This presentation was given at the ALT-C Conference in Manchester, UK, on 11 September 2012. It describes the work of the Manufacturing Pasts project, which digitises and creates open learning materials on the topic of British industrial history.

1. Manufacturing Pasts:
Opening Britain’s Industrial Past to New Learners
and New Technologies
www.le.ac.uk/manufacturingpasts
Terese Bird
Learning Technologist and SCORE Research Fellow
www.le.ac.uk

2. What will we talk about?
• Project rationale
• How are we doing it?
• Breakthroughs:
– Images
– Mobile
– Research
– Social Media
– Fires
• Evaluation
Photo by esrad on Flickr

4. Why do we need Manufacturing Pasts?
• No historiography of British industrial decline
• What about the people?
• Dead zone: 70s – 90s
• Locked away
• Open materials
Photo by Wesley Fryer on Flickr

5. Listen to the professor…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVN4OOpKGMQ

6. How are we doing it?
• East Midlands Oral
History Archive --
le.ac.uk/emoha
• Myleicestershire.org.uk
• Special collections –
library and records
office
• New work
• OERs - Mashups

7. Examples
www.le.ac.uk/manufacturingpasts
• Prezi
• YouTube
• Flickr
• Audioboo
• Powerpoint ‘apps’
• Ebooks

8. Breakthroughs: Image-led

9. Breakthroughs: Mobile

10. Breakthroughs: Research
Analyzing and drawing conclusions from primary sources,
including image-based sources, is a key skill for historians and
specialists in many fields, and utilising digitised primary
sources has been effective in building such skills (Tally &
Goldenberg, 2005)

11. Breakthroughs: Social Media

12. Breakthroughs: Fires

13. Evaluation
• “it gives us a place to start; otherwise, you don’t
know where to start” [studying a topic]
• “an overview, but with some detail”
• Scholarly connections
– Gender issues
– Philanthropy of industrial leaders
– Loss of community when manufacturing failed

14. Embedding in learning
• Gobbet papers
• Seminars around some of the materials; group work
• ‘Transformations’ module assessment will be built
around
• PGCE Geography assessment will be built around
• PhD and Masters students will be introduced to
these as research sources

15. The story
so far…
Any
questions?
www.le.ac.uk/manufacturingpasts

16. References
• Beyond Distance Research Alliance, University of Leicestere. (2010). OTTER: Open,
Transferable and Technology-enabled Educational Resources — University of
Leicester. University of Leicester website. Retrieved March 12, 2012, from
http://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/beyond-distance-research-
alliance/projects/otter
• Beyond Distance Research Alliance, University of Leicester. (2011). OSTRICH: OER
Sustainability through Teaching & Research Innovation: Cascading across HEIs —
University of Leicester. University of Leicester website. Retrieved March 12, 2012,
from http://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/beyond-distance-research-
alliance/projects/ostrich
• Tally, B., & Goldenberg, L. B. (2005). Fostering Historical Thinking With Digitized
Primary Sources. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 5191, 1-21.
Retrieved from
http://students.stritch.edu/dlcaven/Article2/DigitizedPrimarySources.pdf
•