Week 12 Digital Presentation and Communication

This week’s reading really showed me the many challenges of presenting information over the web. Many of the reading kept referring to a main theme of how technology is ever changing. This ever changing technology makes it hard to keep information relevant. I found it funny that the main theme of many of the readings is about web 2.0, while web 3.0 is on the way in. A lot of agencies are now working with Augmented reality.  This new technology is where the digital world and the real world combine.  I have seen many historians use this to present information at museums with bar codes on interpretation signs. I think when historians make websites they need to make them in a way that can be upgraded and added to. Also, these sites need plans for future maintenance. I have seen many historical sites and museums websites outdated.

In the reading of "New Media and the Challenges for Public History”, Tim Grove brings up a really good question. The question was how social media will change the voice of authority that historical sites hold. His notion that historical sites will lose their reputation of most trusted source of information. By having a web 2.0 site and a social media site it can bring a less authoritative role to the historical site. With the change to 2.0 the user has the right to question everything and I do not think this is wrong.  Not one source of information is always right and most of the time people claim to know history but in reality only know Hollywood’s perception of history.

Week 11 Spatial History

                Many of the reading amazed me on what a historian can do with today’s mapping technology.  The variety of complex programs and different ways to analyze data are intimidating to say the least.  I was expectedly impressed with the “What is Spatial History?” reading. This reading had many examples that clearly displayed how you can visualize large data sets on a map. This as well as the other reading left me with a question and concern.

The main question with spatial history is about its future.  What will the new tools bring? How should a historian prepare for these new advances? It seems that you can do almost anything with mapping as long as you have a complex program to run it on. Will the future have more user friendly spatial history programs, so that even an amateur historian can make a map? Will the future be so complex that only specially trained historians can operate a map?

My concern is that Spatial History-if not already, will be too complex. For me as an undergrad this week’s reading examples seem so complex. How would a historian make the “Botanizing California” example? Maybe for a complex task like the example teams that are used and networks are formed. With digital history this is possible for many complex tasks but should it be for all? Is the day of individual research coming to an end?

Week 10 GIS

Mapping has played a major part in history and has been a tool for humanity for a long period of time. Today it is clear that a map can be a powerful tool for education. The “US History Google Earth Tours” is a prime example of what mapping can do. The tours are free and easy to use, while still being informative and interactive.  I spent some time working with the “The Revolutionary War” section. It was really neat to see where a battle was and then find more information about it.  What amazing is all of this is done on Google Earth.  ArcGIS can do so much more such as the spatial relationships analysis we see in the reading. As a student who has used ArcGIS I can say the possibilities are endless. For example if they made the “The Revolutionary War” section with ArcGIS they could have used a heat map to show which battles had the most casualties

                My main question derives from the "How Maps Lie".  Whereas historians should we develop a narrative? The Google tours were great but have no start or story. It was your choice to pick which battles to find out about. Also, is it morally wrong to use a map as a persuasion tool? If I wrote a book on slavery in the south would I not want to focus my map on the south? I understand skewing information is wrong but I do not think using a map as a persuasive tool is.

Week Nine My Project

Last week we learned how digital history has changed the way we look at text. When using tools such as a word cloud it can show you something in a whole new fascinating light.  My project deals with just that, using text to show something we once knew in a different way. I want to visualize a few carefully selected Inaugural Addresses using different digital tools. My main hypothesis is that the main issues we face today are not so different from our past.  I also hope to find many other thought provoking connections between our great leaders of history.

The project is going really well.  I have found plenty of great information on the web and almost every presidential speech. One of my main sources I am working with for this project is the American Presidency Project. The American Presidency Project is an online archive that stated in 1999 and now has 103,335 documents dealing with different presidents.  I am also using Voyeur Tools as my main tool to visualize the speeches. Voyeur is great and has many useful tools that can illustrate connections.  My main issue with this tool is that I am having a hard time bringing it to word. I have found one un-user friendly way to do it but I have found a helpful YouTube video playlist that I am learning a lot from.

The main issue I face at this point is that I do not know what speeches to use.  A lot of presidents have two speeches and there are a lot of important presidencies I wanted to use only three and compare them but now I am not sure.   I am going to bring this issue in class to see what my peers think. Right now I am thinking about using Obama, Kennedy, and Theodore Roosevelt because they are all in about a hundred year range. However, I am not sure if I should be in a time range. I look forwarded to finding out what my peers will have to say. I am at an important part of my project that needs feedback.

Week Eight Text analysis

It is crazy to see how far search engines have gone. H-BOT and Syllabus Finder are two fine examples of how historical research has become easier.  This is great because research has evolved in a way where you need to processes large amounts of data.  As we see in “Where to start with text mining.” Having to go through large data sources can be almost impossible without skills in digital history. Thankfully we can visualize data using many different tools to give large data a quick new meaning.

So my main question with text analysis is will the advances ever stop? Is there a limit to how far this will go? Looking at the history of digital history it is almost safe to say that these tools are going to be old news in a decade or so. If this is the case then why not wait to “text mine” or process large data until there is a program that can do it easier and more accurately.  I am sure there are many philosophies of this question but I personally feel that there will always be a better program and by doing the work now you are setting the foundations of the next generations of research.

Week Seven Digital Databases and Digital Research Tools

I understand that my past blogs may have been quite cautious to future advances. While I and my generation love technology we also grow up to things like terminator and Y2K. I am not afraid of the robot apocalypse; I just love the digital world and fear it might get corrupted.  Today I am going to talk about the wonderful tools the digital world can provide.

  In “Without Human Insight, Big Data Is Just A Bunch Of Numbers” the argument is made that human insight is the most important factor in the digital world. It was stated that technology is a tool and does not drive culture and humanity. I disagree with this statement, technology drives culture every day. Look at big social data like Facebook. A tool is something that is used and controlled but I believe that the digital world is more than that.  Look at the internet, it cannot be controlled and is evolving every day. I agree that we are the ones who keep it up and can use the digital world like a tool, I’m just saying it’s more than that.

In “Taking a Byte Out of the Archives: Making Technology Work for You” and "Interesting Study Issued: Supporting the Changing Research Process of Historians," you get to really see how the digital world offers many tools to its user. Between the two, there was a cornucopia of tools that a historian can use. One main tool was the camera. A camera can make an archive both well preserved and assembled. The assembled side of things is what really got me excited because image search software is ever growing. I highly recommend looking up Google Goggles and Google Glass. Information is no longer searchable by text, one day you may even be able to look up something by taste or smell.