Due to the strange COVID start of our year, my PLP 12 cohort saw an interesting beginning to our first project called Marking History. In this project we were to research, collaborate and then design a historical marker for a walking tour in the Deep Cove community. The first 5 weeks of our schooling (the entirety of this project) were completely done in two groups. I was in group A with half the class and the other half in group B. This meant I was in class two days of the week (with group A), working from home two days (by myself), and online one day (with everybody).

This system, although different, didn’t have too much of a negative impact on my class in the beginning. For my historical markers, I first had to learn the details and subject matter that would go into my marker. For the first little while I did general research with two very valuable books. Echoes Across the Inlet and Echoes Across Seymour. These books had a ton of rare information on some of the oldest accounts from around the cove. It actually turns out these books were made in part by The Deep Cove Heritage Society which was the group we would be working with to officiate and advertise our tour. Because the Heritage Society already had a bus tour, this walking tour was almost like a new, upgraded version. It was in this part of the project I really started to learn the curricular competency “Take Historical Perspective”. It was through lots of research and hearing the same story from different sides that I was able to form my own perspective on history and well as more effectively interpret multiple perspectives of the past.

When we were ready to start creating our markers, I was given The Deep Cove Yacht Club or D.C.Y.C for short. As a very central and important part of the community, I was excited to cover this topic, I knew I wouldn’t have to be scraping the bottom of the barrel for information and I would be able to curate a great marker.

 

Actually creating the marker was one of my favourite parts of this project. Looking through old, rare photos. Writing a short blurb that had good historical content and competencies and Google maps problem solving. The competency I improved the most on here is definitely writing and designing text. Throughout multiple iterations and edits I had to rewrite and redesign my marker several times. The critique given to my marker really helped me in bettering my marker and looking back from the final edition to the first copy really made me see the value of this critique.

For the final edition of my marker I had to create a version that would go in a pamphlet of the class’s creation (mostly group B) and a version that would be integrated with Google maps. The pamphlet was definitely the easier of the two, only including what I already talked about, but the Google maps had some more interesting things I added. First off, it also had a digital enhancement. The digitize enhancement could be anything I wanted that added o the value of my Google Maps marker. I decided to create a photo book that chronicled the D.C.Y.C throughout time. In the beginning there was empty land, hardly any development in the cove and in the end, a massive building, huge dock and even a second location. This part of my project made me use the curricular competency of “Using Resources”. I definitely had to look far and wide for some of those old images and even more so for accurate descriptions to put beside them. Sources here were very diverse, definitely accurate (primary source) and quite reliable.

When creating and especially finalizing our markers, we all selected roles to help with the final design and ensure the success of our online markers. I took two roles. One role as a lead designer and another as a tech wiz. As the lead designer I would create the main heading blurb for the tour and as a tech wiz I would do my best to smooth out any technical problems within the Google map tour. 

As a class we decided we wanted to make this tour as accessible as possible as we wanted the widest audience to be able to take this tour. One thing we did was to create a QR code for our Google maps tour and put it on the pamphlet. That way anyone with a phone could take a picture of the QR code and be able to look at the tour. One more thing we did to make this tour accessible is create an auditory walk through. This voice recording would be similar to the blurb but would contain more information, usually being around 1:30-2:00 minutes long. Once all that was done, everyone’s location was was put together polished and published.

Looking back on this project, it went by so fast and so much happened that it’s hard to cover all in one blog post. As someone who’s not a fan of massive bricks of text, this was one of the hardest project end posts to keep concise. Reflecting on this project, I learned a lot. I am definitely confident in the historical knowledge and curricular competencies but I learned other things as well. I learned the value of good communication inside of a large team, especially when everybody can’t be physically present. And I also learned a lot about the people I worked with (some of them being new to my PLP group). It’s really interesting seeing how everyone’s brain works and how some tasks that may seem hardest to you are the easiest for other people. The last big takeaway I would like to add to this post is how much more enriched learning feels when it actually has significance to the outside world. In particular, my local community. I know I am proud of what I created and I’m happy to know it will be seen by lots of people. My hope is that some of the learning I have done in this project can be passed on to other people via my project.