As I read over Will’s and Trevor’s posts, I’m definitely keen on hearing more about games and archives.  Will, I sincerely appreciate your approach (casting evidence as treasure, as you put it, and sculpting a motif of discovery).  While I’ve only dealt with this in an imaginary space (alas, no programming background), I’m also convinced that we need, especially when it comes to education, to challenge the paradigm of passive spectatorship in archives/museums, virtual or otherwise.  And while taxonomies/data sets are clearly integral to the programming side of digital archives, I’d also like to see this epistemology of deduction supplemented by an affirmation of digressive exploration. For my digital humanities class, I spent the latter half of this past semester envisioning some sort of scheme that would cast digital museum objects as catalysts to discursive exploration– using an object as the impetus to radial or rhizomatic imagining/research/discovery rather than as the “here we have a Colonial hornbook, and here…,” dead-end culmination of un-embodied (and dare I say sometimes uninspired?) classroom discussions.  I meant to make it game-like, but I think it ended up more art-project than anything else.  I’d love to sit in on this session and hear what sorts of things people have done with this topic!

I’m also interested in joining up with Marjorie, et al., as they discuss digital history and civic engagement.  While I can’t anticipate whether discussion will head more toward digitally integrative pedagogies for pedagogy’s sake or on-the-ground installation/modification of web tools, I’d like to lobby for place-based pedagogy (in association with digital tools, of course!) as a framework for engaging and enlivening local history, especially in rural areas.

And what about combining the two and making local history one great, exciting scavenger hunt that could really bring home– literally!– the impact of local objects on local history (and vice versa)?  Sounds like this sort of thing is in the air…I’m looking forward to discussing!

Tags: discovery, game, local history, pedagogy, play

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