Wednesday, December 3, 2014

12-03-2014

Social Media & Digital History

I have never been an avid Twitter user. Being a child who is growing up in and among the technological boom of the 21st century, my preferences tend to lend themselves to social medias with more depth. Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, all seem like better ways to occupy my social media attention, though I do have a twitter.
I am willing to admit that I have largely underestimated the used of Twitter for academic and historical purpose. I began reading “10 Commandments of Twitter for Academics” I automatically knew that I blog post would be about shaming and completely going against Twitter and academics has a happily married couple.
You see, here are my drawbacks- in and among my Twitter followers and accounts that I follow, twitter is used for mindless thinking, status updates, complaining. The amount of people bashing and “sub-tweeting” is horrendous. Twitter is a drama incubator.
However, through the drama, stupid comments, and Taylor Swift quoting my eyes have been opened to the potential of Twitter. The first of these potential characteristics that may be beneficial to academics is the ability to share outside information with a click of a button. Things like articles and videos can be shared with the click of a button as you copy a link and post it on your twitter. This kind of information sharing is ingenious. It makes me think, “What if all I scrolled through on Twitter were intelligent, useful sayings and links?” It is hard to imagine, but the possibility of the way education would explode would be unstoppable. Nowadays, clicking on an article from someone you follow (who you already think is worthy of following and want to hear what they have to say) does not seem like learning. In this way, education is almost hidden in the confines of social media expanding and sharing knowledge on a casual exchange of thought.
Second, once interest is peaked, a user may be lead to click on a hashtag. Now, again, it is hard to imagine the possibilities outside of the usage I see of this daily. However, the idea is useful. Hashtags have become a sort of joke, almost a competition.  But, if used correctly can make connections in education. If people used hashtags to genuinely to find out more information about a topic, they would do just that. One could research the #civilwar and find connections to more articles, letters, events, videos, and even people pertaining to the Civil War. If used this way, Twitter’s academic capabilities are wide and sure.

A final word on teacher/professor use on social media. I believe teachers, if willing to have students peak into their lives, should open up their social media to be viewed by students. This makes professors and teachers so much more approachable and relatable. Students always joke that teachers and professors don’t have lives outside of the classroom because they work so hard to keep students out of their personal lives. When closed off, students are less willing to share their information, and approach the teacher about problems and circumstances.  

Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Final Project

http://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/timeline/latest/embed/index.html?source=0AtaHTL7PUpEXdFp0R0tHRFdjMERTdm9XSEx3Um1zYlE&font=Bevan-PotanoSans&maptype=toner&lang=en&height=650

Monday, November 24, 2014

nov. 19

Caroline Brittingham
Digital History
19 November 2014

“ Writing History in the Digital Age”
“ I have a good deal of interest in how members of the public who are not academically trained historians “do history.” For me, then, “public history” does not mean just projects, programs, and exhibits created by professional historians for the public, but rather the very broad and complex intersection of “the public” with historical practice. Provision those occupying this intersection with freely available digital tools and platforms, and things become interesting quickly. Because setting up a blog, wiki, or discussion forum means only a few mouse clicks, and archival resources are increasingly digitized, we are seeing a burgeoning of sites that coalesce communities around historical topics of interest. Even those who have no interest in setting up their own websites can participate in history-specific Facebook groups, blogging communities, and genealogy sites.”


Personally, I found this quote from, “ Writing History in the Digital Age” the most interesting specifically because I myself am not a “Historian”. I write this blog post in irony to this quote. I say this because of the project I have created for this class. I have thought of two historical timelines concerning women and wanted to bring them together to show something profound from a historical stand-point. I have researched, gathered, and displayed information. However, is this not true history? Is my history in someway lesser than that of someone with a degree. I beg to disagree. I may not be a “historian” by trade, but I can still portray and have an interested to delve into history and share my findings with “the public” at large. Though, I think there is a line of expertise. Yes, my findings came from historical databases. These databases are derived from historians, no doubt. Because of this, I think that there is a subset of historians. This is where I fall into place. I am taking historian’s information and combining it with another historian’s findings to show something new. I think that larger, foundational historians’ work is not the place for non historians ( so to speak), but I also would not agree that history displayed from a non historian’s ( with the historical data) work should be considered unreliable or not real history. I think this idea expands history to the public to make it ever-interactive and alive.

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Digital History Project

http://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/timeline/latest/embed/index.html?source=0AtaHTL7PUpEXdFp0R0tHRFdjMERTdm9XSEx3Um1zYlE&font=Bevan-PotanoSans&maptype=toner&lang=en&height=650

Thursday, November 6, 2014

11/05/2014

Caroline Brittingham           
Digital History
“Commemoration & the Public Historian

“we … have a moral obligation to struggle to understand the past as the past actually was. … [W]e also have an obligation to present at least some of our knowledge to our fellow citizens in ways that they can understand it, apply it… .”

Above is a quote from the first article of discussion for this week’s reading. I think there is a fine line historians straddle of commemoration and celebration and just plain disrespect.

History is much more than the texts of a textbook or the headlines in the news. History is people and their stories and how they impacted the community and world around them. History is composed of birth, death, devastation, alliances, etc. and often times it is hard to portray the personal history inside of these events.

I think one of the larger problems modern historians have is letting history be personal, the commemoration side of things. Many times, historians glaze over events and give a broad view. While this can be helpful and useful ( and much easier for the historian I am sure ) it also leaves room for a lot of insensitivity and disrespect to those who were directly effected. Commemoration is a distinct part of history that is hard to do. Can it ever be done right? In my opinion, it can not because you will never have all people agree on how the information is remembered, presented, and portrayed.


Another part of the problem or struggle with historical commemoration is the fact that everyone remembers history differently. Just like when a car accident happens, each person involved has a different view and recollection of what happened before, during, and after the accident occurred. The same, I think, goes for history. And, as time goes on there may be  even more opinions based of geographical location, beliefs and prior knowledge.

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

10-22

Last week in class, I was very pleased with the help and encouragement I received about my proposed project. As I continue working, I found this week’s first link to read relatable. I found this article, “Essays on History and New Media” by Sheila A. Brennan and T. Mills Kelly very relatable because like them, I am creating a digital history site.
Yes, I know their project was on a much larger and different scale, but I found myself seeing pieces of my project in theirs. Like them, I want my website to be interactive. Their website had thousands of photos. While I may certainly not have thousands of photos, I will base the majority of my project, web “layout” in photos.  I was really intrigued by the fact that their project website allowed people to instantly become a part of digital history. I wonder if there is any room for this in my project, or if it is even possible?
Also like them, I have the goal of making my website as confusion free and user friendly as possible. What I mean by that is, one of my goals (like theirs) is to have a project that is easily accessible to anyone and everyone as well as easy for all to navigate and use.
Some more questions that come to mind are about audience usage.
1.     1. How do I make a sight that is interactive enough to keep readers, viewers, visitors and the like coming back over time?
2.     2. What is my target audience?

3.    3.  How do I attract others to visit my site? How do I entice them to then interact with my site?

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Project Progress

I am still in the earlier stages of my project. What I am learning and seeing is that this topic of women being portrayed in the media is much more vast than I anticipated. I know that this is something I still want to make work.
I am still going through the way I want to display my information. I know that my end goal is to show how media has shaped gender roles about women. Not only this, I want to use this information to see how media through history has taught women to view themselves and act in a way that fulfills this idea of women being complacent, sexual objects.
So far, in my project, I have been looking up websites that specialize in studying the history of how women are portrayed in media. I have been noting several ways that I can take this project as well as factual information.  For example...

http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=fvwyom&s=8#.VD3VitR4rXU


What I would like my classmates and professors to help me out with is an effective, interesting way to present this a digital history. I am open to any and all suggestions.