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?

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.

10-08 Oral History

10-08

Oral History

I will have to admit; at first, I did not understand why oral history was given an entire section. When I think of oral history, I think of a time long before print, even before legitimate handwriting. To me, it seems that just like physical script (hand written) history, that oral history was well on its way out and being replaced by advancements in technology.

Not surprisingly, I was wrong. As it turns out, technology is opening new doors into oral history. In the third link, the article discusses the benefits and opportunities reviving oral history with technology can accomplish. I can not argue that hearing stories, and history (anything for that matter) adds depth and heightens memory. Actually, seeing as though I always like to refer back to education, I think it would do schools a lot of good to incorporate more oral history into the classroom. If nothing else or for not other benefit, some students are audio learners which is a learning style much forgotten after story time in the first grade. Hearing a story about history allows for students to run in their imagination, follow along and see the story in their own minds as it is played out over the speaker system. This same article points out that databases of interviews, histories, etc. could be complied and strung together by common words and phrases. With just the few strokes of the keys one could narrow down their search and access to these interviews, an extremely helpful research tool that would enrich and expand knowledge. I know that there were many times in school where it was required for research that we complete interviews or listen to someone speak about our topic. Students would hem and haw about how to go about doing this and it was often left undone or taken off the requirements because of its impossibility.  Because of this, I think this kind of oral history would be wildly successful in the educational sense.

            One last bit though, maybe this is because I am a tad old fashion, but I am a bit saddened that physical oral history is seen less and less. Sure, it is much easier to type into a search engine to find a refugee talk about their experience, but how much better it is to see and hear. Like stories of the Indian tales passed down from generation to generation, hearing these from a computer would simply be missing something that can only be found in presence of the history itself.

Catching Up 10-01

Catching Up 10-01

Web Presence

I am quite thankful for this week’s links posted. I spent a lot of my time ranting on this blog about how history not just about the ‘big names’ but also about the man in the middle and everywhere in-between. However, I forgot to consider myself in my own ideas. I am apart of history and just like I previously posted, I have done a lot of social media to promote and display my own history. History that is, for the most part, readily available to the public. It just really dawned on me that when I go in for an interview whether for the summer a few years down the road, my interviewer will already know my face and several things about me because of what he or she finds by simply googling my name.     

I found the second link and article the most helpful. I want to save and store this website for when I do begin applying for internships and jobs. I thought the advice was practical and very useful. I even googled my own name and saw a link to my old blog and  to my pinterest that surprised me and would more thank likely want to “spring clean”.

I find this all fascinating and yet scary. I feel almost that because of technology, prior judgments can be made before two people meet. In more ways than one, I feel that this opens up room for more discrimination because it opens up a large door into someone’s personal life. I found the point about whether or not to keep a twitter account very one sided. We do after all live in a country that promotes freedom of speech. I have a right to say what I want to say without fear of discrimination of a company on my own twitter feed. Should a company really not hire me if they disagree with something that I have said, believed in, or stood up for? Would I even want to be considered for a company so unconstitutional and judgmental? I know that social media is great promotion and many sites are developed to really network. But, if one has to delete and hide themselves to look ‘presentable’ to a company, is it all really worth it? By doing do are we undermining what it means to have the freedom to be who we want to be, believe what we want to believe, etc.?

Catching Up 9-03

I viewed the article titled; “Interesting Study Issued…” the article itself is less an article and more compiled for a large list. I usually do not prefer such articles however; there was one quote that touched on something I am quite ‘passionate’ about (so to speak). Blogging.

            Blogging is meant for what the quote speaks about: scholarly communication. What qualifies a scholar? For me scholar means research and dignified opinions. Blogs were created for such so that anyone could have a place to post his or her research and ideas. However, the blog industry has become of a place for a self-promotion fad. As a writer, for one, this grinds my gears. I do not think that blogs were created for someone to tell of their own life. Blogs were created for people to for people to share what they have learned, created, and want to teach others. Do not get me wrong, I love the occasional blog that becomes ‘famous’ and is passed around social media because it is a heart-wrenching story with a happy ending. But, too much time is spent promoting ourselves like having a family blog where a mom gabs about how awesome her children are doing in school. This kind of blogging is abusive to its original purpose and crippling to the realm of digital history.  Let us take the cliché family blog. What if a mom, instead of just telling stories about her kids, used her stories about her kids to teach her friends and family (and whoever else reads the blog) into a lesson or advice in parenting? By doing so, the mom is essentially a scholar. The mom did first hand research by parenting her child in such a way that seems to work. By sharing this kind of information, others can learn and heed her advice. This is just a simple example, but blogging done right involves everyday people into a digital history amplified by bloggers sharing their information.

            I am a huge fan of blogging and believe in its full potential to play its part in digital history. However, I believe the system is often abused and wasted by egocentric bloggers instead of bloggers trying to share and promote learning and knowledge.

Catch Up- 08/27

I was eager to read Professor Burton's own work relating to digital history. There is something special reading a piece for which you know the author. I was immediately caught by the depth of the article itself. I found myself asking questions that were later answered in the sentences of paragraphs to come. It is evident that much research, mapping, and experience surrounds the article.

Under the section titled, “ The State of American Digital History” I found it interesting at the notion of how digital history will spread. Is just a computer needed? I think that just five or so years ago computers were considered the main source of significant technology that can hold history. However, now, in just the few short years, I think a lot has changed. Instead of personal computers, which are still highly desired and widely used, people often have a smart phone and carry, essentially, a small computer in their hands. This has blown digital history into a whole new realm that, I think, is worth considering.

Often times, history is considered only for highlighting the famous people leaving a significant impact. While this is all relative and great, it has often left the everyday, normal people and their lives in the shadows. This is you and this is me. People desire to hear stories of average day human beings. This kind of thinking now fuels the gateway into a new type of digital history of social media. This is a place where people promote their own lives creating their own history. Social media is beginning more and more to exist on applications meant for cell phones, not computers. Because of this, I feel that digital history should begin taking hold of this opportunity to see trends in communities, societies, etc. by tapping into the exclusive, vast world of social media that happens away from a computer screen.