Author: watrall
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Launching Archaeology 101
Autumn Painter and I are happy to announce the official launch of Archaeology 101 (archaeology101.com), a website designed to introduce elementary and middle school students to archaeology and the study of the past. In the website, we use written content and interactive elements to teach students about archaeology and some of the basic concepts and…
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Juxtaposing the Past and the Present: Creating an Interactive Preservation Element
In thinking about what we wanted to include in our Archaeology 101 website, Autumn and I wanted to touch on many of the key concepts that guide archaeological research. One of those key concepts is preservation, especially the idea that not everything preserves in the archaeological record. While it is a relatively clear concept, it…
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Archaeology 101: Dig Deeper Popup Modals
As we are nearing the end of the CHI fellowship, Jeff and I are working on final touches to our Archaeology 101 website. Lately, I’ve been working on changing some of our text into ‘Dig Deeper’ popup modals. Instead of having all the information for each section immediately available on the page, we have decided…
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Call for 2020-2021 Cultural Heritage Informatics Graduate Fellowship Applications
The Cultural Heritage Informatics Initiative invites applications for its 2020-2021 Cultural Heritage Informatics Graduate Fellowship program. The Cultural Heritage Informatics Fellowships offer MSU graduate students the skills to creatively and thoughtfully apply digital methods and computational approaches to cultural heritage collections, materials, data, questions, and challenges.
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Mapping the Upper Missouri: Visualizing Negotiation, Diplomacy, and Culture on the Northern Plains, 1801-1862: An Overview
Initially, this project began as an inquiry into the way a digital construction of space can offer new ways on thinking about cultural landscape, spatial politics, and boundaries. Based upon the first chapter of my dissertation, this digital rendition titled, “Mapping the Upper Missouri,” examines how the fur trade on the northern plains gradually transformed…
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“Out of the Mouths of Babes”: Initial Feedback on the Archaeology 101 Working Website
As Autumn and I climb closer to a completed initial version of the Archaeology 101 Project website, we wanted to get some feedback from individuals in our target audience. Luckily, we spent our Spring Break with my 10-year-old niece, who was happy to take our in-progress website for a test drive. While she was generally…
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Archaeology 101: Stratigraphy Game update
If you’re not familiar with this project, Archaeology 101 is a collaborative CHI project between myself and Jeffrey Painter. At the launch, this project will be an interactive website that can be used to introduce elementary and middle school students (and other interested parties) to archaeology! A main component of the Archaeology 101 project will…
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Cleaning Trade Data
A major part of my CHI project is cleaning trade data that I collected from the Public Records and Archives Administration Department (PRAAD) in Accra and Tamale, Ghana that includes paper records of the goods carried by traders across the Volta River. The statistics, however, are not a complete picture of trade in the region,…
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How Does Going Car-Free Impact Spatial Awareness?
I recently read an article by Dan Erickson that discussed his experiences being 10 years without a car. Erickson pointed out that not having a car can come with some baggage. In a few examples, Erickson noted that travelling with children and making long distance trips are not as easy without car. I don’t fall…
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Working between programs and hiccups
For the most part, adapting Lead’s Bootleaf coding to suit my needs has been fairly flawless. I have been able to incorporate three maps, including Sherlock Holmes The Hound of Baskerville, Ouida’s Puck, and Virginia Woolf’s Flush. Somehow the database I created for William Thackeray’s Vanity Fair and Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist has inexplicably disappeared…