Misrepresenting plantation life
Today’s Washington Post Magazine contains an interesting story about the deterioration of the mansion at Carter’s Grove, a 1750 James River plantation whose opulent mansion now faces ruin due to neglect. This story, which I would otherwise recommend, begins with wrong history that perpetuates plantation nostalgia and stereotypes about Native American savagery. The lede describes the [...]
Informal education, museums, and the Peace Corps
“Peace Corps and the Alamo. I never thought I’d hear that combination.” That was the reaction of a professor several years ago when I mentioned where I had worked. In March, when I attended the Symposium on Informal Learning, sponsored by the American Association of Museums and The George Washington University Museum Education Program, I [...]
Interactivity: Best Friend and Worst Foe
As the Clio Wired sequence draws to a close (except for those of us doing a minor field in digital history), and we move toward the sequence’s end product–a full digital history project–this week’s reading and web visit considered interactivity. Ah yes, interactivity. The best friend and worst foe of exhibition developers, informal educators, and [...]
Starting to bring it together
At the end of last semester, Dr. Leon asked us to comment on a general prompt: What difference does new media make to doing history? After a course that had some hands-on elements combined with a lot of exploration of what others have done (and even some new media theory), we all commented that it [...]
Making information accessible
As we’ve discussed throughout the semester, design is not just about making things pretty, but also functional–to go back to my former classmate’s telling, the crossroads of art and engineering. This week’s web visits focused more on the functionality part, specifically making websites accessible to people with disabilities, and the reading (Edward Tufte’s Visual Explanations) [...]
Photoshop for history
This week’s assignment, working with images, is up. As others have commented, it is amazing how addictive working with images in Photoshop can be. Thankfully I got a plenty early start on it! I chose to give my page a name: “Retouching the Capital City.” I was particularly excited about a Library of Congress painting [...]
Blog title angst, or, crowdsourcing a new title
I’d like to change my blog title, but am having a hard time deciding what I want to call it. So I’m asking you, all two of you (if that) who read this blog, your thoughts. Some criteria and titles that I’m considering: I’ve never really been sold on “McKenzie’s Musings,” as I’m afraid it [...]
More Photoshop play
This week’s reading and video assignments cover more about the magical world of Photoshop, particularly how it can be used to restore historic photos to their former glory. As Dr. Petrik noted in our class discussion last week following the class’s lively blog exchange (read the awesome posts by Sheri, Geoff, Lindsey, Celeste, Megan, Beth, [...]
Fun with fonts and styles
As I’ve read the book and watched the video for this week’s assignment (scroll to February 13), I’ve been dividing my attention: I’ve succumbed to the temptation of continually modifying my portfolio site, based on the inspiration and new skills that the video and book have afforded me. This shows one of the many ways [...]
The Importance of Design for Historians
A Museum Studies classmate turned exhibition design firm colleague once remarked that she pursued design as a career because it combined her interest in art with an appreciation for engineering inherited from her engineer father. This is the best definition I’ve heard of design and its importance–it’s not just about making things pretty (the art [...]