I’m sure you will find a ready audience to discuss the intellectual and pedagogical aspects of your project – not just the technical and technological. I know there are others out there – at both the high school and university level – who are thinking deeply about teaching and digital history. Curious to hear what they have to add to this conversation.

This sounds like a great project. When will we be able to see the website? How engaged will your students be in the technological aspects of this project? At CPHDH, we do similar projects that allow students to publish their research online (see, for example: csudigitalhumanities.org/exhibits/). Even at the college level, we have come to expect a certain level of variance in quality of research, attention to detail, and technical aptitude. I’ll be interested to hear how you are approaching quality control and technical training. We are always tweaking our process, experimenting with new approaches, and, increasingly, finding many reasons to build our own tools (namely, plug-ins and simple extensions of existing software like Omeka) in hopes of improving the student and end user experience.

As an aside, have you or your students checked out Ohio Civil War 150 (www.ohiocivilwar150.org/)? ~ Full disclosure: this is another project I am involved in ~ The site was designed with students and teachers (as well as the public) in mind. There are opportunities for your students to contribute their research there as well and I know that the folks at OHS would love to work with you to make that happen.

In any case, I’m looking forward to hearing more.