There are many possible digital routes our project could take, and I believe that we could make the best out of any of them. The styles I am most interested in right now are maps, timelines and videos, but I don’t intend to isolate one of them. I think it would be most useful to choose one as our “umbrella” and then create sub-aspects using different methods to explore our different interests and subtopics. This would give each of us a bit of independence and freedom as to which medium/s we want to use, as well as the material we want to cover. For instance, making one big timeline (examples: timeline of gothic literature, Jane Austen’s life, the development of empire in England, the women’s rights movement in England, how Austen was influenced by different significant historical/ political events, etc) and then using varying mediums for each event on the timeline that the user can click on and discover (click and discover a video, click and discover an interactive map of an important landmark, click and discover an exhibit of important objects, short podcast, photos, newspaper clippings, comics, fun facts about the time period, etc)
I might personally want to create a map or some sort of illustrative comic or series of comics of a situation or event that users could click on, similar to the 200th anniversary comics we looked at yesterday. I would like an opportunity to engage my art and design abilities.
I personally most like the idea of using a timeline for the final “umbrella” format of our timeline. At this point, I believe that The 3 digital tools/ platforms I am most interested in using at this point in time are WordPress/ WordPress Plugins, Prezi, and 3D modeling or other software to create interactive maps and simple “virtual experiences.” Pros of WordPress are it is user friendly, relatively inexpensive, customizable, and responsive. (“Responsive Web design (RWD) is a Web design approach aimed at crafting sites to provide an optimal viewing experience—easy reading and navigation with a minimum of resizing, panning, and scrolling—across a wide range of devices” -definition courtesy of ux.stackexchange.com) It also offers a variety of “plugins” which are like widgets you can embed in your websites. One con is that it does not offer as much customization as using bare code such as JavaScript on a platform like DreamWeaver (which I have used extensively, but would be very difficult and possibly out of my depth to produce a website of the caliber I desire all on my own without help from someone who is not an expert.)
Prezi is a great way to put a twist on the “PowerPoint” format I envisioned for the sub-videos with voiceovers that users would be shown upon clicking on a timeline event. As Bridget has proven, it may even be a good medium for the general “umbrella” timeline, if we don’t want to create it directly on a web page. It allows for engaging uses of motion in the presentation format, which draws users in and helps them to remember information more easily. It’s completely free and based on the web, so we don’t have to download or pay for any kind of app like we would with PowerPoint. One con of using Prezi is that it can actually cause motion sickness among sensitive users, which may limit accessibility. It’s also not possible to work on Prezis when you are outside of wifi/ internet service access.
Finally, the interactive map idea is the least developed for me. At DH Day, many of the presenters had created projects using 3D modeling or interactive map software for data modeling, but I did not get any information on which programs they used. Upon googling, it seems that many of these softwares are available for free. However, 3D modeling boasts a tough learning curve, and may be too much for us to tackle in the time we have available. Any interactive map software like the ones I saw at DH Day would either be not customizable enough for what we want to do, or be too difficult to learn.