David J. Walbert

Education

1. 2000 Ph.D. (history), The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
2. 1994 M.A. (history), The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
3. 1992 B.S. (physics), magna cum laude with departmental honors, University of Delaware.

Research interests & expertise

Research interests

• History of U.S. food and agriculture: cooking and agriculture as craft; intersections between agriculture and popular culture; sustainability; “progress” as a construct and as it relates to the above.
• Public memory and tourism: especially the impact of popular culture on local culture and memory.
• Digital humanities and public history: in particular how the web facilitates more productive interaction between professional historians, museums, educators, and the public.
• Visualization and visual literacy: teaching visual literacy; information visualization and design; photography and culture.

Other expertise

• Technical: instructional design, interface design, web application design, database design, metadata schemas, web standards, web usability, information visualization.
• Administrative: digital humanities administration, project management, collaborative digital editing & publishing.

Publications

Books

• Garden Spot: Lancaster County, the Old Order Amish, and the Selling of Rural America. Oxford University Press, 2002.
• Kristi Johnson Smith, The First Year: Essays for New Teachers (Editor). LEARN NC, 2006.

Digital projects

• North Carolina: A Digital History (Editor). LEARN NC, 2008–2010. Online primary-source- and multimedia-driven textbook for grades 8–12 North Carolina history, in eleven parts. Available online.

Scholarly articles and chapters

• “The LEARN NC Model: Overcoming Obstacles to Technology Integration.” TechTrends 44:2 (March 2000), 15–19.
• “LEARN NC: A Teacher-Directed Model of Technology Integration.” Chapter in Professional Development Leadership and the Diverse Learner (National Science Education Leadership Association/National Science Teachers Association, 2000), 77–86.
• “LEARN NC: Using the Internet to Promote Collegiality and Teacher Retention.” In Challenge of the Future: Teacher Preparation and Retention (North Carolina Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development, Spring 1999), 77–83.

Reviews

• “Objects Out of Time: A Country Auction Thirty Years Later.” Review of Robert Stevel Aibel et al, A Country Auction (DVD). H-Pennsylvania, H-Net Reviews, September, 2014. Available online.

Essays (General Audience)

• Occasional contributor to Front Porch Republic, 2012–14.
• Contributor to The Northern Agrarian, 2008.

Magazine articles

• “Life, Death, and Soup.” New American Homesteader, Spring 2015.
• “New Year’s Meal.” Our State, January 2013.
• “The Duckling Diaries” (series). Poultry Enthusiast, March/April 2006, May/June 2006, and July/August 2006.

For K–12 teachers (selected)

• “Map Skills and Higher Order Thinking.” LEARN NC, 2010. Available online.
• “Higher Order Thinking with Venn Diagrams.” LEARN NC, 2008. Available online.
• “Best Practices in School Library Website Design.” LEARN NC, 2006. Available online.
• “Evaluating Multimedia Presentations.” LEARN NC, 2005. Available online.
• “Does My Vote Count? Teaching the Electoral College.” LEARN NC, 2004 (revised 2008). Available online.
• “Reading Photographs.” With Melissa Thibault. LEARN NC, 2003. Available online.
• “Rethinking Reports: Breathing New Life into Tired Assignments.” Series of articles with Melissa Thibault. LEARN NC, 2001–2003. Available online.
• “Writing for the Web.” LEARN NC, 2002. Series of six articles. Available online.
• “Kinetic Connections: Bloom‘s Taxonomy in Action.” LEARN NC, 2001. Available online.

For K–12 students (selected)

• “A Snapshot in Time: How to Study a Photo.” Tar Heel Junior Historian 48:2 (Spring 2009), 20–21.
• “Advertising New Products.” LEARN NC, 2009. Available online.
• “Workers' Pay and the Cost of Living” (activity) LEARN NC, 2009. Available online.
• “Industrialization in North Carolina.” LEARN NC, 2009. Available online.
• “The Third North Carolina Regiment.” LEARN NC, 2009. Available online.
• “A Railroad Timetable” (activity). LEARN NC, 2009. Available online.
• “Distribution of Land and Slaves” (activity). LEARN NC, 2009. Available online.
• “Whigs and Democrats.” LEARN NC, 2009. Available online.
• “Spain and America: From Reconquest to Conquest.” LEARN NC, 2008. Available online.
• “Where Am I? Mapping a New World.” LEARN NC, 2008. Available online.
• “The Value of Money in Colonial America.” LEARN NC, 2008. Available online.
• “Naval Stores and the Longleaf Pine.” LEARN NC, 2008. Available online.
• “Who Owns the Land?” LEARN NC, 2008. Available online.
• “Land and Work in [Colonial] Carolina.” LEARN NC, 2008. Available online.
• “Wills and Inventories: A Process Guide.” LEARN NC, 2007. Available online.

Presentations (selected)

• “Herbs for Meate and Medicine in North Carolina.” Duke Homestead State Historic Site, June 2012.
• “From Goober Peas to Liberty Meat: Peanuts in American Culture and Cuisine.” Duke Homestead State Historic Site, March 2012, and Durham Public Library, July 2012.
• “Adventures in Mapping.” North Carolina Technology in Education Society, March 2010.
• “Using ‘Digital History’ to Promote Inquiry and Higher-Order Thinking.” North Carolina Association for the Gifted & Talented, March 2009.
• “Seeing the World in a New Way.” North Carolina Middle School Association, March 2009.
• “Best Practices in School Library Website Design.” North Carolina School Library Media Association, October 2006.
• “Beyond the Double Bubble Chart: Venn Diagrams as a Thinking Tool.” North Carolina Association for Educational Communications and Technology, March 2006, and North Carolina Middle School Association, March 2006.
• “Visual Literacy: Reading Charts and Graphs.” North Carolina School Library Media Association, October 2004, and North Carolina Association for Educational Communications and Technology, March 2005.
• “Visual Literacy: Reading Photographs.” North Carolina School Library Media Association, October 2003, and North Carolina Association for Educational Communications and Technology, March 2004.
• “Rethinking Reports: Breathing New Life into Tired Assignments.” North Carolina School Library Media Association, September 2002.
• “Documents to Digitization: Finding and Using Primary Sources in the Secondary Classroom.” North Carolina School Library Media Association, September 2001.
• “The Craze for Pennsylvania Dutch Cooking.” Lancaster County Historical Association colloquium, March 2000.
• “Family Style: Pennsylvania Dutch Food and Domestic Idealism, 1945–1970.” Pennsylvania History Association, October 1998.

Work experience

2011–2017 Consultant, Online Module & Technical Development, North Carolina Department of Public Instruction

• Worked with teams of educators, editors, and web/media developers to develop and publish online professional development for K–12 teachers.
• Designed and improved instructional methods for self-paced and instructor-led courses.
• Designed and built interactive web-based learning activities in accordance with current web standards.

2000–2011 Editorial & Web Director, LEARN NC, School of Education, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

• Responsible for content development and management as well as architecture, design, and technical development of website reaching 30,000 K–12 teachers and students daily.
• Managed team of 3 to 4 full-time staff plus 10 to 15 students and contractors. Collaborated with and oversaw work of editors, librarians, programmers, teachers, university faculty, and content developers.
• Designed and built LearnPress, a custom open-source content management system to integrate web publication of text, images, audio, and video in an online library and in longer formats including e-books and e-textbooks.
• Served as Editor and Lead Historian on North Carolina History Digital Textbook Project (2007–2010).
• Oversaw development of metadata schemas for online cataloguing of education resources.
• Designed interactive tools for online exploration of historical primary sources.
• Wrote articles, delivered presentations, and designed workshops for teacher professional development.