Saturday, March 28, 2015

Unit Four: The Evolution of the Digital Web

This week we are examining the evolution of the digital web and the development of digital history projects.  The list below is a sampling of various digital history sites that have been created over the last 20 or so years.  

By creation date:
After looking at each of the links and placing them in the order in which they were created, we were to comment on the level of sophistication and how the forms of the digital projects have changed.  It occurred to me that while the creation date was relevant and often reflected in the style and sophistication of the site, the "last updated" date might have significance as well.

By latest update (if available):
Generally speaking, the later a site was created, the more sophisticated is the design.  Eye Level, created in 2005 is far more sophisticated than The Avalon Project which was created in 2008. This is most likely due to the regular updates to the Eye Level site.  This is often the case with sites that are updated regularly.  There are of course exceptions to these generalities.  The Hawthorne in Salem site was updated just this month, but its style and layout are more in line with its 2002 creation date.  The same may be said for the American Memory site.

Two additional sites that could be added to this list are:
The Thomas A. Edison Papers at Rutgers University and 

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Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Unit Three: The Multi-Talented Blog

Multi-Talented Blog?  Not feeling very talented with this particular blog.  Being on the other side of the computer screen has given me a new perspective and definitely a new respect for those who are regularly producing content and designing sites.  I have a long way to go!

This week in Intro to Digital History we are looking at blogs.  I have friends who blog regularly – they’re doing everything from sharing recipes, finding humor in everyday life and chronicling their days of sobriety.  I subscribe to a number of blogs and each day I’m looking through a few to see what’s new.

The “talented” part we’re talking about this week isn’t referring to my talents as blogger (thank goodness) but rather to the technology of the blog itself.  A blog can be a device for interactivity among readers and user, the posts can simply be a method of content delivery or it can be some combination of the two.  When looking for examples of blogs, I selected the Civil War (a topic covered in middle school U.S. History and one popular enough among both professional and amateur historians alike to elicit a lot of options) and started searching.  The sheer number of results (59,300,000 results from the search “civil war blogs top ten”) raises the recurring theme of Internet searches – “where to even begin?”  Once we start, weeding through the results, how do we know if a particular site is any good?  Who is the author?  Do they have any authority on the topic?  I read a lot of education blogs, looking for ideas and tips for my classroom, but in most cases I’m just brainstorming and not looking for specific information to share with my students.

I approached this search as if I was looking for resources to supplement my Civil War unit.  The first site listed in the results was The Civil War Trust, a large, nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation of Civil War battlegrounds.  The CWT does not host it’s own blog, but keeps a listing of Civil War blogs.  Most of the blogs listed on this site were merely tools for content delivery.  Some were outdated and incomplete while for others it was impossible to determine who and what the sources of material were. Some were online journals or musings of National Park Service volunteers and employees (not representing the views of the NPS itself) but providing a unique perspective of someone who is clearly passionate about the Civil War, but who also has a close more “official” connection to established historic sites and information.  At only a quick glance, I particularly enjoyed Walking in the West Woods hosted by Jim Buchanan, a volunteer at Antietam National Battlefield Park.

My favorite of the blogs recommended was Teaching the Civil War with Technology by Pennsylvania teacher, Jim Beeghley.  He recently completed is doctorate of education in instructional technology from Duquesne University and is an adjunct professor in the Graduate Education department for Waynesburg University.  He has presented on numerous topics including technology planning, copyright, network security, technology audits, and most recently uses of technology to teach the Civil War. His blog included entries on Using Google Earth to Tour the Lincoln Assassination, how to colorize Civil War photos and introductions to historic newspaper archives.


For the two blogs I listed above, the hosts provide clear information as to who they are, what their credentials are, and the purpose of the blog.  Understanding who is providing the material on the blog allows me as a teacher to determine how to use the material in class.  When looking for factual information and lesson planning assistance, Beeghley’s site provides a multitude of sited and verifiable resources.   Buchanan’s site provides factual information, but of even more interest to me, the personal anecdotal stories from the Battlefield Park that a traditional text is not going to provide.  Both could have a place in my classroom.
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Sunday, March 22, 2015

Unit Two: The Local Digital History Scene

Rosenweig: As educators we are constantly bombarded with suggestions, requests and requirements to introduce more technology into our classrooms.  School boards expend significant funds for more equipment and training, parents want to ensure their children are keeping up with technology applications and students want the fun associated with it all.  To meet the needs of our 21st century learners, teachers need to step out of their comfort zones and embrace technology in the classroom, but with an understanding that it has moved far beyond TV/VCR carts and overhead projectors.  We need to not only bring the technology in, but give our students to the tools to safely and effectively use it. As a history and social studies teacher, that includes ensuring my students cannot only locate sources on-line, but that they are thoughtful critics of the information they find.

 Rosenweig and Cohen in their on-line text Digital History: A Guide to Gathering, Preserving and Presenting the Past on the Web, refer to a number of historians who warned of the dangers of new media and that it "posed a threat to the search for wisdom and depth".  I'm not sure I would take it that far, but they have a point.  There is just so much information out there - where to even begin?  For students hopping on-line and looking to answer a question or work on a paper, the answer is often "whatever came up fasted and first."  As a teacher, it is my responsibility to ensure my students develop the skills and strategies to weigh through the resources the find to discover who is writing, why are they writing it, what is their background, what is their agenda?

 Final Project: For the final project in this course I am considering creating a content site aligned with one of the units/topics in a middle school United States History to 1865 course.

Online Reading: As easy as it is to enter a few words into a search engine to learn more about a topic or to instantly download a book onto an e-reader or tablet, it's not that simple.  The formats on which we read and the sources we pull that information from are impacting out understanding, retention, reading speed, vision health…We need to be cognizant of what we're reading, how we're reading it and who wrote it.

 Extras: I found an article, The Reading Brain in the Digital Age: The Science of Paper versus Screens, on the Scientific American site.  It was published not long after your blog post from 2013 on Online v Paper Reading Comprehension and mentions many of the same conclusions you reached.  It also references a study by Anne Mangen of the University of Stavanger - Norway.  Professor Mangen is often cited in articles about digital reading. Further searches for her work came up with a number of recent papers, however for most of them only the abstracts were readily available. Full versions of the papers were available through various gated portals and usually for a fee.
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