Links for Jumpstarting Your Digital Media Projects
“Easy Publishing of Digital History Projects”
Virginia Forum, March 24, 2011
Jeffrey McClurken, University of Mary Washington, jmcclurk@umw.edu
Links from Digital Poster Session
Blogging services
- WordPress.com (they host) & WordPress.org (you or a webhosting service hosts)
- Google’s Blogger.com (free)
- Paid services like Typepad
WordPress as platform for individual projects:
Individual digital projects – US History in Film
- Bonnie & Clyde — http://eweaver.umwblogs.org/bonnieandclyde/
- Pearl Harbor — http://cinemeg.umwblogs.org/
- Little Women — http://cee719.umwblogs.org/
- Forrest Gump — http://runforrestrun.umwblogs.org/
History of Technology Museum Home
WordPress as basis for Digital Archives/Digital History group projects I’ve supervised
- Historical Markers – http://fredmarkers.umwblogs.org/
- Farmer Project – http://jamesfarmer.umwblogs.org/
- Life and Legacy of Mary Ball Washington — http://maryballwash.umwblogs.org/
Other UMW WordPress-based scholarly Projects
- Marie McCallister’s 18th-Century Audio Blog — http://ecaudio.umwblogs.org/
- Claudia Emerson’s Literary Journals (e.g., ECOllective) — http://ecollective.umwblogs.org/
- Marjorie Och’s Online Venice Exhibit — http://venice.umwblogs.org/
- Steve Harris’s Researching Russian and Soviet Resources –http://russianhistorysources.umwblogs.org/
- Jess Rigelhaupt’s James Farmer Oral History Project — http://farmeroralhistory.umwblogs.org/
- WordPress site created by UMW webmaster — http://jamesfarmer.umw.edu/
Other history institutions using WordPress
- Morrison County Historical Society, Little Falls, MN —http://morrisoncountyhistory.org/
- Write up of how/why they did it —http://discussions.mnhs.org/MNLocalHistory/?p=176
- Historians at the NPS in Virginia have two WordPress blogs — Fredericksburg Remembered (http://fredericksburghistory.wordpress.com/) is about public history in the Fredericksburg, Stafford, and Spotsylvania area, while Mysteries and Conundrums (http://npsfrsp.wordpress.com/) is about ongoing research on the Civil War in the region.
WordPress resources
The Basics
WordPress.com – let someone else host
- 10 Steps to get a blog and get started — http://learn.wordpress.com/
- Themes available on wordpress.com — http://theme.wordpress.com/themes/
- Try Twenty-Ten as you’re starting out http://theme.wordpress.com/themes/twentyten
The differences between WordPress.com and WordPress.org are explained clearly here — http://en.support.wordpress.com/com-vs-org/
Rolling your own WordPress installation with WordPress.org
- Get a web host – Purchasing your own domain and webhosting — http://ds106.us/2011/01/12/domain-and-webhosting/
- Another useful guide on choosing a webhosting provider — http://www.profhacker.com/2010/04/12/from-the-archives-website-hosting-101/
- Get the software — WordPress.org — http://wordpress.org/
- Support for Install Your Own WordPress
- 5-minute install guide — http://codex.wordpress.org/Installing_WordPress
- Using WordPress — http://codex.wordpress.org/First_Steps_With_WordPress
- Other help — http://codex.wordpress.org/Main_Page
- Plug-ins add various functionality, (note that these can’t be used on the centralized WordPress.com blogs)
- Great relevant plug-in for scholars/researchers: FD Footnotes Plug-in adds the ability to create easy, nicely formatted footnotes — http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/fd-footnotes/
- PDF booklet that teaches you how to install and upgrade plug-ins. http://www.wendycholbi.com/wp-content/uploads/WPEssentialsToolkit.pdf
Institutional installations of WordPress.org – great if you have the support staff to run it.
- UMWBlogs.org
- Support for using WordPress at UMW – most of the advice applies generally to WordPress
- CUNY Academic Commons
- List of Higher Education Institutions using WordPress
Posts on blogging, history, or WordPress
Other ideas for using blogs — http://umwblogs.org/support/ten-ways-to-use-umw-blogs/
Posts for US Department of Education’s TeachingHistory site on blogging and digital history.
The Chronicle of Higher Education’s ProfHacker has a number of useful posts on using WordPress
- Finding Academic WordPress Themes — http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/finding-the-best-wordpress-themes-for-your-academic-needs/22667
- Plugins — http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/5-wordpress-plugins-that-i-simply-cant-live-without-and-why/25666
- Links to other posts on blogging/WordPress — http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/from-the-archives-on-blogging/30589
Other Free/Cheap Digital Publishing Tools
- Omeka.org/Omeka.net
- MIT’s Simile Timeline — http://www.simile-widgets.org/timeline/
- YouTube.com
- Flickr.com
- List of Digital storytelling tools – Alan Levine’s 50 ways to tell a digital story http://cogdogroo.wikispaces.com/50+Ways
