However, for the whitepaper we were researching information about Creative Commons Licensing, what people say about it, and the best ways to use it. Additionally, Stephanie wanted us to keep our eyes out for anything that may work better. I discovered that Creative Commons has a Science Commons they created for online science publications. It is not as well publicized, but there was a lot written about it when it started up so it was interesting to be able to compare the two.

The rest of my time was spent mostly doing different sorts of testing for Mandy and working in DHNow. With DHNow I worked as editor-in-chief for two weeks before the start of the spring semester. Sitting by Josh every week, who I have seen be editor-in-chief many times, I had an idea of what to do. Also, my work nominating content each week prepared me for knowing what kind of content I was looking for. However, it was still the beginning of the year and not much was being posted on the digital humanities. I also experienced how helpful editors-at-large were because each week there was only one nomination waiting for me. With a lot of searching through the content and Twitter along with some reassurance from Stephanie that the posts would work, I was able to get two editors’ choice pieces up each week along with four news pieces (which I was surprised ended up being even harder to find).

Also for DHNow I drafted some blog posts to explain the upcoming user management system, answer some questions in a FAQs format, and explain the two methods for nominating content through (Pressforward and bookmarklet).

Lastly, I tested the Turnkey theme for Mandy and the new user management system. The testing of the new theme allowed me to start getting used to Github, a website I had watched tutorials on in September before starting in Education but had no experience in. Mandy showed me some basics on getting around and where to report any issues. By the end of the testing I was fairly comfortable with Github which I imagine will keep coming up the more work I do at the Center.

That’s all for now, next up on the rotation is Public Projects!

It was a busy start of the year in the Education Department at CHNM.  I worked on data cleaning for the American Battle Monuments Commission (AMBC) War Dead Database, transcribed Sacrificing Freedom eulogy videos, prepared/uploaded Lesson Plans for ABMC’s new Education Site, and did a content inventory for the National History Day redesign.

Working the war dead database I came to understand that optimizing search and sorting for large data sets involves strategic efforts to ensure proper data importing and input, detailed taxonomies, multiple testing stages and checks for uniform outputs.  My job was primarily searching, sorting and testing cross-browser functionality, but in the process I was able to come gain some insights into how the data set was moved from the old to new system, that could be of benefit if I work on any other data migration projects.  I also was able to get to know a bit more about the different ranks and divisions in the U.S. military.

By transcribing eulogy videos, I was reminded of the importance of accessibility to digital work.  Furthermore, the people in the database entries came to life . The Understanding Sacrifice project works with teachers to develop lesson plans on WWI, by researching individual soldiers and eulogizing them at their overseas resting places.  I was moved by the teachers attachment to their subjects.

I also helped CHNM’s filmmaker Chris Preperato identify selections from project leaders and teachers interviews for the Understanding Sacrifice intro video.  This helped me understand the goals of the project facilitators and see that they were met by the reactions of the teachers.  Teachers were reinvigorated as working historians by doing primary source research on the First World War.  They made lasting connections with the families of fallen heroes.  Perhaps most importantly, they were able to channel the power of place, connect it the lives and stories of individuals on the battlefield, and bring that knowledge back to the classroom with renewed vigor.

In a time when middle and high school teachers are sometimes treated like little more than pre-packaged content distributors and assessors, projects like these seem to make them feel like experts again, with unique experiences to share with students.  Jennifer explained to me how impressed the teachers were that their final lesson plan products were professionally designed and distributed.  When marking up the lesson plans with some html, and uploading documents, I was able to see the great variety of ways that the history teachers approached their lessons, which could be helpful in my own teaching.  However, the painstaking detail to each minute process and attention to national standards, reminded me that a career in secondary education will likely not be in my future.

One of the major takeaways from this experience would be the importance of close collaborations.  Understanding Sacrifice is a collaboration between CHNM and National History Day (NHD).  During my work tenure, NHD had trouble putting together a birthday video for one of their major donors.  On short notice, Kelly was able to step in.  I helped by taping the directors message while Chris was on vacation.  (Note:  the WWII memorial is windy and loud, so if you tape there, be prepared)  Despite my bad audio collection, Chris was able to get together tons of other footage and testimonies and Kelly hired a professional musician to score the video and help with other audio layovers.  I hear that the major donor is really thrilled with his video and shows it to all of his friends.

In sum, I think that the flexibility of working relationships,  i.e. going outside the box with professional development like Understanding Sacrifice and being able to solve partner problems on the fly without huge administrative hurdles, shows how the Education Department at CHNM knows how to make things happen and is dedicated to serving the needs of partners and teachers in unique ways.  It is a model example of how to develop dynamic working relationships and lasting professional collaborations.