What challenges do we face as history educators presenting the past in the digital world?

One of the major issues surrounding teaching history in today’s digital world is the controversies surrounding how history is presented in this medium. One of these controversies is the use of Wikipedia. Wikipedia is famously, or perhaps infamously, known to be of the teacher’s ire. Many teachers would encourage students to use more reliable sources since anyone can edit Wikipedia, possibly making the information inaccurate. However, many who are teaching history are trying to change that by having students create information on the site that is accurate and reliable. However, there are some issues when trying to improve the site. One of the issues of presenting history on Wikipedia is how the site promotes historical information. According to Sadie Bergen, “Wikipedia’s policies and website architecture support a version of the past that Rosemont College associate professor Michelle Moravac . . . compares to ‘a bad high school history class.’ Wikipedia propagates a ‘great man’ and ‘great woman’ version of the past . . . .” Many of the articles on Wikipedia show the best of the best of history and fall victim to bias, making it hard to find reputable and neutral information in the articles. However, this neutrality is also challenging to achieve as every person has bias and is what Jeremy Brown and Benedicte Melanie Olsen say trained to create “an original argument.” With Wikipedia’s policies and history students’ training, presenting history in the digital medium is possible but difficult.

At this current moment, I have narrowed down my trivia game to include ten questions about different examples of propaganda during World War II. I have also laid out the framework of my website with three main sections: the trivia game, an overview of propaganda and its use during the war, and different examples with descriptions and analysis. My main goal is for users to be able to learn about the ways that the United States government used propaganda to influence support for the war. Within propaganda, there are five different distinct but complementary appeals: Guilt, Satanism, the Illusion of Victory, Apocalyptic, and Territorial. The focus of the project will cover these five appeals briefly and give examples that contain those appeals equally. For instance, I would have an example that shows both Guilt and the Illusion of Victory, but I will also have examples that cover the other appeals. I have two audiences for the project. The primary audience would be museum visitors who use the site after visiting the accompanying exhibit. My secondary audience would be teachers and students who find the site from the educational resources on the museum site. While most users would be museum visitors who see the advertisement at the end of the exhibit or on a brochure, the game and site would be helpful for teachers to teach the topic and historical thinking skills.

My next step is to add the information to the site and put the game together. Most, if not all, of the research and sources have been collected, so the only step I would have is to put that information on the website. I also need to develop questions at the end of each section so that users can use their historical thinking skills with the information they have just learned. There is one challenge that I have hit this past week, and that is time management. I had some health issues along with work that left just some time to work on the project. However, that is something I will work on this week. I plan on working on the website and game daily this coming week. If I do that, I will not find myself stressed and rushed.

I have made a great deal of progress on my project this week. I have not figured out the entirety of the concept. Essentially, it will be a trivia game on World War II propaganda in popular culture on a WordPress site. It will also include historical information that teachers could use in their classrooms or that other users can use to learn more about the subject before or after the game. As of right now, I have found an online tool that I will use to create the game: OpinionStage. This platform lets users create polls and trivia games that they can put on their website. A plugin on WordPress connects the user’s accounts to make it a seamless process. One of the reasons I chose this tool was that it allowed users to add images and videos to the slides. I wanted to show different pictures and clips of movies and radio programs during this era so that users could answer questions, making this aspect especially useful.  This past weekend, I decided to make a test quiz and add it to a private post on my WordPress site for the class to see if it would be a workable program, which I very happily discovered that it was, and the pictures and videos worked perfectly.

 My next step is to find and narrow down the sources I want to include in the quiz. Hearing Jess Pritchard-Ritter say, “Dream big, plan small,” made me think about the many sources I have to choose from this period and subject. I would love to create this huge website detailing everything about this subject and including all the examples in the quiz. However, as Jess said, I don’t have much time to include everything in one semester, especially during the shortened summer semester. That is why one of my next steps is to narrow down what I want and what needs to be included. The Hope Diamond Curse Project also made me think about what I want to include in the historical background. I liked how Jaimie included questions at the end of each section for people to think about and for teachers to use in their classrooms. I did not realize that just adding historical information is enough for people to grasp information. It is especially useful for teachers to test students’ comprehension and historical thinking skills. While I was only going to include historical background, I am going to take that idea of adding questions and add it to my overall plan.