MDOCS Goes Abroad

In Fall 2018, Students in American Studies Prof. Beck Krefting's London First Year Experience led walking tours easily thanks to the MDOCS audio guide equipment.  Turning research into site-specific presentations is just one more way we doc.

Throw a crumpet in London and you will hit someone on a walking tour. There are a bevy of them for you to enjoy, ranging from the gruesome but popular Jack the Ripper tours, to Unseen tours led by the ex-homeless who reveal off the beaten path gems in their neighborhoods, or you can visit 9 ¾ Platform at King’s Cross on the Harry Potter tour. Skidmore’s London students were fortunate enough to participate in walking tours in London, Stratford-upon-Avon and Edinburgh. As demonstration for students in my class, I even devised one myself—a walking tour of Covent Garden about the history of blackface minstrelsy in London. Given the exposure and opportunity to see the variety of ways history and material culture is made meaningful through tours, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to force students to think critically about what they were consuming as tourists on these tours. Whose perspective was privileged; whose history was included or excluded; what are effective strategies for guiding a tour safely, maintaining interest, and troubleshooting for environmental shifts?

In SS 100: Comics, Satirists, Jesters, and Hacks: Locating British Humor, I took the “Locating” part seriously by having students devise a walking tour focusing on the history of comedic cultural forms in London including: music halls, variety theaters, working-men’s clubs, and stand-up comedy clubs. Students researched and selected the venues, paid site visits to plan walking routes, and provided information about the physical site—its patronage, surrounding neighborhood, and, of course, detailed information about the entertainment that went on inside the building. Using audio tour equipment (thanks, MDOCS!) gave us a great deal of flexibility in how the students conducted the tour. It allowed over a dozen of us to walk down busy commercial avenues, stand next to noisy entrances to restaurants and retailers, and wind through back alleys where entertainers would exit after their shows, all while being able to hear the tour guides with crystal clear clarity…well, most of the time. The point is that students engaged with primary source materials about legendary venues like the Palladium and Palace Theater, researched and analyzed various forms of entertainment, and mapped and charted a one-hour tour covering two miles in the heart of London. That we got some good exercise along the way as well as fancy audio tour equipment, well that was just icing on the red velvet cake. Having used this equipment in a conventional way, I am already thinking about different ways to use these headsets in the classroom in order to get out of the classroom.

- Beck Krefting