The reading for this week, Placing History, focuses on the development and emerging use of GIS to illustrate geography in the context of history. I think this tool is extremely useful and can really utilize the advantages of new technology and media that is available to us today.

     For my RICHES project I will be working in conjunction with the Sanford Student Museum project alongside Anne Ladyem. My focus will primarly be on building a social media strategy for the museum as community outreach to bolster fundraising efforts. However, I think that GIS is a tool that can still be utilized by the Sanford Student Museum greatly. While more complex topics such as discussing class hierarchy in countries with GIS would be too complex for the age group the museum targets, the museum does have a Geography Lab. The lab uses a large floor map of Florida for teaching, but they also have a Geochron to show what areas of the world are in night and day time as students view it. While the Geochron clock would probably interest younger students, who do rely more on visuals I think than language at their age, I think there is room to expand the possibilities by using GIS.

    The book discussed how one drawback to GIS is that most professionals think of history and geography as entirely separate fields, but I think it is important to remember that in grade school teaching the subjects are often interchangeable to some curriculums and students are required to study both, so it is logical to connect the two topics using technologies such as GIS.

    One of the other drawbacks discussed in the book is that fact most historians don’t want to think outside of linguistic terms and struggle to think in terms of the mathematics possible for GIS. I understand the drawback in comparison to current, working historians who have finished their training and are already working professionally. But I fail to understand the argument for future historians. If students struggle to grasp concepts such as mathematics or programming or useful skills useful for advanced methodology in history, then why are there not classes offered in understanding these methods? It feels like historians are often boxed into the typecast of being wordy, theoretical debaters who are incapable of understanding complex mechanics or basic hands-on engineering touched upon in many of the books we read.

    I don’t think the drawbacks discussed in the book about GIS are necessarily permanent drawbacks. I think they are areas that will be improved and overcome when future historians who are challenged to think and learn in more mechanical terms approach the problems with a more diverse knowledge base. It seems archaic to write them off as unfixable problems.