The Story in Stories Past

I’m currently picking my way through Is the Internet Changing the Way You Think?: The Net's Impact on Our Minds and Future there are many ideas in this book (a future blog will be a review) but it made me think about how much has changed in last fifteen years, and how Stories Past developed.

We started from an episodic story Stoney Grove which debuted in March 1998. It ran through three seasons, and is the story of an Englishman and an American women who meet, win the lottery, buy a ‘great’ house in England and finally fall in love. We did three seasons and concluded with a live interactive wedding. The site used multiple narrative techniques – emails, diaries, newspapers, direct chat and letters (it was the old days!). It also used dynamic html to present the story.

From this site we created an education module. Students were asked to explore a version of the house and try and discover the who, what and where – who lived there, when they lived there, what was happening to the family, and what was happening in the world at that time. We were completely naïve when it came with working with schools and, though we did have some great feedback from a number of students who used it, we never were able to go “commercial.”

So we took the ideas and techniques we’d developed went to museums and archaeology programs and said, let us do this for you using your content. Since then keeping up with the technology changes is a constant challenge but the range of what we can do now is extraordinary. If you can describe what you want, we can find a way of doing it. But our approach is informed by some of the ideas we had when creating Stoney Grove: learning works best when it’s contextual, some (though not all) students learn more from an active/interactive learning style, and that a good module is exploratory and non-linear.

If you’ve got a few hours Stoney Grove is still online!

Using Primary Sources

I’m working on an education module which uses eighteenth century land patents. The module will be part of a new web site “Engaging the Piedmont: Transitions in Virginia Slavery 1730-1790” (more soon!) Archaeologists, as well as historians, use primary documents such as probate inventories and patents to gain a greater understanding of the sites on which they work.

Not only are many of these documents not available on the web, they are written in eighteenth century script. Fortunately technology can at least help students start to work with primary sources. The module below is part of a larger piece we did for the Virginia Department of Historic Resource “What Do Archaeologists Do?”

I’ve had a few people ask if they can just buy the translate box but, unfortunately, there’s a little smoke and mirrors there! It based on an idea I saw years ago “Martha Ballard’s Diary” a great site exploring primary sources. Interactive content can help students get started in looking at difficult material, but it can’t replace research quite yet.

Millennials

As an exhibitor I was manning the booth for much of the Tennessee Association of Museums conference. I heard the indefatigable Ken Mayes (AMSE) keeping everyone up to date on web tools (The Online Visitor) and  I did get to the session on millennials (The Next Generation of Visitors: Creating Museum Experiences  that Connect with Younger Audiences by Lori Cagan of Tombras Group  and Sylvia Martin from A Different View). As part of the presentation we had three millennials adding their insights. Millennials are broadly defined as the generation born in the mid 70’s to 2000.

Regarding technology, it’s no surprise that this group is heavily into communication. I had the experience as a younger man of living abroad, pre-internet. I sent and received letters and monthly made a phone call on the public telephone in the high street. This generation gets stressed by not being connected 24-7. And most of the connection - social media, texting, chatting - is mobile. They access the web through a phone screen.

At the end of the session the panelists were asked what museums could do to make themselves more engaging to Millennials. All three answered with the word interactive. They felt that museums should come to them, to engage them through changing, and participatory content. This is a group that wants to be involved, but perhaps is less into self exploration than reaction – they are getting a lot of calls on their attention!

The PBS special digital media  pointed to the work museums are doing as places of experimental learning. There really is no limit to what can be achieved. Stories Past is working on projects involving mixed media, social interactions and gaming. It’s a fun time to be working in this area.

How Millennial are you? Try the Pew Research Quiz. Is Millennial an age range, or a state of mind?

Just put it on the web - how does a physical exhibit translate to an on-line one?

It’s an issue we’ve faced several times. Exhibits are an investment of time and effort, and can be given an extended life on the web. But it isn’t a straightforward transition. Visitors see physical exhibits in a rich context. They are prepared by the journey to the institution, view the material within the physical context of the building/landscape, and can enjoy it with family and friends who can share items of interest.

On the web they can arrive at the page as the result of mild curiosity after the page is presented from a tangential search. They are likely alone, and the exhibit can appear divorced of context.

Web exhibits then have to offer something extra to compensate. All the images, video and text can be included, but it’s also possible to have the visitor engage with the material.

• Providing a zoom capability doesn’t just give a bigger picture, it allows the visitor to focus on the details in the image. (And have you seen the amazing Google Art project?).
• Creating virtual pathways allows visitors to see connections between different parts of the exhibit.
• Allowing visitors to record and share comments contributes to the exhibit and provides great feedback.
• “Playful mechanics”* can create interactions that lead visitors through the process of learning, rather than just reading about it. Asking visitors to find the items in a room connected to sewing in a nineteenth century cabin, or drag elements in order to make a building make students active learners. Note: the image is from a module for Project Archaeology on building an Earthlodge.

Finding resources at the end of an exhibit is difficult, image permissions are different, staff have moved onto new things. But the web offers a chance to recharge the exhibit, and reach those visitors from around the world who can’t come to your site, but who you still want to reach.

*Playful mechanics are not the great guys from Car Talk, but a type of interaction related to gaming. For more, much more, see the excellent Play the Past.

Archaeology, CRM and the Public

Three miles of road widening in Townsend, Tennessee resulted in years of archaeology, hundreds of thousands of artifacts, report volumes, artifact images and reams of supporting documents.

The work was paid for by the Tennessee Department of Transportation and conducted by the Archaeological Research Laboratory (ARL). The ARL is creating a public volume on the dig, but they also wanted to present some of the data in an interactive format.


The ARL provided the content, Sarah Lowe, Associate Professor at UTK, ran the project and put together the design and I worked on the interface. It allows the public to explore the site through an interactive map. The whole site is presented and visitors are asked to select a time period: Archaic, Woodland, Mississippian and Cherokee. For each period, areas can be zoomed to show features, and five artifact types can be explored through artifact and feature cards.

The module is a compromise: not all artifacts are shown, later historical material wasn't included and stratigraphy is simplified through the initial selection of a time period. But it supports several important archaeological considerations. Artifacts can only be accessed through their physical context. Text supports temporal and thematic context. Exploration and discovery are part of the experience. A second part of module talks a bout the archaeological process through video interviews, news reports of the dig and overviews of the artifact types.

The module will not be a research tool, but it does include data. Most importantly process is implicit in presentation. Showing the careful methodology of excavation, the lab work, and that the artifacts exist in a physical context all help separate archaeology from pot hunting and promote not just the site but the discipline.

The web site should be available later this year.

Review: Why Video Games are Good for Your Soul by James Paul Gee

Video Games Are Good For Your Soul
Despite the outcry that gaming is a waste of time, video games make us feel good, Gee says, and what’s more they are a great learning tool.
There’s no question that people get pleasure from such gaming, that’s why they buy them but are they “good” for you? We know young children learn through play and Gee argues that video games provide learning within a structured environment, with contextual help on demand, and positive reinforcement for success. But can games teach you … anything? Can they teach you math, geography, economics…archaeology?
Gee largely focuses on immersive games. Some of what he says could equally be applied to all games – simpler computer games, but also board, card games and role play games. But the new breed of immersive worlds, he notes, let you take on a blended personality with your avatar, harnessing a set of developing skills and role playing different situations. Read Neal Stephenson’s excellent the Diamond Age to glimpse the future possibilities. Potentially games, through re-play and structured contextual environments can provide information, but more importantly learning, empathy, long term planning and critical thinking skills. And they allow failure and the possibility to try again - something often absent from public education.
It’s an interesting book, though a little repetitive in place for such a short volume, and I’d have like to have seen more educational and learning theory. (He has since published further volumes). I’d argue that there are elements in these games that can be taken advantage of quite simply – creative use of multimedia, interactive content, built in rewards and social learning. If our classrooms aren’t ready for Call of Duty can we at least develop web-enabled text books with interactive content?

Conferences

It's that time of year. Stories Past exhibited at the Society for Historical Archaeology in January (love those Canadian conferences) and now we are facing a busy Spring.
March 18-20 Tennessee Association of Museum in Chattanooga. Please visit the booth.
March 22-24 Virginia Association of Museum in Virginia Beach. Again, please come visit.
March 22-26 Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology. Just attending this one!
April 22-25 Society for American Archaeology in Atlanta. Lots of new archaeology installations to play with at the booth.