In the Fall of 2008 I studied abroad in Ireland for four months. Living in a new city full of history, I wanted to see everything historical I could find. However, as you could probably guess I was a broke college kid and I had a tough time finding free things to see and do. I wish I had a better understanding of what I could have seen that was historical, fun and better yet FREE!
Living in Washington DC now, I feel somewhat the same as I did in Ireland. There is so much history around me and I want someone to guide me to the places where I can learn DC history on a limited budget. For my digital history project, I am writing a blog, via wordpress, about great DC sites and monuments that are historical, yet free. Since this is a history minded site, each blog post has background historical information on whichever site I am profiling in a given week. As I am exploring the city, I want others to explore the city with me, and to learn something new.
I have been traveling around the city to different monuments and sites gathering historical information and pictures at sites that are of interest to me. Each week, I have added profiled a new site on the blog. I give background historical information on each site, my perspective on the site, and recommend whether or not people should visit said site. So far, I have profiled the United States Capitol Building, Ford’s Theater, and the National Portrait Gallery. And there is much more to come! I am giving a poor college student’s historical perspective. I want people to get a better understand of what they will see and learn if they choose to heed the advice of a fellow penny pincher like myself.
What is great about using WordPress to help people to decide what to do in a new city and to teach them some history that they might have never known is that it creates a forum for historical discussion. Whether commenting on a blog post or on a photo, crating a dialogue about history is one of the goals of this project. In the digital age in which we live today it is much easier to get history across to many people via the internet, and that is what I am doing here. I am inspiring myself along the way and hope to inspire other people to get out, see their city, and most importantly learn and talk about history!
Through the creation of this blog, I have found that constantly exploring DC and sharing my experiences and photos with others have been very fun and quite rewarding. Thus, I have decided to continue this blog for as long as I see fit. There is not set end date. I do not plan on ending this blog when the digital history course comes to an end in the coming weeks.
The site looks good. Here are a few quick suggestions:
1. I would suggest going back and deleting the “Hello World” post on your blog. It’s just there to illustrate what posts look like.
2. I would suggest adding a sub heading to your site. You can do that from the settings section of the wordpress administrative interface.
3. I would suggest adding some of the widgets to your sidebar. You can probably get rid of the meta block in the sidebar too. You can pick which widgets you want to show through the Appearance section of the WordPress Administration interface. It would probably be a good idea to list all the recent posts and to include a little text box that has some of your about page text.
4. I would suggest coming-up with your own custom header for the site. Since it is personal, you might think about cropping one of the pictures that has you in it. I think the clear winner in that case is http://dctravelandhistory.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/0031.jpg
5. Think about going back and categorizing your posts and or using some tags and then displaying those in the sidebar.
Lastly, I will be interested to hear about how you are trying to get your content out to your intended audience? That is something you will want to be able to speak to in your reflections.
Keep up the good work!