SUMMER 2003 •
VOLUME 8, NUMBER 1
SPECIAL ISSUE: REAPING THE REWARDS OF
THE PLAN FOR MOUNT HOLYOKE 2003
Plan
goal: Explore the creative use of information technology
in learning and teaching
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FRED
LEBLANC
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Robert Schwartz, professor
of history, will work with students to create an interactive
atlas of the campus from its origins to the present. |
When history professor
Robert Schwartz's new atlas goes live on the Internet in 2004,
the history of the campus will be open to exploration through
maps, photos, and the evocation of memories--all with the click
of a mouse. Digital, interactive, and engaging, the historical
atlas will chart the evolution of the campus and its memorable
places from the founding of the College to the present day, using
state-of-the-art geographic information systems technology to
visualize, interpret, and connect maps, pictures, and texts. Despite
all the technology, "this is a humanized atlas," says Schwartz.
"On digital maps of various periods, we'll create links, for example,
between Lower Lake and Skinner Green, with alumnae memories of
these places, which, like Wordsworth's 'spots of time,' can be
recalled and reimagined."
This fall, students
will help produce the atlas in Schwartz's new course, Mapping
the Memorable: A Cultural and Environmental History of the Mount
Holyoke College Campus. Working in teams, they will create components
of the atlas by bringing together images, documents, and streaming
video recordings of alumnae interviews in specially designed Web
pages that link to the atlas's cartographic features. In a collaborative
effort, Schwartz will build the atlas's computer cartography in
the GeoProcessing Laboratory with the assistance of Thomas Millette,
associate professor of geography and director of the Center for
Environmental Literacy, and Chris Hayward, the center's lab director.
For the historical materials and memories, he is working with
Peter Carini, director of archives and special collections; Aime
DeGrenier and Rob Primmer, Library, Information, and Technology
Services instructional technology consultants; reference librarian
Bryan Goodwin; and Nancy Lech of the Alumnae Association.
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