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2018-2019 Partnership
Betterton Heritage Museum

100 Main Street

Betterton, MD 21610

The first partnership of the DSMP project was between the Betterton Heritage Museum and Washington College.  The Town of Betterton, Maryland, just 12 miles away from Washington College, has a rich history connected to agriculture, economics, and rural life throughout much of Maryland's history. 

 

The first phase of this project was completed by incoming first-year students in the college's Orientation Explore program, Washington's Secret History: Sleuths On The Shore. In just under three days students were able to engage in object-based primary-source research, digitize parts of the museum's collection and begin the creation of a VR exhibit of the museum's holdings.   

The second phase of this project was completed with students in an upper-level Museum Studies course in Fall 2018.  These students took the lead to further digitize the collection, add to the VR exhibit and create other digital learning resources.  These resources will be available on the Betterton Heritage Museum's website and the Kent County website.  In collaboration with Kent County Public Schools Department of Technology, KCPS teachers designed Social Studies instructional sequences which utilize the resources created by Washington College students through the partnership.   

By the end of the Fall 2018 semester, these two groups...
 

  • Created a digital library with over 4,200 images, digitally preserving many of the artifacts in the Betterton Heritage Museum's collection.
     

  • Recorded over 3.5 hours of oral history interviews and time-mapped them for future scholars.
     

  • Created a virtual reality tour of the museum with over 70 info buttons to help patrons near and far engage with the museum's collection.
     

In Spring of 2019 we began adding descriptions and metadata to the digital library to make it searchable. A student completing an independent study in Washington College's Education department added a mapping activity to the learning resources developed for this project. 

 

Summer of 2019 will be the hand-off of these assets to the museum so they can begin using them in their endeavors. 

Fall of 2019 will be the first time our KCPS educator partner will incorporate the museum's new digital assets into instruction. 

Above: The VR exhibit curated by Washington College Students through this partnership. 

Trouble loading?  Click here.

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View it in VR!

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Scan this QR code using the camera app on your smart-phone.  Click the             icon and place in headset.  Alternatively, use the link https://tiny.cc/bettertonvr in your phone's browser to access the tour. 

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Interactive Exhibit Panels

Students in Dr. Sara Clarke-De Reza's Spring 2022 Designing and Measuring Learning Experiences course used the museum's digital object and oral history collection to design the exhibit panels below. Printed versions of these panels will serve as the basis of a traveling exhibit aimed at K-12 students, while interactive virtual versions will link viewers back to oral history clips, 3D models, and other digital museum objects.

Student Digital Curators

Washington's Secret History
Pre-Orientation Group:

 

Rachel Elizabeth Jenkins

Emily Frances Hurley

Willa Rose Cohn

Agustina Ayelén Montenegro

Maggie Lane Moore

Fentress Reed Lynch

Mya Ann Spangenberg

Morgan Lynn Absher

Stephanie Grace Fleming

Kelly Elizabeth Ramsey

Instructors:

Raven Bishop, Instructional Technologist

Dr. Courtney E. Rydel, Professor of English

Professor Sara Clarke-Vivier's Fieldwork Course:


Rebecca Kanaskie

VARDIS Digital Imaging Consultants:

 

Jonathan Miranda

Eniya Jaber

Heather Fabritze

Museum, Community and Field Education Intern:

Hannah Flayhart

Professor Julie Markin's Museum Studies Course:
 

Nicole Dewitt

Olivia Diaz

Jason Elder

Patrick Jackson

Juliet Kaczmarczyk

Madison Kaye

Barbara MacGuigan

Mari Mullane

Moira Nesbitt

Kaitlyn Prichard

Madi Shenk

Faith Stahl

Harriet Starr

Sara Underwood

Lori Wysong

Professor Sara Clarke-DeReza's Designing and Measuring Learning Course:

Victoria Allen

Isabel Bendel-Simso

Michelle Henry

Grace Kelley

Tseyang Pewa

Betterton Collaboration News

Follow our Progress!

Read our blog and follow along as our project develops!  

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