Wednesday, August 31, 2011

What will we do in class today?

We'll talk about:
1. Your blogs and some housekeeping.
  • Please bring the URL if I don't already have it. I've added those that I know about to the side bar. We'll iron out any problems you might be having with blogging, settings or commenting.
  • Update the syllabus schedule to reflect the changes we made during class last week
  • Update the syllabus to include grading structure.

2. Themes. I've made a copy of all the themes for the blogs that I know of. If you haven't posted themes or I don't have you listed on the side please email your themes to me as soon as possible. Let's discuss:

  • what themes seem to be emerging?
  • determine the themes we plan to pursue. 
  • questions to ask interviewees in order to get them to talk about the themes
  • develop a list of questions for each theme.

3. Researching memories:
  • we'll talk about finding other digital history sites and journal articles. 
  • the rising trend of Digital Humanities.
  • About the different digital ways that historians and others are using technology to present history.
  • we'll talk about whether these methods are more or less effective.

Blog assignment:

1. Find at least 3 other digital histories online and 2 journal articles about using videos or other digital media to produce and present history.
    1. Explain why digital histories are effective or not for scholarship.
    2. Do they engage their audience?
    3. Who is their intended audience?
    4. Who is producing these digital histories and are they authoritative?
Post to your blog. Add the link to your post in the comments section of this blog post.

2. Read and comment on fellow students blog posts.


Sunday, August 28, 2011

Themes for Digital History

We've got some themes up. Go take a look.

Sandra
Joe
Mai
Stephanie (posted Sunday!)
Mika (posted Sunday!)

Thanks everyone,
Michele

Saturday, August 27, 2011

Changed blog permissions

I've changed the blog permissions so that anyone can see it. Hopefully, this will make it easier for you all to find it.

I suggest that you FOLLOW this blog. It will make it easier to keep up with the postings.

Katie set her blog up to alert all of you when she posts. This is a great idea.

Please send me your blog urls when you get one up and running.

Thanks,
Michele

Friday, August 26, 2011

Email addresses

Hi Everyone,

Email me if you need classmates email addresses

Please invite everyone to your blog and add them to your blogroll. If you have any questions please don't hesitate to call or email me.

Thanks,
Michele

Sunday, August 21, 2011

Digital History Syllabus

Digital History
Hist6383
Fall 2011
Time: 2:30—5:30 Wednesdays
Rm#549



Introduction:
This seminar will focus on exploring the process of creating digital history. The course readings, workshops, and discussions expose students to the philosophy and practice of the emerging field of History and New Media. The course will be centered on the creation of a semester project that is an opportunity to experiment with new technologies; all projects will be uploaded and published on the UH Digital Library. This project includes the creation of a themed digital history using existing materials in the UH Digital Library UH People, Events, Buildings collections, or creating your own. These images will be combined with video and audio oral histories taken from alumni at football games to produce engaging digital histories. Themes will include but are not limited to ―built environment/campus‖, ―student life‖, ―race & gender‖, ―turbulent 60s‖ and ―campus/college origins‖.

The main goal of this course is to give you the opportunity to become a new kind of scholar, one who is able to use digital media to effectively present ideas and arguments in the academic field of your choice.


Objectives
From this class you should gain a better understanding of the digital tools to which historians now have access. Some of these include; Current trends and issues in digital history, from a variety of perspectives (academia, education, museums/public history, libraries, and archives) Communication and networking: Weblogs, Microblogging, syndication, collaborative writing, wikis.Digital research tools and methodologies.Basic image editing and restoration.Basic metadata creation. Basic video creation and editing. Basic project preservation. Basic project management, including steps and skills to conceive, design, develop, and implement an online digital history video.

Although the course assumes no advanced computer skills, it does require a solid knowledge of computer use and a degree of enthusiasm for digital work and history. No experience with image editing software, web design, film making or pod casting skills is needed but they will be assets.

Readings and multimedia
1. Why Digital Preservation is Important for Everyone

2. Preserving Digital Culture

3. Digital formats

4. Formats, Evaluation factors and relationships

5. Digital Formats: Factors for Sustainability, Functionality, and Quality
Caroline Arms and Carl Fleischhauer
Office of Strategic Initiatives, Library of Congress Washington, DC, USA

6. Bridging Physical and Digital Preservation

7. Why Digital Preservation is important for you

8. Digital History; A guide to gathering, preserving, and presenting the past on the web.

This book provides a plainspoken and thorough introduction to the web for historians—teachers and students, archivists and museum curators, professors as well as amateur enthusiasts—who wish to produce online historical work, or to build upon and improve the projects they have already started in this important new medium. It begins with an overview of the different genres of history websites, surveying a range of digital history work that has been created since the beginning of the web. The book then takes the reader step-by-step through planning a project, understanding the technologies involved and how to choose the appropriate ones, designing a site that is both easy-to-use and scholarly, digitizing materials in a way that makes them web-friendly while preserving their historical integrity, and how to reach and respond to an intended audience effectively. It also explores the repercussions of copyright law and fair use for scholars in a digital age, and examines more cutting-edge web techniques involving interactivity, such as sites that use the medium to solicit and collect historical artifacts. Finally, the book provides basic guidance on insuring that the digital history the reader creates will not disappear in a few years.

9. Making Digital History; Three-dimensional scanning techniques can
preserve threatened cultural heritage.

10. Did you know? Quiz from the library of Congress

11. Preserving Your Personal Digital Memories – 1 hour course

12. Dan Cohen, ―The Future of Preserving the Past‖

13. Flickr.Com: http://www.flickr.com/commons (and http://www.flickr.com in general)

14. Creative Commons: http://creativecommons.org/

15. Reference Type: Journal Article
Author: McLellan, Hilary; Primary Title: Digital storytelling in higher education
Journal Name: Journal of Computing in Higher Education; Cover Date: 2007-09-01
Publisher: Springer Boston; Issn: 1042-1726
Subject: Educational Technology; Start Page: 65; End Page: 79; Volume: 19; Issue: 1
Url: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF03033420
Doi: 10.1007/BF03033420


Class Schedule:
This is the intended schedule for this course, though I reserve the right to make adjustments, if necessary, as the semester progresses. It is important on discussion days that you complete all of the reading in advance.

8/24
Introductions – goals of the course.
Blog creation, explore project themes, digital library introduction, assign up for video camera and learning commons computer time. Signup sheet for football games.
3 students: video production
Remaining students: audio or still camera
Examples: of digital histories.

Blog assignment: Look through the digital library UH collections and the history of the university. Come up with no less than 3 themes and explain why these would make excellent digital histories.