do about it? and so they turned over their material to the fbi, they lobbied the governor of mississippi, they went on the hill, and talked to congress. the case was reopened, and edgar a killam went to jail. [applause] history works! thank you so much! so for our next feature session, it's

called making history accessible through technology. this panel will explore how presidential sites libraries and so, our next featured session is called making history accessible through technology. this panel will explore how presidential sites, libraries, and historical organizations can incorporate innovative technology into their educational and digital resources to reach a broader audience. while creating better research, better experiences for visitors and learners. this conversation features presenters who represent technology companies and museum spaces as well as individuals with insights into new trends in educational technology. now i have the great pleasure with introducing our moderator and dear friend, teresa carlson, president and chief rhodes officer of splunk and vice

chairperson for board of directors for the white house historical association. [applause] >> thank you. >> joining teresa, are our panelists ed o'keefe, chief executive of the theodore resident -- foundation. jean-claude brizard, president and chief executive officer of digital promise, dr.r jamila mjoore pewu, assistant professor history manatees and new media history and california state university, fullerton. and gary sandling vice president of strategy and chief content officer of the thomas jefferson foundation in monticello. enjoy the discussion of history in technology as well as different digital platforms we used to make our past more accessible and readily available to you all. thank you. [applause] >> good morning, everyone.

already an exciting day, love the panels, how many got here early? did you see any, did you go last night to the panel of, oh my gosh wasn't unbelievable? so inspiring. [applause] i just went home last night back to the room with my head spinning on what these individuals had done and that we got to look across 40 years of presidential information from their chiefs of staff. it was unbelievable. so, i hope you enjoy our panel today, and it's about making history accessible through technology, which is near and dear to my heart, being a technology executive for the last 23 years. and in this session we're gonna explore innovative ways that presidential sites, libraries can incorporate cutting edge technology. and if you think about what happened during covid, it's even more important that we allow accessibility

virtually through history. and it's one of the big things we've been trying to do more and more at the white house historical association. so, i'm excited you've already met all our panelist we have amazing individuals today with such a great and breadth of experience. before we get started i just wanted to share one quick thing about myself, i am from a really teeny, tiny, town called nancy, kentucky. and i was sharing with someone i can't read, my parents for both teachers, my mother was the first female administrator in the county that we lived in. and i i can't remember a day in my life that we were not involved in the political process. my parents were always, whether it was a board of elections for the school board or the local county attorney, or the governor, or the president, i was dialing numbers at age six. my parents

were republicans and we were dialing, we go and dial and call people. knock on doors, the groundbreaking feet on the street kind of thing. i never dreamed i would get together with the white house. and when i actually got to go i couldn't believe i was there with. and one of the things, one of the goals of the white house historical association is making the white house accessible to every individual. because the white house is the people's house, it's great that presidents get to live there, it's their home the time they're there but it belongs to everyone, and that's really one of our goals. and i just wanted to share i have a great privilege, my dad passed away 11 years ago. and he never got to go to the white house but i had the great privilege of like three years ago before covid, taking my 90 year old mother on a private tour to the white house. it was one of the most amazing things i've ever done and to watch her, she, she was in good health but she would not get in a wheelchair. she walked every step, we took her

up the presidential elevator and i just tend to share that because i think the libraries and all these other sites are so important to the states, and individuals, where the presidents were born, where they had a history and i think that's what you're gonna hear about coming to life here. with that i'll jump in. all right, so let's talk about what kind of happened during the pandemic. many of the sites they weren't open to the public, they were restricted hours, they limited children, if you got there you have to wear a mask. even the students and historians really couldn't show up to do their work every day. and what i'd like to ask you is how did you use technology, or in this case the digital promise -- because i'm gonna go to jean claude -- and how did you use that to promote technology? and i asked jean-claude, as he started on how digital promise got started

and what they're about, why they're there? >> thank you, a bit of a history we actually organized by congress in 2008 as part of the higher education act under george w. bush. we were launched in 2011 under president obama. as you can see and you can look at my board, my board has to be approved by congress so very nonpartisan, or bipartisan organization. we a global nonprofit we do a ton of work in the u.s., about 40 plus states and about 15 countries around the world. as you can imagine given who we are, but who were creating as a national center on advance information in digital technologies and research. we have a massive team of people who are learning scientists, who are technologists, former educators, who are working with schools across the u.s. and around the world. so, as you can imagine when the pandemic hit we leverage a lot of what we knew, when were created to do to support teachers and principals, and school superintendents. we have this amazing construct called the

lead of innovative schools that now has a membership of 125 school districts around the country we just last week in cincinnati, looking at the wall of technology enabling will be called powerful learning. so, we get things like hosting a tub of webinars, to really understand how to leverage technology, how do we leverage what we know about technology and in the homes? for example, we saw that management system, lms's, are becoming more or less ubiquitous around the u.s.. the promise was how do we help school districts leverage that kind of full of understanding, to how do we support kids who will be sitting at home. but the important thing was to look at what it did for parents. parents now have a view in the classroom that they never had before. so the question is how do you support parents, to understand with the kids are learning, there's so much more we can talk about. we have an amazing structure called the

verizon innovative schools program, vils, it's a partnership with verizon going back five years. they spent nearly $400 million in a direct donation to support about 550 schools across the u.s.. and demonstrate what it's like to be devices, ipads. like chromebooks, into the classrooms what content goes into these devices more importantly how do you train teachers on this technology. the schools had a seamless transition, into vibrant learning back into in-person learning, so that leverage quite quite a bit what this looks like in practice. and this is the example of what could happen with these kinds of programs. >> that's great, i love that program. i was embarrassed that i did know about and i was like why don't i know about this. dr. pewu, i love -- you all pivoted from onsite gallery space digital spaces can you

talk about how you use digital during this time. >> yeah, so i teach students a lot of graduate students in public history how to interview technology into public history work. so, for me it's a natural outreach to extend that two historic sites and organizations that are also looking to develop their online presence or to develop and bring their collections to a wider population using technology. at the time in the pandemic it was actually -- so bridgeport, connecticut, and we were building the backhand, repository a digital repository. because the huge part of the capacity building was owning their narrative, and owning their story and they have things spread across multiple laptops, hard drives. and so, that's what we are working on. once the pandemic had based his season desist we need an online presidents and their website needs routinely crash with 50 visitors. so, we

we immediately switched to creating a website that was kind of in the future for them but we created right at that moment. a key part of what i emphasized was that, similar to what jean-claude noticed is that teachers, parents were looking for materials to enhance student engagement but also to familiarize themselves with local histories and stories. so, we ended up creating the first phase of the website by building, really making the primary documents available and having a place to store them. putting some of those images out, we had a brick and mortar, as i call it exhibit, and it's been on display, for literacy programs and local initiatives to train students as docents and so we

weren't able to move but we are able to get images and behind that exhibit on the web. >> that's really exciting. you know it's so interesting to hear you all talk about the digital pivot that i think so many people actually get to make. but can i ask you what types of materials that your finding that's working best for a digital audience and where do you see the digital audience evolving, i'm going to start with gary -- how many of you have been to monticello before? so, it exhausts me when i go and see what president jefferson did. i'm always so tired. so, i'm really excited to hear what's -- digital asset? we kept relevant content and we start so at first it was let's just let's get something, people like >> yeah, i think

like everyone people decade, there is a lot of back >> yeah, i think like everyone else we've pivoted and scrap and forth in the museum field, well, does building a museum website prevent people from visiting that type of argument went on muddled to think about how we for a while. there doesn't seem kept relevant content. and at first it was just let's get something online. we built a website in 1997, it was the first year we had an online presence. and as many you've to be a lot of evidence to because there was been this field probably know probably that. now of course, digital is so ubiquitous, it is an engagement tool, it went from being may be secondary for us to being primary. -- there's no such thing, there is no such thing as a general audience. there just isn't, right? we have constituencies. there are some that make up the bulk of our, the people who are engaged with us, as opposed to others. and we were trying to find, we created socials for kids, families when they were at home. we did live streams. we just started, like a lot of folks did, we start doing weekly live streams at first. we had some support from the nih, from cares funding to do

that. we pitched for a grant, but we've now built that into a sustainable long term strategy. so once a week we still do a lot -- with gives us a much wider opportunity of topics that are harder to do -- perhaps an on site experience or exhibition. it brings fresh voices. bringing people to the table who otherwise you might not hear about. last year we had about 1 million views for those 2021 live streams. what we are trying to figure out now is how do you take that data, those emails, all those things that you leverage as and then deepen that engagement. that is, i think for us, the question that we are wrangling with now. that is really what, we did was create more short form. short form, that is tough in our field. being concise? short form content. videos, podcast, and live streams. >> gary, what format are you using for your livestream.

>> we use streamyard for our live streams, we talk to colleagues we talk to folks in other institutions. how we learn what we thought would work best really had to do with some trial and error that everyone was undergoing at that point. the other thing i will mention, quickly, is the first day of the pandemic we had already been experimenting with zoom. we knew what zoom was before march. >> i think we all do now, right? >> yeah, we all do now! but before march, 2020 we knew what zoom was. we were piloting a live virtual tour for school groups. so outdoors. wi-fi connections weren't great. we did build an outside correction for wi-fi six or seven years ago. and so, from day one we could offer live virtual tours. we were able to pivot the first day we closed. it was great. we have learned a lot since then. >> that makes sense. you know there were so many during covid. linkedin live, twitter, there are so many ways. you can try multiple things. you don't

really know, exactly, what is going to work. and i think in a digital world you're going to want to hit multiple audiences. you can't have one thing, you need to try multiple things. and, let's go to you. you are in a big project right now, really big project! you and i met this morning. so, president roosevelt is another one, i think we should have a contest. who got to more places and did more things, roosevelt or jefferson? we have the presidential run at the washington nationals. we need to have something. >> only one gave a speech after getting shot. >> i appreciate that. >> so, talk a little bit about what your plan is. how are you going to use the digital assets in your planning process? >> well, teresa, thank you so much. i want to begin with gratitude with stewart and anita. anita, i know you've been planning this event for two years! we are all here in person, live. thank you. such a pleasure to be with you. the whha has been a tremendous

supporter of the theodore roosevelt presidential library project which owes a debt of gratitude to dr. stacey cordery from dickinson state university is in the audience. at dsu who got this idea started about two years ago. and the last two years, and remarkably, during the pandemic. probably due to digital we have really rocketed to where we are now on the cusp of acquiring the land on which the future set will be situated, in the badlands of western north dakota. that will start next month, a groundbreaking in june of 2023. we will open, this is a perfect segue into lunch, on july 4th 2026. what was interesting about the pandemic, we are not pivoting to digital. we are born in digital. we are digital native museum. from the star, one, the association with dsu and the

theodore roosevelt center they have done a remarkable job of digitizing 70,000 records from the archive of theodore roosevelt. and we helped facilitate a grant through the rob and melanie walton foundation of $10 million to the theater roosevelt center to continue that tremendous work, working in partnership with them. and for the museum itself, it just affords us an incredible opportunity to think about the digital native experience from the start. our platform is leadership, citizenship, and conservation, and our goal is to bring people, yes, to western north dakota to get out into nature. to experience theodore roosevelt national park, to go to the elkhorn ranch, to the cradle of conservation. maybe we'll get several thousand, or several million, 3 million at mount

rushmore, 4 million at yellowstone. there is an audience that we can reach their. but there's seven billion people on the planet. so we think of this as a pilgrimage and a platform. the platform is where we think we can take leadership, citizenship, and conservation as a much wider and greater audience. i will give this example, think of this as a conservation library. sort of what reagan is to defense, theodore roosevelt is to conservation. the one signature issue, of the many great accomplishment, it lends itself to getting outside, getting outdoors, getting into nature. it may be the opposite of saying digital. we are working with a lot of really interesting augmented reality companies. they know that life is going to live with a device at your side or in your pocket. how can you actually use theodore roosevelt and the presidential site to come as a way to let tr be an avatar of the outside experience, a guide to all of the national parks, all of the areas of our state parks, all those other areas outside. we are really thinking of this as a distributed digital site from the star.

>> well, it's the metaverse! everyone knows about the metaverse, right? and that is really what we will be able to experience. so realtime polling. if you could do a digital, you didn't have to go there in person, but you could do a digital, realtime walk-through of this museum, would you go? would you be open to doing that? so i love that. i think, you know, stewart is going to kill me but i have this idea of doing a passport for every student to get to every library. and you get something from the white house historical association as you reach these peaks. because if we could reach all those students. or even just me, i would love to go through them. you could do it in person, or digitally. i think that would be a great way to do it. >> i want to add a bit to that. the two programs, one in particular that talks very specifically to the ar or vr technology. we have a partnership with the un called my own work 360. we have young people around the world submitting videos of their work,

their life, where they live, that builds a level of empathy that you couldn't do, you couldn't buy. the idea of bringing sites to people versus just coming to the sites. i think that's an amazing way of doing it. how you curate that with social studies, other subject areas, integrating that into the curriculum for teachers and principals i think that is a fundamental part of this. one last point if i may i would love to push here. we tend to expect school administrators or teachers to play a general contractor. they have to make sense of all of these various pieces. the last panel we talked about partnership. the more we can do that, the more we can provide shovel ready tools for teachers to actually use the easier it is for them to make use. one quick example of that, we were working with a civics network. pulling in facing history, civics. one platform that has

tools from all of the civics organizations. think of like a netflix playbook. you can just use in kabul. on the back end is a learning science engine. this is a part of learning science you're actually addressing, either party may want to consider, when you building up these units of study or class lessons. >> i think jean-claude, one thing we are thinking about is not only putting those tools in the hands of teachers but students, children are creators now. they are editing live on their devices and they like to put together pieces of visual puzzles. it's a very visual medium. we are thinking about, inside the museum experience, learning from all of the wonderful presidential sites that exist, but how can they learn from doing? theodore roosevelt is a wonderful example but let's face it, and they come out and say facts and figures from theodore roosevelt's life that doesn't really imbue them with the spirit of tr. we want people to

learn not just about but from theodore roosevelt's example and take that out to the digital world where -- give them pieces of the great story, so they can take their version of the story. tell their story through this example. >> i love that idea because if you think about learning today, students, even me, i was a visual learner. to be able to create something where they can put something into their world. how does it relate to who they are at every level? i love that you can do that. find a student in every classroom they can walk the classroom through and have that dialogue. and i think in a digital world, i think it is much more available. dr. pewu, in your world, have you thought about these ideas? how to bring more individuals into you that experience. >> yes, i was saying to gary, this is what i think about every day. yeah, so one of the things that this conversation brings up is the issue that we

all face whether we are engage with digital tool technologies it is building digital literacy skills. and so, that is one of the areas that i emphasize both in my teaching, and my outreach is that the technology is there. as you said, the metaverse is here what we need to do is take a step back and really honed digital literacy skills, media literacy, information literacy, -- excuse me. we can do that using the technologies at the same time. so again, it is that idea of thinking and doing simultaneously. one of the ways that i am actively trying to bring more people into this space is i am serving as co-p. i. on an andrew mellon grant called digital ethnic futures consortium. and the entire purpose of this, this large

grant, is to support the work of faculty librarians and students who want to engage the intersections of ethnic studies and what we call the digital humanities, but could very much be digital tools, scholarship, broadly. my emphasis in that is really to create intentional pathways into the digital public humanities. so, not just assuming that students may take one or two courses and then be equipped to go out and to work at one of your sites, but to really allow them to hone that through both curricular and cocurricular experiences, including one that i am piloting now, which is taking students from a minoritized community within the university and bringing them on into this

digital collaborative in which they are working actively with one of the digital public humanities projects, creating a data story telling and mapping of black-owned businesses throughout orange county, california. >> i love that. >> yeah, creating projects like that. i think you are right. students also are going to become the practitioners tomorrow, and the more they can see themselves reflected in the practice, i think the better the practice becomes. >> yes. in the last panel i thought they talked about, i am a huge fan of icivics. i just love that program. teaching civics through to all of us they have such a great curriculum. if you consider taking that curriculum and make sure everyone understands they have the ability to participate in the democratic process and why that matters to each and every individual, that can change the world.

>> well, i think it's also a matter of equity representation. and doctor pewu, your work is clearly advancing this and what we can what's -- been interesting about tackling zeroes about 100 years after the president is gone from earth is we have a philosophy that we will humanize, not lionize tr. a building in western north dakota where there are the five tribal nations of north dakota, and allowed us to engage in an intentional dialogue of whose story is being told and how is it being told? because often, i think, these institutions are seen as places where a story or a version of the story is being told and not the whole complicated story. and history, as alluded to in the previous panel, is hard, history is complicated. museums are supposed to do hard things. and i think what's been refreshing and really encouraging about our effort is that we then with a historic figure, can engage

in really complicated dialogues with communities who haven't been heard and allow them through our to tell their stories. >> yes. >> ours. >> and we have complicated topics throughout our history that we have to take on. slavery, the things that we -- like we have to take these topics. on and things tend change overtime and we have to address them head on in each and every one of these sites and i want to to talk and jump into something that kind of for a moment what can be the dark side of the technology world when you're trying to put these things up. so we have to worry about cybersecurity, we have to worry about protecting our data, we have to make sure that we are responding. and one of the questions that came from the audience last night was about how did you, with the former chief of staff, how did you deal with the press and the media? well, over this period of time, technology changed, right? you went from not really

having twitter, even [inaudible] smart phones definitely was in the white house for president i boma got a, he was the first to actually bring technology in, which changed the, even the thinking the way the white house operated. i remember them fishing out or the computers and pinion i've tags, which was like crazy, which was alike like crazy to do that. but for a year, you have to think about that idiosyncrasies in the what you are living. how are you addressing, one, security of your data and information and making sure your sites stay up? and to, i'll say, how do you respond when there could be negative press? which is things you have to do, are you repaying that all. start with your doctor [inaudible]. >> we built out tools even online first students, was also to make sure complying with all the laws regarding one information you can or can't collect. exactly, with ferpa.

it was that layer of consideration protecting the information and data of people. we also have ticketing database that has 150,000 transactions in an annual, has to be secure as well as the educational assets. so, we were hacked in 2017. so, we had to deal with this problem firsthand, and so how we've done it, we don't want to put all your eggs in one basket, hosting services in different places for different purposes. the appropriate degrees of security and it's an important part of that i'm beefed up our i. t. team to make sure that we have we do penetration tests regularly, and things like that, to look for potential vulnerabilities. but how to handle media and press, were no stranger to controversy in terms of our interpretation of jefferson and of monticello, and before social media it was one way you could do that, since social

media there's of course very different ways. you need to respond much faster, and you to be prepared to engage directly on the platforms when necessary to do that. i know everybody has that issue, right? and how much. we put out a statement this week about ukraine, and we made the point that our investment community and board of trust fees had adopted a motion to have the outsourced investment firm, that manages our portfolio and assets of russia or its satellites. >> i'll clap to that, good job. >> we don't usually make statements about what our investment committee decides or what the board of trustees decides, but we did in this case, and immediately on twitter when it went up one, two.

>> one 1000, towo thousand. >> clearly and of course you have to decide what you engage in, often you don't but really need to work out in advance when you're prepared to say and i think that and just maintaining the media relations in the digital, that's always the idea but in a digital era, i think it's really incumbent. and these platforms give us of course, we might not always otherwise have talked to, even if we don't necessarily agree with what's -- >> the freedom of speech we have in our platforms now, it goes to extremes. but i'm really very impressed with what you're doing because you do need to respond in nanoseconds like if you have these things it's when technology thing that most folks mess and in the present media you need to engage or not. and then you need to have your response ready to go. you need seen 24/7 to be doing this and as technology has changed the world. who else wants to reply? >> let me be the first to say

thank goodness twitter did not exist during theodore roosevelt's age [laughs] we would not be building a presidential site. i would say two quick things, on fundraising since we're a presidential site that is not yet been existence, we have had to think about a lot of security relative to the very many ways that people want to donate now from venmo to paypal to crypto. if you want to be successful in modern presidential sites and maybe in general i think you need to be sort of prepared like a presidential campaign. if you have bundlers who are probably working in the bulk of your actual fundraising. if you don't have popular support, you're not a popular sites. and so, the means by which people

can donate and the east by which they can. and that has to be secure. that's the data, that's their financial information, that's the trust that you're building with them as an organization. and i think in terms of the publicity side of it. again, 100 years after the president has left the earth you have an opportunity i think to intentionally engage in a dialogue. the theodore roosevelt presidential library foundation was asked by the roosevelt family and the american museum of natural history to accept on a long term loan the equestrian statue that has stood outside of am and h for 80 years. controversial, not exactly the thing you want to do as you're raising funds for a future presidential site. but the reason that we did it is because one, we could help facilitate a difficult conversation and remove it from a contentious place of public view. the composition is problematic, the context of where it was is basically nonexistent, and there was no consent on central park west in public view for people to

decide whether they wanted to view the statue or not. we said we can intercede here and, one, removed from that location which was a decision of the city and of am and h and then go engage in intentional dialogue with the five tribal nations, with black america areas, to talk about re-contextualization of uncontroversial object. if you're gonna go there, then be prepared to go the distance. >> yes. >> do the hard work to have the dialogue and the discussion that needs to be done. >> the spectrum of individuals you have to communicate with has really changed. and that's what y'all are talking about. you're not just talking to a board of trustees, or the individuals, you're now talking to not just your nation but the world who has opinions on this. and we all have to think on almost a global scale. so, let me ask you going back to the topic of securing your data and really making sure. one of things had the privilege to do was starting a non for profit

business, one of the reasons we did this is for that fundamental reason we saw a lot of not for profits didn't know how to use technology to advance their mission, i'm so proud i see so many of them using this. but when it comes to talent, one of the things i always heard is that we can get caught talent, it's so hard. and by the way, that's everywhere now. but you talk a little bit about how you are approaching the tech talent to be able to keep that, so who would like to start? >> i'm happy to. >> with verizon,. >> doesn't pay the salaries of these tech boopks, who are very expensive. even though they're in -- high salaries being paid through tech. as you can imagine we hired a ton of phds, in science and accent rug, how to keep it. we couldn't match their salaries of google or facebook, how to become engineers. a few things we

found so far to be helpful one because we're national, folks that live in almost anywhere in the country in the usa, that allows us to keep people. say if you live in texas, kansas, wherever you want to live that doesn't mean you need to come to d. c. twice a year. that seems -- the other one is i find really helpful as the social mission of the organization. a lot of young people want to help, they want to do social good, and so if you filter for that, it works. a lot of what we do is live at stanford, mit, including graduate students were coming out and sometimes the first great job they have is with us. they, they come with us 3 to 4 years will take it. they go on and make a ton of money. oftentimes will come back when it comes to digital farmers because of that social sort of construct calls them back to the work. but agasin, finding young people, we have a ton of

them to begin much pgas all technologies who want to do social good. >> i love that. dr. pewu, what have you found? >> actually just to piggyback off of that i think my approach is because i'm in the setting where we're training people to go and find these jobs, it's really been, one, for humanity students those are already and interested in looking up these humanistic questions that are historical sites provide, with tech skills. which is an oxymoron to some of them because they're, whoa, whoa, why are we learning python? and i kind of you don't have to learn in an outlook at data scientist way but you gotta learn enough to work with the data scientist in the future and that's where i'm coming in, i think we can do better in our institutions of higher learning creating really multi disciplinary opportunities for students in the humanities to connect with students in the

s.t.e.m. fields and in computer science, engineering. so that when they come out of these programs, that guy matters who are already thinking how can i use technology in new and exciting ways to advance a particular mission? and then the s.t.e.m. students are thinking at the same time how can i apply my skills towards these types of programs like digital promise, or even to working on a project at your site. and i think i was just having a meeting earlier this week with one of our computer science faculty. he and i were trying to put our heads together to think of how we can create a course and maybe a data camp, but he was saying this exact thing. he said, you know, i can train students on the technology, but you have the stories that make it

matter. and if we can put those together, then we can really do something amazing. and so, that has been the approach and if i can go on one little tangent i will say, i think tapping into regional comprehensive university's not just because i work at one. [laughs], they the majority of college students in the united states attend regional comprehensive universities--. >> right. >> and they're not necessarily getting the same access to whether it's digital humanities, opportunities to engage in digital scholarship, and that's one of the reasons why we are pushing this digital ethnic futures consortium because we're missing an entire potential talent pool and we really need to create opportunities and pathways through which they can develop skills and then also use those once they leave. >> i love what you said, something i really haven't

heard before, which is time to gather two important things. one is the digital skills, and tying it to mission. doing it at the same time, doing it in realtime. because they're learning the skills, learning the technical skills it can be shorter along depending on what you're doing, but they tie it into real solutions. i do find today that they want me i didn't want to just -- i wanted to know you're coding for purpose. so, you're actually teaching a purpose. gary, what do you do air you say earlier that you hired more people and you beefed up your security, what about your talent pool? >> i think in some ways about question a talent is true for burgeoning professionals in the museum field, they want your mission and your vision, and your values to really align with something important that

they share. and i think, so for us, more generally were in the process now looking at how we articulate these better. how do we talk about what are not just our mission, everyone has a mission statement, they have a vision as well but values. what are our core values? and i think the better we align those to say this history is worth, this history inclusive history is worth knowing because it helps us understand not just who it were, but who it need to be, and what we can become, and we aspire to be together. and so, that it's a conceptual idea about that. and i think for us honestly in terms of talent we try to bag, burrow, -- >> steal okay. to >> university--'s digital project their center their digital scholars lab is a tremendous resource for things like 3d spatial analysis, scanning, creating 3d objects. one of the most compelling objects personally for me in

monticello, isn't anything to do with jefferson actually it's a piece of chinking that came, as archeologically escalated long ago. so, clay between logs and a house to seal it up, you can see the fingerprints of the person who put it there. >> wow. >> and that's been exhibited but we have 3d, and we made 3d models of this to use an exhibition so that the original doesn't have to be. and you wouldn't know it, and less you could compare by touching the objects. so, for certain things like that having partners, particular in and academia is really helpful but also for us we're still pretty small scale. this is a question under, thinking beyond finding those

partners, we had to develop a lot of it in-house. and so i greeted the first manager of digital learning for monticello in the peace region in 2014, and that took a while, and that was from someone who had worked within the museum for a lot of time, who had some relevant background. but the idea of teaching everybody python, you know, or being conversant, it's kind of like, you know, if you've ever done any work building a house, i don't know if you have ever done any work remodeling, is a lot easier to have a conversation with a contractor even if you know a little about, and even if you don't you can -- and so i love that idea, something that we have to explore more. >> [inaudible] every individual in new york, i had 10, 000, people and let them all take the first cloud computing course and pass it, even my executive assistant had to do it. and so many of them came back to nd said, oh, gosh, i'm so glad i did this. because even with the basic course your job, you can move up the scale at $20,000 in salary, just the first basic course in cloud computing tech. so tell me what you're doing in a net news site. >> i think this is the single biggest opportunity for presidential sites. tech talent,

digital future. you've all said it so eloquently i won't repeat it. the, i mean, learn the past, know the future. so we're living through the great resignation. people have voluntarily leaving their jobs to go to more fulfilling fields. that is obviously an advantage for these organizations. but we also have a philosophy at the tr library that nonprofit is a tax status, not a business plan. >> hear, hear! >> [applause] >> so we are developing a content studio, which i think is highly unusual for a presidential library at its outset. at the content studio is working with partners in augmented reality and virtual reality. talking about doing film and television, looking at digital platforms and different ways of bringing in revenue to the organization, spreading the message of the organization, and not always requiring everybody to visit the actual

site. >> right, right. >> to be part of the tr library and building those in from the beginning, and it's not too late if they already exist, does give us, i think, an advantage. because, you know, really, i said earlier, you know, maybe what the reagan library is to defense, the tr library would be to conservation and sustainability. one of the aspirations of our library is to be the most sustainable museum in north america, and potentially one of the most sustainable in the world. we're in western north dakota. we're second only to the state we are in is the world's leading energy production. and that gives us a really interesting opportunity to have a conversation with the energy industry about the transition that we're all in. theodore roosevelt, who would have had one foot in the present and one eye in the future, would have certainly then been a part of that kind of discussion. and so, i -- there are issues beyond the history, or what the history represents, and that i

think each president each presidential side and each organization can think about and say, where can we reach a larger audience for that current discussion? it's probably going to be through technology, tech talent partnerships and digital. >> and you really do have the unique opportunity from the ground up to create the most innovative, because you don't have to go back, is your point, you can create something that's a very fungible and very easy to manage, with new tooling that you can bring. on i think one of the things that i love that you pretty much all said is you can use that local talent. you have built-in talent with your universities that you can go use. and with that i'm going to jump, going to make a connection to partnerships. because we started talking earlier about partnerships. you know, i'd love to know how you all think with each of your sites about partnerships and how do you, how do you manage them and go get more? so gary, let's start with you again. >> yeah, we've had over the years partnerships with several institutions and nonprofits.

and again, one of the first very fruitful ones in 2012 was with the century set for history and new media at george mason university. in terms of building a website for teachers, actually, that contained -- it was based on an exhibition that we had at monticello. and how they could utilize those primary source documents, both as texts but as objects. >> right. >> so, you know, those kind of partnerships come through the networking that happens, you know, in the field. partnerships with -- there are, you know, i'd say partnerships with for-profit entities always are a little more -- they're a little more difficult sometimes. and there's been cases where, you know, we have found, you know, things that work well through, you know, networks of our trustees, actually, are very good, kind

of source for those ideas. partnerships with -- there are also partners -- there are also people who are going to pitch a lot of things. you got to vet those, regretfully. but i think partnerships through networking have been really helpful to us in terms of advancing our scale or focus or particular tech. you know, particular technology. and the other thing i'd say is we've done a lot of -- so we built an app in 2015 about slavery at monticello. and that app, we actually had funding that allowed us to go to developers and make small pets, because they say, oh, this is, here's this feature that's going to be great. and we say, well, if we gave you this much, you know, not a lot of money, can we pointed out that and test it? first? can we see and work on site, and if it doesn't work, well -- we went through three developers before we found the one we wanted. so things like that, that is on technical partnerships, but they [inaudible] think about how to test ended right before

we adopt. >> do you have a -- do you all, do find one or the other model, or do you have one person that manages all your partnerships? do you have multiple, do you, like, parse it out? >> so, we've, we've attempted over the last year, my role in the organization, changed in 20 to -- the one i have now in part to help do that -- to try and help centralized some of those partnerships. but there's still distributed. i mean, i have research colleagues and archeology, especially who do all kinds of technical work through the digital archeological archive comparative slavery. so they've built the data protocols the, back end, this method for allowing sites across the southeast and the caribbean, actually, to do this. some of which are also presidential sides. so, they're not all in one place at all. we have a lot. they distributed, based [inaudible]. >> so, jean-claude, let me ask you, how do you think about partnerships and management? >> yeah, we do a lot of work with partners. because

[inaudible] over the weekend, [inaudible] but there are two things that we look. when is actually solving can fundamental challenge. it could be, regional, local or national. we are going to focus on that and see how we bring what we call a value network of partners together, and you solve that problem for you, coaches superintendents or something that has been developed, workforce, as an example. right now we are doing work in dallas around regional [inaudible]. we're looking at the educator pathways from early learning to being a school principal. had we work with the industry, the community partnership in dallas here, in school systems etc? we create a pathway for young people to go all the way. and so that kind of value proposition we look for. the other is what we call mutual-ism, which is that for a partnership to work, you both have to benefit. if they don't, is not going to sustain. so, [inaudible] so, the impact is

primary. the second thing we are making sure that all parties are benefiting from the partnership, otherwise it's not sustainable. >> i'll ask dr. pewu, do you have tecnology partnerships in particular that you try to described. i know that [inaudible] can be hard to work with and you take advantage of. >> that yeah, when you said partnerships, right away, i was thinking, oh my goodness! so thankfully, with this, due to digital ethnic futures, i was able to create a position -- part-time, but it's still a position -- for someone to help manage the partnerships, because before it was all me and i was getting, like, very excited, but overwhelmed. and so one of them that we did is a partnership with actually is didn't run nonprofit called bit project. and they are students who are pursuing degrees or recently completed degrees in computer science and software engineering. and they are looking to teach non tech folks those same skills. so we

partnered in 2020 to design a curriculum that actually integrated narratives, or actually existing projects like the save of wages projects, the freedom on the move project, into data science curriculum for humanities or non tech folks. >> yeah, that's good. >> yeah. so, i was just going to say, though, to [inaudible] jean-claude's statement, is that what i've seen is, we do a lot of community engaged but digital public humanities work. and so managing partnerships where we have, like, funders and foundations that partner with us. but then we also just have community members and their local, like, libraries, or their local, kind of, organizations that are just cultivating and retain the local history. and so we recently did one with a performing arts center in costa mesa but if they're all varied and what i think you pointed

out is knowing, kind of, that mutual, mutual-ism, is important. and then also knowing that you're going to have different partners for very different reasons but partnership is definitely the path to go on. it can lead to, you know, grant. it could lead to new initiatives. it could lead to recruitment. and so -- >> right -- >> yeah, so i just tried emphasize the necessity of -- >> all of that. [inaudible]. >> i know we want to get to the q&a but i want [inaudible] to say. first, raise your hand if you work for the tr library in -- okay. so there's four of them here. and they have been instructed they are not to leave dallas with a single [inaudible] card. >> [noise] it scares -- me

sorry! >> >> they can't get on the plane if they have a busy talk. meantime, talk to them, they have business partnerships,. there's a guy associated with the tr library over there, joe wiegand you. should get to know him to. >> i love that. by the way, i have allergies. a promise, it's not covered. [inaudible] this is the speed. round. [inaudible] but after talking to at this morning, i had an idea for each one of them in. can you tell me a book that you would recommend to the audience to read about your area, something that you get super excited about? and i'm going to start with it because i know he has the answer because he gave me two this morning. >> i mean, this is the challenge with theodore roosevelt. there's so many great books. obviously the edmund morris trilogy is fantastic, beginning with the right of terrorists involved. if you want a good beach read, you can do better than candice millard's we are of doubt. we can go on and on and out. none tr subject beach truths by jill lepore. >> jennifer. >> there's a book called think

again, i forgot the authors, name just finished it. and he teaches people how to sit step back and rethink. he uses library as a great example of what we need to. as sometimes. >> i love. >> the digital black atlantic came out last year. i have one essay in it, so i am liking it. but i think it gives an overview of how, also, these discussions are being had specifically within african, african studies, black studies. >> oh, that's awesome. >> so i guess, for thinking about a deficit biography, i would have to go with meacham's book. john meacham's thomas jefferson -- art of power, very good book, talking about chauvin hughes, as john said, the medium office age effectively to communicate ideas and ideals to effect change. and i think that's a. >> that's a good one. >> that's true. cal newport's deep work, because i feel overwhelmed by emails. i

refused to let the it people put the chat -- like, for a long time i wouldn't let them put microsoft teams on my computer because i didn't want that blank the blank function working. so [inaudible] i found a spot to be [inaudible] i don't know that i practice enough to really push it but i [inaudible]. >> so you lineup for questions, but mine, i'm going to say, if you haven't read line in the white house with red wine, you've got to do it. [inaudible] not even did fireside chat with a group of people [inaudible]. let's take some q&a. who has some questions for us? right? >> hi, my name is christy and i'm from with them rather furred hays library in fremont iowa but thank you for a come day. i just want to mention that i see some people around the room here who partnered with us when schools were not allowed to do their tours of presidential sites anymore. we partner with some groups on a program called wrote to the

white house. and many of us were closed. >> oh! >> and this was a weight had a strong digital component now i've heard all of you i think it could have a stronger digital component. but it connected, there were by ten sides we've got eight presidents in a high we gladly share with other states. benjamin harrison was one of the states we partnered. with jenny there with four status. and i don't know if any of my other higher competitors are there the part of that project but we deliberately called it not ohio's road to the white house. because we wanted this to be a test case and enlarge it to include some other presidential sites. not only because of covid, but we wanted to have life beyond that, we think this is a great way to connect some of our sights. and during the planning for that we came up with the idea there's a program called the leader in me, which is eight leadership habits. it's based on the eighth habits of highly

effective people, which you may be familiar with. so it became more than a passport program, is what we wanted it to be, more than a passport program. it had some real meat uncounted to it. so this is personally i do have a question! >> yes we've, got to go [inaudible]. >> but my point is also pr. because we would love to have a couple of you or all of you eventually be part of this project but knowing that that's how we are connecting to each other do you have some recommendations on a platform or some digital aspects that we can incorporate into this kind of a program? thank you. >> is it a digital piece that brings a lot of content into one place for teachers to access. it's a place where you can put for example solutions in tools that you have it shouldn't cost you some money let so ever. composer. >> any other thoughts on a platform? if not i've got a couple thoughts for you to. thank you for. that next.

>> in afternoon, i'm tracey bouncer with the call in -- presidential foundation thank you for being here. one of my earliest memories is american president and technologies was going to disney world, and wanting to go into the hall of american presidents and see all the cool things there. and true to form when i went to the presidents mr. coolidge was there an untruth character remains -- [laughs] but mr. coolidge had a lot of things to say and i'm looking forward to the day that we may actually have holograms, technologies that will be truly interactive that we can all learn more about each of our presidents. and dare i say the mare even be a capability in the white house to summon up any one of the presidents, maybe a counselor at a time of crisis when they had the unique knowledge. so, do you know of any efforts through places like mit or other georgia tech that have been working on creating holographic presidents?

>> yes, i want to say really quickly local projects is the workable farm they did the greenwood rising and the tulsa race mascara museum in oklahoma. they did the justice museum in alabama, the media for 9/11 along with our architects -- fabulously creative, the cutting edge technology in holograms, visuals -- the local projects would be my recommendation. >> there's a lot going on in terms of the concept of augmented reality, it's getting there. these folks can't curate unique content and if you're making history, especially for young people so, it's the last pedal push boring but really excited to engage. there's a lot of work going on, and that's the content you're looking for. >> i'm blanking on the company

but the platforms gonna be called reach. and it's produced through -- he's considered the godmother of ei and basically her company is designing this platform so that people without computer science or software engineering background can create augmented envy our type of environments. so, i think they're accepting people for beta testing right now. >> i would say one of our goals for the white house historical association council on history is the continued to have an augmented reality, -- that lovely people to go through the white house and augmented way the, president's kind of walk out, and say did you know this happened, or this happened. and we are already there and that can be done. we need to find the right companies to put it together, it's not a technology

issue anymore it's a pro serve how do we do it, how do we fund it type of project. so, thank you that's great by the way. next. >> -- for folks i should say. >> or make them do it in kind as much as possible. but if we can get them to put it together then we provide the support to fund it afterwards. >> good afternoon i'm for nate from the clinton foundation i have two questions one, how do you define the virtual visitor, it's quite controversial is that a one second view, isn't it click. and secondly any advice on how to evaluate infectivity, and online resources it surveys or unique thing we should be looking forward as success in digital learning? >> i'll jump on that. one of the things that i become to really do is use google analytics to see how much we interact and the different

tools and solutions. we have a great -- navigator. we have 11,000 educator hits a month, and we find it comes from south africa, from australia, from the philippines, but to your point we try to see it as 23 minutes, 20 minutes four seconds and why is it this actually happening. so, we can modify the experience to engage people better. right now we saw the analytics, we can ask those folks yet because again it's a privacy issue, you can't go unasked but we're seeing schools of education in south africa, actually accessing the particular tool i mean the question becomes how do i actually change the experience to get folks to stay longer. >> i think i couldn't agree more, we measure engagement not visits. >> because they can only click

for a second, so it needs to be time on that they spend on one of -- our mostly every application now that you run should have analytics with it. then you can roll it up in the tool in analytics, allows you to see what did they click on, what did they stay on, if that make sense. yes. >> where do they come from which is good -- which is nice. >> i'm alison haaland i created a hose a path has called the kennedy -- of the history and legacy and i'm completely different here because i didn't come from a history background at all, i was in marketing, i think a netflix documentary one night and i was hooked. that's what happened. i've a real passion for teaching about history how important is for our generation to learn, and i realized in my audience a little bit that people come for an episode about caroline bissette style and state to learn about the new frontier. i'm curious, what's some of you's plans and strategies to taking this -- and putting it out to people like me, need that little spark, need to click it and have a whole world open up in front of them. >> you go where the audience

is. and what you're doing alison, is exactly at every presidential site is our needs to be doing. it's great contact not no form that we enjoy consuming but the audience does. and put it on a platform and places that they're likely to not just have to seek it, but to serendipitously find it. and that's the big difference between social media -- is not a network of channels you choose, it's content that is curated to your liking. so, we need to put context in the places where the audience is consuming it, wants to consume, in the form that they want to consume and not the way we do. >> anybody else for? no >> i was just gonna say one exercise that i have students do. digital storytelling's finale phenomenal, there's so many ways to do it, i can go a long way and one of the things i challenge students to do especially students that like to write >> -- give me a digital storytelling that i can post on instagram that walks through

two minutes in history, that's it. and sometimes that's like the spark that some audiences need, they see that and they're coming back for more. >> i like what you're doing in terms of connecting different generations with an earlier generation even if it's fashion, time bound like the gilded age or going back and connecting from today, yesterday, and yesterday to today and i think that's a really good strategy. next. this is our last one were down to one minute and 50 seconds were on target. >> hi everyone i'm pat -- great discussion on name samantha hunter gives him the director of education at the white house historical association says we're having this fantastic conversation about making history accessible with technology, i did want to point out that just outside this room at our rubenstein center booth

we have available with our oculus headsets caviar emerging into the white house and the public spaces there. i invite you all to check that out while you're here. [applause] yeah, part of the great works team is doing so if you will join me one more time in giving our panelists a big round of applause. [applause] thank you for your time. and i just want to say thank you all for taking the time to come, and please give us feedback on other topics that you like to know and digital or attack, we love, a needle would like to be back as well. thank you all again, enjoy the rest of the day.

this session first ladies impact and influence will explore the many ways in which first ladies? have shaped history a >> this session, first ladies -- impact and influence, will explore the many ways in which first ladies have shaped history as the closest adviser to the president. as advocates for both change in continuity, as well as how the influence america's society, politics, culture, and diplomacy. now, i have a very great pleasure of