1. Contrary to what I had once thought, most entering history students at my midrange institution are not yet “born digital” in terms of their approach to history or writing. History almost seems to draw in the analog-oriented. Our students are on Facebook, they can Google things, and maybe they have seen JSTOR, but so far they are not generally any more comfortable with blogging, tweeting, or website-building, for scholarly purposes, than most of my colleagues, which is to say, very uncomfortable.
2. An especially compelling reason for upgrading the digital history skills of students in my field, early American history, is the rise of online research resources, including various Founders’ papers, Early American Imprints, various newspaper databases and the large swaths of source material Google Books and the Internet Archive? Personally I have found these resources very convenient — every old book I ever checked out of Widener Library seems to have been digitized — but I have found it quite hard to manage the resulting profusion of pdfs and image files and such. The instant access to so much material also affects the research and writing process in profound ways that need to be considered. What are the best strategies for dealing with such abundance?

Hi everyone,

I have had a logistical problem arise that means that I will arrive late to THATCamp and won’t be able to “facilitate” or run this session.  However, I would like to put the idea out there in case it might interest someone else who could facilitate it.

I would like some help in thinking through issues of how to incorporate work on digital history projects into public history teaching.  Since 2009, I have been the scholarly advisor for Driving Through Time: The Digital Blue Ridge Parkway, a digital collection co-developed with the UNC-Chapel Hill Libraries.  I also teach Introduction to Public History each fall — UNC’s only dedicated public history course, which enrolls both undergraduates and a few grad students.

In the past three years, I have had students in the PH class working on projects related to Driving Through Time — in hopes of introducing them to digital history in a public history context and in hopes of harnessing some of their labor for the project.

My problem is that I have yet to scaffold their work on this in such a way as to fully realize these goals.  The technological learning curve is often steeper than I would have expected, and it’s been a challenge, too, to bring them up to speed on content quickly enough to have them produce quality work.  (All this is going on while they are also learning generally about public history.)

I’d love to hear ideas people have had that have worked well for incorporating technology-based, project-oriented work into public history teaching.  How can I scaffold effective tasks?  How can I best evaluate their work?  How can I manage the “teaching the technology” parts without overwhelming everyone?

If this fits in with interests that others have and someone else can facilitate, I’d love to join in when I arrive.  Look forward to seeing/meeting everyone!