The Mechanics of Racism was influenced by a project I conceptualized during an earlier class here at George Mason. Then I was also focused on using images as historical evidence, and thinking about how they might easily be utilized in digital formats, both in and out of the classroom.
At the time, I had little to no technical ability, certainly not enough to produce the site you see here. So instead I began to think creatively about a tool that was already available on the web. Many of you might already be familiar with the photo-sharing site Flickr. I noticed that Flickr offers a notation tool, that allows you to mark up sections of images. This tool seemed to perform precisely what I was hoping to do: allow for images to be annotated in relation to specific details within the image, as well as for collaborative learning opportunities.
Flickr is also a free service, so I quickly realized that this project would differ from most digital ones in two important ways. It would require minimal time in learning the technology, and it would require no monetary resources. This was exciting because many teachers are turned off from utilizing digital images in their classes when they realize the effort involved in creating and publishing material on the web.
