The Washington Post ran an article in September of 2023 about a teacher in South Carolina who was worried. Her decision the previous year to teach Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates had landed her in trouble with parents and school officials, even though she had alternate assignments for students who felt uncomfortable reading the book. She planned to teach it again, conceding that it was unnerving to not know whether her students would turn on her or turn her in again.¹ While she was teaching AP Language, not history, it does frame one of the challenges of teaching historical thinking. Political and social divisions are creating tension between what and how history is taught at all levels of education.

The history taught in schools, as Linder explains, can be considered as the somewhat official story of the country. The facts and how they are presented make up how the nation tells a coherent story of its past, present and future. In spite of the external pressures, the wide availability of digital resources offers the opportunity for teachers to encourage historical thinking and teaching critical thinking about history. Primary source material and additional resources are more readily available for students to review, understand, evaluate and synthesize. Empathy may be further developed as looking at the people in history and their circumstances, especially through digital projects such as Slave Voyages, which not only provide sources and context, but helps humanize the data. 

Changes in technology have changed not only how educators can teach history, but how they are able to evaluate understanding through methods beside the traditional paper. Digital projects as student products also help develop historical thinking skills. Including digital projects as both sources and products also offer another way to engage students. Events such as Virginia History Day  — Science Fair for History — allow students from elementary age to high school to develop websites, videos and podcast productions to explore subjects that interest them while learning digital skills. The platform for demonstrating understanding may be different, but the basic skills remain the same. 

The Second Piece of the Puzzle

The “Adventures West” project includes both a game and accompanying Omeka site targeted at late middle school and early high school students. The idea is as they work through the game, players evaluate primary and secondary source material about the Laura Ingalls Wilder novels about her family. Links to sources and media drive the storyline forward and require understanding and evaluation of her writings. The Omeka site will include additional resources on the thornier issues raised by Wilder’s writing and the criticism of her writings in recents years.

Learning how to make a game, even a simple one, was a fun and frustrating experience. When my husband tested it for me last night, I found myself pacing and constantly peeking over his shoulder, building a “can I change that?” list as he went. I couldn’t. I had reached the point where I had to stop – I had two links that just did not work. Fixed them, and then images stopped functioning. Fixed them and called it a day. I am glad I tried something new and well outside my comfort zone. I am also not sure I would do it again. I may do some clean up and experiment with color changes, or build out further (feedback dependent).

The experience was useful, as I had to do the research work, and instead of writing a full paper, had to think through how to present the information for a different audience and where to find balance. The challenge was how to discuss serious issues without making such a sobering game that the target audience would hate it. The balance between heavy subjects, neutral subjects and a little levity requires a fine touch that I am hoping I hit. Honestly, who could let the story of Ma slapping a bear go unrecognized and untold. The next iteration would have to find the same balance, even as it runs into a book the host of the podcast Wilder views as Stephen King on the prairie.

I rolled my eyes at the persona exercise before I started it – it coincided with a work discussion on creating our own personas. I did the readings, interviewed my potential target audience, and knew I was in way over my head and had to really delve into the idea to get this game plan straight. I appreciate having to think that through. I had a thesis advisor at the Command and General Staff College who always hit me with the ‘so what’ and forced me out of reading and writing for myself – I would have been perfectly happy with a project that was for my personal enrichment. LTC Bowie (related distantly to THAT Bowie is I recall) did not let me, and the development of personas ensured I avoided the trap of an overly clever argument that would be useless otherwise.

I am going to send the prototype to the women who helped me, and see what they think and if I hit the mark. More to follow on that.

I would change my podcast pitch though. I still like the idea I pitched to highlight all the great history within an hour’s drive. Another one I toss around mentally would complement this project, rereading historic fiction and breaking it down for parents and teachers.  Does  Johnny Tremaine or Caddy Woodlawn still hold up?  I understand the objections to Wilder’s work, but is it a discussion or a pull it problem – the way she describes what she sees, especially after she also becomes Mary’s eye is truly poetic, but Little House on the Prairie, yikes.

Thank you for sharing this wagon train with me.

The box set came in a yellow cardboard box with some of the Garth Williams illustrations printed on it. Inside the box were nine books, with matching yellow covers, that opened the prairie, via the Big Woods, to me. I was a reader, so this gift under the tree felt perfectly chosen for me. Way to go Santa! Millions of other little girls received the same set, but mine was mine. My aunt made me a sunbonnet prairie doll, in three calico patterns, no face but a sunbonnet. And Holly Hobby looked a lot like Charlotte the doll in the books. The sunbonnet is long gone, and the doll is boxed in my basement, but the warm feelings remain. The podcast Wilder calls it the coziness of the books. I took a very informal and non-scientific poll on Facebook: who read the books and did they watch the series. Seconds after I hit “post,” “Yes and yes” and floating heart emojis. People loved the books and series, loved the books and hated the series, and loved the books until they became adults. 

My historical argument is less an argument than an augmentation. The series is beloved by millions, yet millions also feel disappointed in how they feel they are either denigrated or completely missing from her pages. These are valid criticisms, for her portrayal of Native Americans (Indians) is highly problematic, and African-Americans show up one time (Dr. Tan) but then so does Pa performing in blackface. I am trying to look at and offer context to some of Wilder’s stories. Laura is upfront with her family in Indian Territory on the promise of its opening for settlement, but that they are not supposed to be there. That glosses over the larger story of the continued forced removal of Native Americans. 

Adventures West, the game I am trying to build, includes challenging material such as reading the Indian Removal Act and using a website demonstrating the cessions constantly being required of the Native Americans. As an educational game, the learning cannot just be the bad parts, but will include animals encountered and their status in today’s world. 

The first idea had a lot of complex branches, however for simplicity of play, it will be a straight line game with offshoots for quick learning. I am not going to be able to do every topic I would like, I will be trying to do some of the heavy lifting on tough topics and work within primary sources.

Last semester, we read about the evolution of the digital humanities from computing humanities through today and the myriad types of projects in the digital public humanities today. In digital public history, willingness to embrace and adapt to change keeps projects vibrant and engaging. Even the venerable Valley of the Shadow has archived its early versions in favor of new, improved version that with improvements in user interfaces to allow for usage on a variety of devices and screen sizes. The updated version recognizes that the audience for digital public history and the preferred means of accessing projects has fundamentally changed. Digital public history projects are taking advantage of advancement in mapping, data and methods of public engagement to adapt and thrive.

Mapping and geolocation have added both increased visualization of space and distance as well as engaging audiences in an immediate and tangible way. Mapping, combined with data analytics, has driven projects that allow better visualization of concepts and ideas. Digital public history projects can also use a combination of mapping and geolocation to develop projects that engage the community at an individual level. Histories of the National Mall is an example of this, offering a personalized deep dive into the events, people and places surrounding the popular site. The potential to add curated, interactive tours or QR codes to encourage further exploration brings the project or historic site to life for users.

Data visualization programs aid in the understanding of large amounts of data, and the identification of patterns or outliers of interest of a dataset. While the dataset is still offered for review, visualizations help the larger audience evaluate the argument. Combined with mapping, data visualizations enable digital projects to create more interactivity for their desired audience.

Digital public history projects are also making use of many of the ways people continue learning outside a classroom from podcasts to TikTok(possibly about to become history itself) and YouTube. X, Blusky, and Reddit, for better or worse, allow discourse on ideas and research. Social media comes with its own problems, but also creates an opportunity to engage audiences in creative ways. Having been startled by the opening soundscape of Worlds Turned Upside Down’s first episode, I was invested in the story quickly, after I confirmed the sounds I was hearing were the episode, not someone stalking pre-dawn dog walking.

The challenge will not be embracing changes, but deciding how and what public history projects are adapted to those changes, and which are left to fade away.

I am feeling like I am falling behind the curve on my project. The biggest challenge I am having is how I want to drive my narrative to a conclusion. Educational games are not always a win or lose proposition, and this one is more of a lesson in game format.

I still have confidence in my premise, that children’s literature can be used to drive a deeper look into issues and challenges and the Wilder’s Little House series provides multiple entries into learning about the events that influence her family’s experiences. Editing which of these to use has become difficult as there are so many directions that can be taken.

My final, unexpected challenge is the books I am using. I did a very not 1880 thing and ordered a set off Amazon and apparently received the British imprint, realized when I was cross referencing an article and none of my pages matched. Not a show stopper, but I will have to be very clear which edition was used.

My next steps are to compose all my story blocks from my story board and work out the connections for the passages so it can be tested.

Review of http:theclio.com Falls Church Driving Tour

The Clio is a website and application that “connects people to information” by using geolocation to identify sites of interest in your vicinity. It allows users to develop and publish about single sites or connect single sites into a tour route. The application includes a geofencing option alerting the user when they approach a site documented on Clio.

We chose the “Falls Church” driving tour, with eight stops in the Falls Church/Arlington area. We lived in Falls Church for several years, and I wanted to see how the tour would do with a familiar area.

Once the tour “Falls Church’ was chosen, website offered a choice of walking or driving, we chose to drive the tour. The map looked simple enough to follow, however when we headed for the first stop, Mount Hope, we hit the first challenge we would have. The Clio can be used as a website browser on a mobile device or a mobile application, we tried the website on a mobile device. Afterwards, I brought up the tour on the ap to understand the differences in display.

When I selected the start button, it displayed Mount Hope as site 1, with description of the house and why it was important. The entry included a text to voice option f the narrative. Unfortunately, the map was after the opening text, and the “Directions” button redirected to Google maps or Apple Maps. Awkwardly, we had to keep flipping back and forth between the tour and the map. The addresses up front , instead of located after the map ,or at the bottom of the entry, would have allowed us to easily enter the site into the car’s navigation system and use that while reviewing background on the site we were looking at. The app and the site offer a pdf map t download with QR codes to help as well, but any extra layer of effort risks losing motivation and interest.

Alternatively, the application has turn by turn directions, that are relatively simple to follow, or it allows you to download a pdf file with a map and a list of sites, basic information and the address. The Clio app does not have all the information available on the website, but it is substantial and again, offers the text to voice option. It is a little awkward, as it is on the website version, as you have to select it for each section of narrative.

The route made sense for the traffic flow and traffic lights, with left turns being planned at lights instead of trying to drive across a busy thoroughfare. There was a choice between driving and walking, as a walking tour it would have had some areas of questionable safety.

Each stop had short narrative, images, and a longer background information, with images and relevant hours or other information listed. The Clio requires that an entry “must be an original work with sources”¹ as well. Requiring this gives the entries more substance and more credibility.

The Clio is doing a public history in an interesting and engaging way, by facilitating community engagement in history and culture. Contributors can come from anywhere and share their knowledge and research. Similarly, the users can explore their location, whether doing a tour or just curious about a neighborhood. geofenced my location and an historic marker I wanted to read, but have not as its on a parkway where the speed limit sometimes feels suggested only.

The experience did let me see an area I thought I knew differently. One of the sites I had heard the name yet knew nothing about, at least one I used to drive by daily and knew nothing about, and several were altogether new. I really appreciated the boundary marker in Benjamin Banneker Park stop and that one spotlighted the value and strengths of this type of public history. I used to run through the park 3-4 times a week, as it was on my 5 mile plus running route from my house. When I saw the park name on the tour I gave directions by “it’s where we used to walk Ella to the dog park.” In the hundreds of times I ran or walked the park, I never saw or noticed the SW9 boundary stone that marked the original District of Columbia.

I disadvantaged The Clio by not using the application, as it created some frustrating side challenges. As I work with the application it makes more sense, but I question how it will respond without a strong wi fi connection. When I used it sitting in the public library on their network the application struggled, in my house it was fine. I may have to filed test it further this week.

The idea behind the Clio and similar sites sit at the junction of public history, crowdsourcing and technology. The geofencing is a clever way to keep a user engaged, allowing them the opportunity to continually interact with history and their community.

1. https://theclio.com/faqs ↩︎

I am slowly getting the hang of Twine. The basic premise was easy, figuring out how the basics of passages and linking to the next one. I still haven’t quite worked out the use of enchantments, or how to give a response to a question, but I made a huge step forward getting not one but two hyperlinks to function properly.

It took several tries, and then the debug function gave me the answer, the ever popular forgot <> . I knew better.

I am using several resources to learn the program: The Twine Cookbook, Dr. Jessica Otis’s primer and the Grimoire guides to Twine. The Programming Historian has a helpful starter guide as well. I think part of the challenge is that I work on a MacBook, so I had to download and install instead of using the browser based version. Every single guide wrote about the challenge of using the browser based with a iOS (thanks again Apple) so I went with the less elegant solution.

Next stop, images and color palettes!

I am using the storyboarding to develop the text in Word first, filling out how each passage will connect or loop back. It also occurred to me that if I am asking people to look at the challenges first through Laura’s eyes, I should incorporate her narrative, so several of the passages will include the book text as an introduction (Sukey and the Bear is one of my favorites).

I still feel behind, but have made progress today and feel far more confident that it will end up a worthwhile endeavor.

I am using my Omeka site as a landing spot for items a player of educator can use for additional materials. I was pretty comfortable using Omeka until I ran into the challenge of Omeka Classic. As I poked and prodded to get Omeka to do what I wanted, everything looked unfamiliar although I have been using it for sometime.

I have been using Omeka -S previously. The simplicity of the problem is I worked at developing a proficiency in a slightly different version. The navigation and plug ins are different, so a few that I could not get to install suddenly made sense when I went back and looked at what they supported.

In the future, I would lean toward the S version instead of classic, as I found it more intuitive to use. Having two version makes sense for the variety of uses for Omeka — amazing sites are supported by each version and it is flexible for the needs of users.