Digital Tools: How They Contributed

 The use of digital tools like our blogs, Omeka, timeline, map, video, and images, have deepened our understanding of the theme of modernization, of the cities, and of urbanism more generally. The tools provide a dimension that goes beyond simple text and speech. Such visualization through things like videos and images provides an extra dynamic. While one may be able to visualize the city, structure, district, or time period through words, images and videos provide concrete and hard visual evidence, and provide an extra layer of support for our work. Additionally, they provide the readers with an extra, more specific understanding of the area under consideration, and of the topic more generally. For example, for the Omeka exhibit about the New England Aquarium, a simple description of the aquarium might have provided a mental image of the concrete structure on the waterfront, but only a video of an MBTA ferry passing by amongst a backdrop of the aquarium can truly complete the image in the readers’ mind, enabling the writers to go beyond text and to provide an extra dynamic to their work. 

Furthermore, specific and more fine-tuned tools like timelines or Google maps also were able to add their own dimension and contribution to the works. Such digital items can put the whole piece into a new perspective, or can deepen readers’ understanding of the topic at hand. Additionally, they reinforce the information being described in the piece in a new, refreshing, and reinforcing way. For example, for the exhibit about the Basilica Cistern, my explanation of the history of the cistern, and of the developments and different time periods was reinforced in the end by a beautiful timeline. Not only did the timeline reinforce and summarize everything that I had said throughout the exhibit, but it presented the information in a memorable, and visually stunning way that truly reinforced the information in the readers’ minds. 

Finally, the actual tools to convey our whole works were the blogs and the Omeka sites. Blogs were primarily used for shorter, more intimate discussions about readings and specific themes. Through our incorporation of readings and films in blogs, we were able to get a personal understanding of the city, while also primarily engaging with the course materials. The Omeka pages were broader, and focused more on specific sites throughout the cities that told a story. It was in our Omeka exhibits that we were able to incorporate neat tools like images, videos, the timeline, and maps. Through a broader platform with different pages, and with the incorporation of these tools in Omeka, we were able to present a holistic, yet in depth exploration of our assigned sites.