The Crypto-Education-Experiment in Public History: Week Four
All of a sudden, we find ourselves almost a month in!
The two graduate courses at Temple University, Nonprofit Management for Historians (in Public History) and Topics in Urban Studies (in the Masters of Liberal Arts) There’s a total of 15 dedicated, talented, insightful students now with as many Steemit accounts in addition to @phillyhistory.
Naming Names and Counting Numbers
So far, @hourofhistory, @dduquette, @engledd, @jfeagan, @cheider, @charliehersh, @tmaust, @chelseareed, @johnesmithiii, @gvgktang, @yingchen, @connellgregg, @xiaonanli, @peartree4, @landy-yinan have published 91 posts and 334 replies. That’s an average of 6 posts per student, each of whom has written more than 22 replies.
In exploring 1918 (with the tag #explore1918) we’ve encountered the expected and unexpected, including war, a wheatless and meatless cookbook, ragtime, riots, brutality, airplanes, the Lusitania, Edith Wharton, condoms, Kotex, prostitution, queer sex, telephones, nativism, women’s shoes, prohibition, jazz, steam shovels, the Colonial Revival, a lost $20 bill and, of course, Tarzan. Perspectives galore—and we’ve only scratched the surface.
As we begin to consider the future of history, we’ve considered the many wants, needs and shortcomings of the institutional stewards of the past, including diversifying audiences and expanding outreach, increasing digital readiness, fundraising capacity, financial literacy and supporting the efforts of outsider communities.
The happiest surprise?
Everyone is comfortable in the social media environment – formatting, incorporating images and navigating the still-new platform. Digital natives all, they have become Steemians!
The biggest problem?
There’s a persistent habit in academia to write everything as if it’s a thesis or a term paper. Here, too, there’s an inclination to treat posts as mini term papers. (Yes, I struggle with the same tendency.) Here at Steemit, I’m urging students to consider their posts more as triggers and prompts for both the class and the larger community. In other words, learn how to use the medium to the fullest.
Last week we had an in-person visit and presentation by the @sndbox team. That put some real faces to the names and posts in addition to answering some really important questions. @voronoi and @hansikhouse encouraged us to continue our experiment. They encouraged us to consider what the future would look like using this platform. They asked us to imagine managing history with the blockchain.
And the best part? Everyone's ready and willing to take up the challenge!
100% of the SBD rewards from this #explore1918 post will support the Philadelphia History Initiative @phillyhistory. This crypto-experiment conducted by graduate courses at Temple University's Center for Public History and MLA Program, is exploring history and empowering education. Click here to learn more.
Nice experiment
On D-TUBE: Sndbox's @voronoi recaps the class at Temple