I finally feel like I’m getting a grip on what I want to accomplish with my project, BEYOND BLACKFACE.  I was able to think through what the contents should be by storyboarding and discussing the project with my classmate, Dayna, as well as viewing the other projects and listening to some of the past student’s thoughts.

At this time, I’ve decided to go ahead and use Omeka as the platform because through its Exhibits features it does accommodate a series of related pages that a viewer can navigate easily through.  I’ve become to prototype some of the material in the pages and am experimenting with the presentation of the material so it is compelling and easy to use.

I also now have a better understanding that the pedagogy need not be presented as a series of “assignments” or “thought questions,” but rather the narrative itself can raise important questions and direct the site users’ interaction with the material so they take away a more sophisticated understanding of the topic.

While I can’t possibly cover this topic in its entirety, I think I’ve whittled down the key examples—from print, audio, image, and film resources—to tell the story in an engaging way.

Next steps are to test the site with a few people who fit the target user profile and to continue to build out the pages to complete the narrative.

The preliminary site with sample pages can be viewed here: http://www.eubieblake.net/exhibits/show/beyond-blackface/going-beyond-blackface