On our first day of work experience at the Fusilier Museum (Tower of London) we had an introduction into data handling and how to use the computer to search the archives. We were set the task of researching about Major General Edward Joshua Cooper (a Fusilier) and creating a power point presentation about his time in the Fusiliers, in order to create a collection of stories about the lives of the Fusiliers. We began by using a computer programme, Modes complete, to research for relevant data on Edward Cooper in the archives of the Fusilier Museum. Once we had found all the relevant boxes in the archives we began searching through the data to see what would be useful in discovering about his time in the Fusiliers. We aimed to find out about the medals he had won during his time of service and the campaigns he served in, using various data; his will, his commission form into the army we were able to discover important dates. Using skills of teamwork and collaboration we shared information and searched for further data using different websites to see whether we could find more information on Edward Cooper. We found more information on his campaign medals and the campaigns he served in, the Second Boer War was chosen by us to research in greater detail because we located his medals in the museum and he had two medals from the Boer War with seven clasps showing he served in many campaigns during that war. Whilst we collected our research we made sure to validate our data by using a website called ancestry to check that our information was on the correct Edward Cooper, we checked our data by looking in his will and his other siblings and comparing this to family trees on the computer which ensured our research was valid.
Once we collected all our research we had to choose the most important information because our power point slide was going to be placed on a touch screen in the Fusilier Museum so we had a guideline of two hundred words. We needed to make sure the information was easy for the public to read and understand quickly. As well as including written information we also decided to include pictures of his medals and of him from his time in the military. Using a camera we took a picture of his collection of medals and placed it onto the computer and scanned other photos from the archive collection onto the computer. Using photo shop we edited our photos and then began planning the layout of our slide, once we had agreed upon our layout we created our slide using colours that represented the Royal Regiment of the Fusiliers and inserted our photos and text.
Then the slide was placed onto the touch screen in the Museum after we had created a link to the slide using a picture of a war diary to show that we were giving details about the lives of the Fusiliers. During the project we found out about the Second Boer War and its origins and got a greater understanding of the history of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers and the various campaigns that they have served in since their formation.