I’m a Roman historian and would like to develop some pedagogy that would use technology to give students access to material culture. Right now, I’m thinking about Roman coins, because the web-based resources are quite good, but in theory the issues relating to software tools, web-based content, and pedagogical genre (lab, game, mapping, etc.) would be the same for any humanities discipline in which material culture is a dimension of study.
Oct 17 2011
Virtual Material Culture
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Permanent link to this article: http://newengland2011.thatcamp.org/10/17/virtual-material-culture/
2 comments
Nicola
October 21, 2011 at 12:01 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I think this is a great session topic. As someone with a personal interest in material culture, I try to incorporate it into my teaching. I think digital archives of artifacts can help students to visualize time periods they are unfamiliar with. I’ve also noticed, from browsing many museum collections online, that they are limited in many ways.
Maybe this discussion could also expand to include manuscripts as well. I think libraries have better realized the educational value of digitizing manuscripts than museums have with their collections. Also, many digital manuscripts seem to have been created with the needs of scholars in mind. I see less evidence of this with digitized objects.
Elli Mylonas
October 21, 2011 at 4:47 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Great topic – also interested in Nicola’s observation in her comment above about creating objects that are better able to serve a scholarly audience. What is necessary, and what are other material objects lacking?
How do you use these in pedagogical contexts?
I’ve been working with Brown faculty on two epigraphical corpora. They have different approaches, but share similar technology. It could make a good case study.