The first partnership of the DSMP project was between the Betterton Heritage Museum and Washington College.  The Town of Betterton, Maryland, just 12 miles away from Washington College, has a rich history connected to agriculture, economics, and rural life throughout much of Maryland's history. 

The first phase of this project was completed by incoming first-year students in the college's Orientation Explore program, Washington's Secret History: Sleuths On The Shore. In just under three days students were able to engage in object-based primary-source research, digitize parts of the museum's collection and begin the creation of a VR exhibit of the museum's holdings.   

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The second phase of this project was completed with students in an upper-level Museum Studies course in Fall 2018.  These students took the lead to further digitize the collection, add to the VR exhibit and create other digital learning resources.  These resources will be available on the Betterton Heritage Museum's website and the Kent County website.  In collaboration with Kent County Public Schools Department of Technology, KCPS teachers designed Social Studies instructional sequences which utilize the resources created by Washington College students through the partnership.   

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By the end of the Fall 2018 semester, these two groups...
 

• Created a digital library with over 4,200 images, digitally preserving many of the artifacts in the Betterton Heritage Museum's collection.
   

• Recorded over 3.5 hours of oral history interviews and time-mapped them for future scholars.
   

• Created a virtual reality tour of the museum with over 70 info buttons to help patrons near and far engage with the museum's collection.
   

In Spring of 2019 we began adding descriptions and metadata to the digital library to make it searchable. A student completing an independent study in Washington College's Education department added a mapping activity to the learning resources developed for this project. 

Summer of 2019 will be the hand-off of these assets to the museum so they can begin using them in their endeavors. 

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Fall of 2019 will be the first time our KCPS educator partner will incorporate the museum's new digital assets into instruction. 

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