O Say Can You See?

Beyond "Where were you?"—let's talk about September 11

“Where were you?”

We’ve all been hearing this question a lot in the days leading up to the tenth anniversary of September 11, 2001. From chats around the water cooler to the many news organizations collecting stories from their readers, the meme seems to be everywhere. National Geographic created a Facebook app. Country music artist Alan Jackson is even singing about it.

Because 2001 is only a decade past, many people remember precisely what they were doing on September 11, even if they were nowhere near one of the three attack sites. Others experienced similar moments when JFK was assassinated, when man first landed on the moon, the Challenger disaster, or even the death of a beloved musician, like John Lennon or Kurt Cobain.

At the museum, we talk about being a “steward of the nation’s memory”—providing a forum for reflecting on the experiences that define us as a nation and exploring the importance of history in our daily lives. But how do we provide such a forum for the 10th anniversary of September 11? And how can we move beyond “Where were you?” to get at the meanings and lasting legacy of these historic events? Today’s post looks at two ways the museum is addressing this goal: inviting public input inside the museum building and facilitating conversations online.

Melissa Foster writes down her reflections in the “September 11: Remembrance and Reflection” display.

Online visitors begin a Web-based conversation at conversations.si.edu

In the museum’s special display of September 11 artifacts (on view through Sunday), we ask visitors to share their responses to our version of “Where were you?” We ask: “How did you witness history on September 11, 2001?” and “How has your life changed because of September 11, 2001?” Below you’ll find a sampling of comment cards we’ve received over the past few days. (In our 2002 exhibition, we posed the same questions; you can view those comment cards in a digital archive.)

People ask one another “where were you?” as a way to start a conversation. But usually what the asker wants to hear is more than just an account of what you were doing or wearing or how old you were. While these comments cards are a good start, the tenth anniversary of September 11 is an opportune time to move beyond merely beginning a conversation. Because my expertise is in new media, I looked to the Internet for another solution.

We know that the Web can be a powerful tool for bringing people together to discuss common concerns. But, as anyone who has ever read comments on a news website can attest, many conversations on the Web lack accountability due to their anonymity, with people simply talking past each other. The museum’s project, September 11: Conversations, produced in partnership with GMD Studios and the Smithsonian Channel, is designed to stimulate the give-and-take of real in-person conversations. The online dialogue format we've chosen to use makes candor more comfortable, exchanges more intimate, and disagreements more civil.

How? Well, each online conversation group contains a limited number of participants (around 20 per group) from different areas of the country who agree to participate for two weeks. The museum suggests topics for conversation but each group’s dialogue is determined by the personal experiences and interests of the group members. All conversations can be read by the public, but only the members of the group can initiate new topics of conversation or respond to others.

The format of this dialogue is a unique one, designed to be a safe environment for people with diverse backgrounds and beliefs to find ways to explore their differences and learn from each other. We ask that people make a commitment to participate daily and spend as much time asking each other questions as they do stating their own beliefs.

Here are some of the things we’ll be talking about over the next few weeks:

• Did you save anything to remember September 11? Why and what does it mean to you now?
• Is September 11 history or still a part of current events? What is the difference between history and news?
• Do you think September 11 was a turning point in American history?
• How will future generations view September 11 fifty years from now?
• What conversation do you think we should be having about September 11 that America still isn’t having?

Please join us in the conversation (and invite your friends)! We can start with “Where were you?” But together we can take the nation’s dialogue about September 11 to new and more meaningful places. Sign-ups will remain open for the next few weeks.

Dana Allen-Greil is managing editor of the O Say Can You See blog.

History in 140 characters

Although I’m a member of the online outreach team at the museum, over the last few months I’ve given a number of in-person workshops for teachers, in which I mention the museum’s Twitter feed for educators, @explorehistory. Given the number of educators I see on Twitter, and the growing emphasis on developing a Personal or Professional Learning Network that I’ve noticed at conferences, I was surprised to find that only about 10% of any teacher group I meet in person is active on Twitter, though many are on Facebook (although this statistic is in line with a recent study on Twitter use conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project).

When I discuss Twitter in workshops, responses range from “I just don’t have time for that—it’s enough to keep up with email and Facebook” to “you just can’t have a conversation on Twitter.” And I understand. I wasn’t always so fond of Twitter. I wondered how I would ever say anything useful in 140 characters. As history educators, many of the teachers I met found the shortened communication of Twitter unsatisfying. If the soul of our work is to help students evaluate information and discuss and debate it, how could Twitter help? At least on Facebook you can have a conversation. Right?

What I’ve come to love as I use Twitter, and the value I share with these teachers, is being exposed to more thought-provoking articles than I ever had before, and learning of new resources just as soon as they become available. Twitter may not be the venue they choose for conversation—though plenty of educators use Twitter for mock conversations between historical or fictional characters—but it’s a great place to find the material to spark discussions and classroom activities. Of course, that’s the goal of our Twitter feed for educators — to provide our followers with the latest news about our resources or great material from other institutions, as well as being a way to get in touch with us.

The more I look for educator thoughts about Twitter, the more I find, including a discussion posted by the coordinator of the online community run by our partner, Verizon Thinkfinity, “Why Use Twitter? Tell Us Your Tips” on this same topic, which referenced a useful blog post, “The Power of Twitter in Information Discovery” that encapsulated the reasons I was growing to love Twitter. I noticed that the teachers in the Thinkfinity online community were using Twitter creatively, too (a great example is this presentation, “Thirty Interesting Ways to Use Twitter”) and that teachers were commenting on their Twitter use even beyond our social media channels. In a recent teacher survey we conducted, I found this comment from a teacher, extolling the virtues of Twitter: “I teach modern World Cultures to 6th graders in Texas. I use the Twitter feed to find, locate, bookmark, and share things with my students. I try to tweet in class with the students at least once every other week, but use my twitter feed to share things the museum is doing.” And as I was writing this post, I came across this blog post, “Help a Fellow Teacher Get on Twitter” with links to guides for using Twitter.

So, for our educator friends not on Twitter, I encourage you to consider joining. To get started and find great folks to follow, you can check out the EduBlog Award winners, search for #sschat or #historyteacher in Twitter to find out who’s talking about history education, and be sure to include @explorehistory and @amhistorymuseum on your list!

Naomi Coquillon is an education specialist at the National Museum of American History.

Exploring the Gettysburg Address with kids

Today’s guest post was written by Dr. James Beeghley, who writes the blog Teaching the Civil War with Technology and presents workshops on integrating technology into the social studies classroom.

“The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.” This simple sentence was spoken on November 19, 1863, by President Abraham Lincoln when he gave the now famous Gettysburg Address. For those of us in education, we must take every opportunity to teach students about the American Civil War lest they forget this important part of our history.

Battle of Gettysburg Lithograph, Division of Armed Forces History, National Museum of American History.

Traditionally, the topic of the Civil War has been discussed using the tried and true methods of lecturing from textbooks, showing pictures from reference books, using filmstrips or slide shows, and occasionally using artifacts to give students a hands-on experience. Today, teachers have high speed access to the Internet and high quality multimedia resources to use as tools for researching and presenting the subject of the Civil War. One of my favorite examples of using technology to teach the Civil War is the National Museum of American History’s interactive Gettysburg Address.

 

The interactive allows you and your students to explore the Gettysburg Address through high-resolution images, audio, and text. You can zoom in and examine President Lincoln’s handwriting. You can listen to the words spoken by the President and even click on certain parts of the document to learn more about specific topics.

 

The Interactive Gettsyburg Address allows you to engage with one of America's most famous historical documents!

One of the most famous speeches in American history, the Gettysburg Address was only 9 sentences long, has fewer than 300 words and was delivered in less than 3 minutes. Three quarters of the words are only one syllable and 92% of the words have no more than two syllables. You might consider having students listen to the audio version of the speech on the website and jot down the words that they hear as they listen, or that stand out to them after the speech is over. Then, have them copy the text into Wordle and have a conversation about the results and how they compare to the words they noted as they listened.

On the interactive Gettysburg Address, there are several highlighted sections of the speech that provide additional information and allow for a deeper discussion. By selecting sections of the speech and pulling information from the website, you can develop some deeper thinking questions, including “Why has the Gettysburg Address become one of the most famous speeches in American history?”

 

In addition to exploring the speech on the website, you can also look up the location in Google Earth to explore the battlefield and have students consider the reasons behind its design. These are just a few suggestions for using this one resource from Smithsonian’s History Explorer for teaching the Civil War. Imagine what you could do with the thousands of other resources that are available to you for free!

Editor’s Note: You can find more tips for exploring the Gettysburg Address with grades 5-12 on our History Explorer website for educators. Or visit our online exhibition where you can download and print the Gettysburg Address in Lincoln’s own hand.

Dr. James Beeghley is an educational technologist and blogger.

 

Learning in public: Developing a business and economic history exhibition

Developing a new exhibition is very exciting. For some time, curators at the museum have been discussing a major new exhibition initiative, American Enterprise. As the title suggests the exhibition will explore the United States business history from the 1750s to the 2010s. American Enterprise will trace the benefits, failures, and unanticipated consequences of American economic development by focusing on people—the changing story of how they work and what they eat and buy.

Left: No Stamp Act teapot c.1768. Right: Clamshell used as emergency money during 1933 banking crisis.

Usually, museum exhibitions are developed behind closed doors—not out of disregard for public input, but because historians tend to triple check information before sharing. And sometimes the exhibition process, although exciting, is messy, with lots of questions, conflicting claims, and few immediate answers. Curators are like history detectives—tracing the stories of objects, hunting down leads, and conducting research that may take months or even years. As the research is developed, exhibitions go through several academic reviews, the show is designed and built, and voilà!—opened to the public. The system works pretty well, but for American Enterprise, we have decided to take a different approach and “learn in public” by taking you on much of the journey with us.

We hope this experiment, made possible by new media, will make the research and exhibition process more open. Starting February 2011, we will share our research trips, the books we are reading, and the artifacts and topics we are considering for the show on a special website, americanenterprise.si.edu. Over the next few years, you will slowly see the American Enterprise exhibition take shape and grow as we fill in gaps in our historical understanding of our nation’s economic history. There will be monthly updates with interesting insights, new information, and probably some false starts. We hope you will engage and comment. You might offer us an important new artifact, share related personal experiences, suggest a topic we have overlooked, and help us test our ideas by participating in surveys.

Developing an exhibition in public view is a little unusual, but we think that your involvement will make the final product better. We want your help. All exhibitions need a central theme to help focus the stories that are told. Here is your chance to make a difference. Please go to the exhibition website and answer a quick poll. What do you think of when you hear the words “economic marketplace”? Please let us know your thoughts about this question and about any other aspect of the exhibition.

Peter Liebhold is Chair of the Division of Work and Industry at the National Museum of American History and a curatorial member of the American Enterprise exhibition team.

10...9...8...Top 10 posts of 2010

As the countdown to 2011 draws near, I’m pleased to share with you the top 10 most popular original “O Say Can You See?” blog posts in 2010. Drumroll, please…

Image by christmashat.

10. An Idle Record of an Idle Summer

9. A frozen margarita tale for Cinco de Mayo

8. Designing the American Dream with Mrs. Obama in mind

7. You Asked, We Answer: Why can’t I take a picture of the Star-Spangled Banner?

6. 50th anniversary of the Pill

5. 100 years of Boy Scouts in our collections

4. You asked, we answer: What is the oldest known color photo?

3. Will you marry me? 

2. The 1906 San Francisco quake, in color

1. Race to the Museum: Vote for your favorite car

What do you think about this list? Do you have a favorite post that didn’t make the cut? The feedback we’ve received from our readers this year has been both encouraging and helpful in shaping what we cover and how. We hope that in 2011 you will continue to comment on the blog and spread the word to your friends.

Why not get started now? Leave a comment with your suggestions on topics you’d like to see covered on the blog in the future. What artifact, era, historical character, or behind-the-scenes museum topic are you most interested in hearing about?

Dana Allen-Greil is new media project manager at the National Museum of American History.