Reaction to Creating a Photo Essay Online

At first I thought the hardest part about creating a photo essay using pictures online was going to be to figure out a topic. I figured that the internet is full of pictures and if I do not have to limit myself from where I take these pictures after a good topic came to mind finding the pictures would come easily. Unfortunately, I was wrong. While it did take me a little while to think of a topic, the hardest part was to find picture that could show my topic in a story manner. My idea was to demonstrate a story line about Indian removal, therefore, I quickly found multiple pictures of the Trail of Tears and then multiple pictures of the U.S. army attacking Native Americans after the Native Americans had moved west. The problem occurred in trying to find a beginning picture and a closing picture to this story. I wanted to begin with a picture of Native Americans living in peace in the East Coast, but while I found many pictures of Native Americans in peace none had specific labels of where and when these pictures were taken. Therefore, I settled with maps displaying where Indians lived before and after the Trial of Tears.

The second problem I found was mostly in using Google. When I tired to search “Indian villages” or “Cherokee Indians”, etc. an abundance of current photos appeared. For example, there were pictures of students holding projects they completed about Indians, monuments, casinos, people visiting reservations, pictures of local teams whose mascots are the Indians and other very current pictures that did not relate well enough to the story I wanted to portray through pictures. Then after I learned this I put a date into the search box, but it did not seem to help. It was as if Google just ignored the date and gave me the same results as the search without the date. Therefore, while the internet has a plethora of photos if you do not know where to look its hard to find what you are aiming for.

Photo Essay on Locations of Native American Indians

Indian tribes and cultures map created through fossil findings before Europeans settlers pushed Native Americans away from their original lands.
Pictures care of Library of Congress' website on Immigration for teachers and students.



Indians moving West on the Trail of Tears after the Indian Removal Act of 1830 which forced all Indians living east of the Mississippi to move to barren land west of the Mississippi.
Picture care of pbs.org.


In the West the U.S. army tried to keep Indians contained in the designated reservations to keep other land for white settlers. 1876
Picture care of Library of Congress' Prints and Photo Gallery.



Lt. Colonel George Custer of US Cavalry’s death by Indians in the West when he tried to force them back to their designated reservation, but failed to know how large the Indian army was. 1878
Picture care of Library of Congress' Prints and Photo Gallery.



As compared to 400 years ago there are very few Indian Reservations left due to Western Expansion and more recently, the modern development of large pieces of property. Additionally, more and more Native American are losing ties to their heritage and assimilating into Western culture.
Picture care of the National Park Service Website.

Review of the National Museum of the American Indian

The National Museum of the American Indian is one of the many museum websites created by the Smithsonian Institution. This website is good because it only focus is not on the museum itself. Under the outreach section on the toolbar a reader of this website can learn about the many different programs offered by the museum. For example, the museum provides internships and work opportunities, not just in the American Indian museums in New York and Washington D.C, but the website also provides information and applications regarding training and obtaining a job in a more local museum or cultural center owned and/or operated by Native communities. Additionally, in this section website readers can also learn about how to submit their own pieces of work so that Native American artists and their communities can become connected to the National Museum of the American Indian as well as other museums, organizations, and professionals. However, by contrast, with this section so detailed about who were past participants and how to apply for these types of programs, it does not prepare the viewer for the lack of detail presented in the rest of the website.

The National Museum of the American Indian portrays itself as a user friendly, scholarly website, although many items which could make this website much better are missing, such as, more use of new media and a better website presentation of the museum exhibits. The positives aspects of this website include its clear toolbar, its organizational design and its understandable content. However, the presentation of the exhibits needs more detail. Looking at a website one should not learn everything about an exhibit, instead, one should be lured into wanting to see it in person, but this site only provides the observer with a short description and one or two pictures from the collection. The lack of content regarding exhibits does not incline the observer to want to visit the museum and see more; instead, it one must go to the museum in order to learn anything. I feel the guiding principal of a museum website should make the observer want to go to the museum not force them to go to the museum to learn anything about this topic, and therefore, I am not sure if the scholarship of this website is completely thought through.

Additionally, content wise, under "Visitor Information" on the main toolbar there is a link to "Inside the Museum" where the exhibits are described in a paragraph or two, similar to the descriptions one finds if s/he clicks on the "Exhibits" link on the main toolbar. Within these two pages, however, descriptions of the same exhibits are written differently. For most of the exhibits more detail is found under the "Inside the Museum" link, which is the harder link to find. Additionally, under this semi-hidden link are descriptions of the museum’s theaters, resource centers and stores which are described nowhere else on the website. Therefore, while this website seems easy to navigate because it is easy to find the exhibition page, the better exhibition descriptions are actually harder to find.

Another example of this website’s lack of usability is apparent through this observer's discovery of the National Museum of the American Indian Cultural Resource Center. This observer had never heard of it and wanted to learn more, but had trouble because there is no information or pictures displayed on this website on the research collection within this museum. Secondly, there is little content and use of media within this website. So, the observer can probably read almost every word on the website within an hour. Therefore, this website could foster better scholarship by being more interesting, so that the observer is lured into going to the actual museum, instead of forced to for more information. This is said because the only truly beneficial item on this website is the outreach section which one would not find easily at the museum itself, and this is probably not useful for any audience of this website who is not of American Indian decent.

Assessment on researching Valentine's Day online

While researching on the internet for the history of Valentine’s day I began with a website I knew and the first Google search result. This was history.com (The History Channel Website). From this website I had two concerns. This first one was the lack of detail. Both the text and the video on this website stated that there were various St. Valentines, but only went into limited detail on two. Additionally, very few sites I found (minus Wikipedia) went into detail on these various St. Valentines. However, the other two websites (Wikipedia and pictureframes.co.uk) did go into more depth on the two versions of the one St. Valentine that The History Channel website mentioned. Therefore, because other websites had also written about this man, and they included more detail, making his story more comprehensive, I began to believe the information provided by The History Channel.

The second concern I had about The History Channel, and a more influential reason for searching other sources, was that related links next to the video on the history of Valentine’s Day were absurd. One was a kissing contest and another was a wedding where the bride and groom said their vows while in a block of ice. These ridiculous links threw off the credibility of the information on the history of Valentine’s Day.

While one concern I had was lack of detail and the other was credibility of the site, a third concern I had during my research was credibility of information. Pictureframes.co.uk listed no sources and Wikipedia had some, but to me Wikipedia is only a good site to begin learning about a topic, not a place to obtain research information because anyone can put anything onto that webpage.

A final thought I had while researching was: Why was there such a lack of information on how the holiday developed from honoring a saint to the commercialized holiday it is today? Due to the availability of more in depth records in the 19^th and 20^th century I thought there would be a lot of information on this concept, but only one website, Wikipedia, provided information on it and that was barely two paragraphs long.

History of Valentine's Day

Valentine’s Day has many possible historical origins. First, it can be traced to Ancient Rome and the pagan festival that honored Lupercalia. During this festival the community sacrificed an animal and then slapped its skin on women in order to bless them with a year of good fertility. Although this festival has nothing to do with St. Valentine it is related to the origins of Valentine’s Day because it occurred in mid-February.

More on topic is the Catholic origin of Father Valentine, but his story is only a legend. Father Valentine lived in the 3^rd century AD during the rule of Roman Emperor Claudius II. Claudius II banned marriage in order to grow his army because he (Claudius II) believed married men did not make good soldiers. However, Father Valentine defied Claudius II’s law by secretly marrying lovers. For this he was arrested and thrown into jail. Here is where the legend becomes inconsistent. One version states that while he was imprisoned he and a jailor’s daughter grew fond of each other and on the day of his execution he left her a note signed “From your Valentine.” The second version states that while he was imprisoned people left him little notes, from which he offered prayers for anyone indicated. In both legends, Father Valentine was executed on February 14.

There are many other different accounts of the first celebration of Valentine’s Day. They are all associated with love. For example, Geoffrey Chaucer, in 1382, mentions Valentine’s Day in a poem which honors the first anniversary of the engagement of Kind Richard II of England to Anne of Bohemia. However, this might be a misinterpretation of the author’s purpose because it is more likely that Chaucer was referring to May 2nd (Saint’s day for Valentine of Genoa) due to his clause about mating birds. Another example is that on Valentine’s Day in 1400 the “High Court of Love” was established in Paris to deal with love contracts, betrayals and violence against women.

Relative to the commercialized Valentine’s Day celebrated today, our Valentine’s Day was probably brought to North American by British settlers in the 19^th century. The first mass production of Valentine’s Day cards were produced and then shortly after, in 1847, Esther Howland took inspiration from an English Valentine she received to benefit her father’s stationary store. While Howland’s production began the practice of sending Valentines, it was not until the second half of the 20th century (around the same time as when the Catholic church stopped recognizing St. Valentine as an official holiday to decrease the number of saint days) that the holiday was elaborated to the extent that it is today with exchanging cards and gift giving. *

*All information found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentine’s_Day but other sources used were history.com and http://www.pictureframes.co.uk/pages/saint_valentine.htm

Educational Critique of Four Websites

I am studying to become a secondary education social studies teacher. Therefore, when I analyze websites it’s from a teacher’s prospective. I focus on how useful the site would be in a classroom, for both a teacher and a student. To analyze a website this way I evaluate not only its content, but also its visual appeal and interactivity on the website.
Through this type of analysis, the best website from a specific chosen four would be The History Channel site. Even though this website’s main goal is to promote its TV shows and sell their collection of videos, DVDs and audio tapes on many different historical events, this website can be useful to a teacher in many other ways. For example, the abundance of two minutes or less media clips could easily be shown to students in the classroom while not taking up too much time. Additionally, this website is highly interactive so a teacher can have students use the website on their own and learn during either free class time or for homework. Lastly, this site includes a wide range of historical topics and would be useful at any point in the school year.
Meanwhile, while the other websites that were specifically chosen are good, although, their major downfall is that they are too narrow in either content, interactive features or both. For example, http://www.dohistory.com/ is very interactive and useful for students, which normally would be great to use in a classroom, but this website revolves around one specific case study. Therefore, the only time this website is relevant would be at the beginning of the school year in order to have a fun, interactive lesson plan which would introduce to students how to interpret primary documents. A second example is “The Valley of the Shadows: Two Communities in the American Civil War” website, this website deals specifically with two communities during the Civil War, therefore, while it gives plenty of detail including primary documents, facts, images and more, in a classroom it can only be used while learning about the Civil War. Additionally, this website is not very interactive or visually appealing for students. Therefore, in a classroom I could only see this website useful for two reasons. The first would be for a student doing a project on that specific subject and, the other, for a teacher to explore and find specific documents and/or pictures to use during a lesson.
The last website, The National Museum of American History, is not too specific in content, for it has a wide variety of historical topics. Instead, it is too specifically focused on drawing people to come to the museum. Unlike the History Channel website which wanted to sell items or promote its shows, but did have a lot of information on the Internet of the topics, The National Museum of American History has very minimal information and pictures on the Internet. This site is most beneficial to teachers so that they can learn when a useful exhibit will be on display and how to plan this class trip. Additionally, like the Civil War website, teachers can also use images and documents from this site within a classroom lesson.
Overall, every website on the Internet has its own strengths and weaknesses; its usefulness depends on what the user is looking to take away from the website. The History Channel site is great overall, but it will not teach a student how to interpret primary source documents like http://www.dohistory.com/ will. Also, the History Channel website cannot aid a teacher in planning a class trip, like The National Museum of American History site, and if the teacher is focusing on a specific a specific topic, like the Civil War, s/he will probably find more in-depth information from a site that is specific to that topic, like the Valley of the Shadows website.

Immigration of Native Americans…

This website from the Library of Congress is devoted to immigration of most cultures found in America, including Native Americans. On the left hand side the observer clicks on a photo of whatever nationality they want to view and this brings them to the part of this site for that nationality. In the Native American section there are 11 pages that include pictures, maps, and information on Native Americans from the 1700s to present day. But within these 11 pages there are also links to other sites that give more detail on information written in this website. One interesting aspect of this site is a found under the vocabulary section, where the observer can play a game to try and find locations in the United States labeled by Native American names. Not only does this game give you information on how Native Americans named things it also tests the observer’s knowledge of the 50 states. Additionally, on the right hand side of this site is a timeline from 1770- 2005 where the observer can click on a year and a fact from that year pops up on the top of the webpage. One thing to be cautious when using this website is the top tool bar. This tool bar is for the entire immigrantion website and takes the observer away from viewing information on a specific nationality. While this tool bar does contain interesting information of recipes, interviews and teaching resources for all nationalities it is categorized by region instead of nationality so it can be hard to determine which aspects are for which nationality for some regions.