I think the post titled “But I Want You to Think!” by Jeremy Boggs is an excellent starting point when thinking about our mobile public history projects. Often academics can get caught up in the “informational” aspect of a project, but with any public history project the historian needs to keep their audience in mind first and foremost, and think about what degree to which the audience will be involved.
With Sarah Kessler’s “7 Ways Mobile Apps are Enriching Historical Tourism,” I took the next step in thinking about the app project and looked at a few examples of mobile apps created for historic sites and museums. It is interesting how these applications capitalize on aspects of a city or area that will be most engaging for tourists or those using the apps (i.e. Chicago’s mobsters, Hollywood’s Walk of Fame, murders and crime, etc.) I think it is going to be important to start small when building these apps, focusing on one aspect rather than trying to cover all of Boise. With any luck it could grow into something on the scale of the London Time Travel Explorer app. In the case of the Walk of Fame, which is such a large and meandering tourist attraction, a mobile app seems necessary to have when visiting.
From the “Augmenting Archaeology” article I went on to check out “The Civil War Augmented Reality Project” at http://acwarproject.wordpress.com/. I love this project because the creators have taken a strong interest in making the app truly interactive. While we’ve seen quite a few augmented reality apps, this one places an emphasis on stories, people and allowing the reader to choose their path in the app itself. While we can hope to add another dimension to historic places in our apps via pictures, audio, etc., this app takes it a step further and uses that information as a starting point for interactive stories behind the sites.
When asked during class the first week to think about public history projects, the first thing that came to my mind was, of course, interpretive signage. While that can still be very effective, looking at what historians are trying to do through these mobile apps should inspire everyone to think about the possibilities the public history field holds.