clio697

The New York Public Library and Oral Comprehensives

I'm stuck in a time warp preparing for oral comprehensives for the PhD in American History at George Mason.  It's an amorphous, foggy place where the quest for resolution and definition unceasingly chases its own tail.

The New York Public Library may have prompted a breakthrough.  Live from the NYPL features audio and video webcasts across a spectrum of people and topics.  Amid the wealth of scholars and material, what caught my eye?

NYPL's Paul Holdengraber talks with Umberto Eco and Pierre Bayard about his book, How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read. Apparently among Bayard's premises is the idea that  "it is wholly unnecessary to have held a book in your hand, to be able to speak about it in detail, as long as you listen to and read what others say about it."

Sounds like confirmation for best-loved techniques for surviving graduate school--and orals; but it goes without saying that I haven't read it. 

 

Who reads history?

CBS news anchor, Katie Couric, asked presidential candidates ten tough questions, including, "Which book, besides the Bible, would you consider essential to have at the White House?  History materials predominate, with the exception of Huckabee who selected a book co-authored by Christian evangelical theologian Francis Schaeffer and former Surgeon General Koop.  Candidates chose primary sources:  Senator McCain cited Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations;  Senator Clinton and Mayor Giuliani voted for the Federalist Papers. Former Senator John Edwards' choice of I.F. Stone's The Trial of Socrates wins him the vote for "most interesting person to have lunch with."

On PBS, Bill Moyers turned the question around, asking viewers to recommend books to the future president.  Again, history books figure predominantly among literary classics, public policy, and government.  The Moyers blog includes a podcast and video of the program.

Who, then reads history?  So many people, apparently, that it is surprising to learn that only fifteen states in the country include standardized tests in history among those required for graduation.  So many people profess to reading history, in fact, that red flags of the History News Network (HNN) column, Low History IQs, sound excessively alarmist.

Politicians turn to history to inspire the present just as they turn to religion to demonstrate whose side God is on in war. Certainly the rhetoric of analogies between Obama and John F. Kennedy is flawed to the unbeliever, and it's a no-brainer to point out that in answering Katie Couric's question, each candidate drew upon an author or fragment of history that helped to define his or her own message or public persona.

My question is whether the public proliferation of historical sources and public discussion and the diverse media carrying the message will, in fact, rectify low history IQs and promote skepticism in the electorate. How do we avoid reinforcing a conceptual misrepresentation of the past as egregious as the factual void of not knowing in which century the Civil War took place?  To quote from one of the educational websites from the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University , historical thinking matters.

Flickr and the Library of Congress...further adventures in the democratization of history

The Library of Congress hasn't always been friendly to the public-at-large.  Well into the latter half of the twentieth century, institutional culture reflected  its original purpose as a reference library for Congress, and directions to researchers seeking access to its collections served to discourage frivolous bibliographic meandering .  It was an exciting place to go, but not for the faint-hearted.

Thomas Jefferson intended the Library of Congress as a democratic institution, however. What that has meant, of course, has changed over time as this history of the Library of Congress demonstrates, but when historian James Billington became the thirteenth Librarian of Congress in 1987, the contemporary period of democratization began. Billington began programs to increase public access to Library collections.

The most recent foray into democratization is a project the Library blog has called My Friend Flickr: A Match Made in Photo Heaven.  The rationale is explained in FAQs.  It's both an experiment in the implications of social tagging and a practical measure to help the Library gain more information about the content of its collection though public commentary and participation.  The two initial collections (more than 3,000 photographs) on Flickr have no copyright restrictions and are from the 1910s and 1930s-1940s. Even if visitors to the collections weren't alive when the photos were taken, their parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents likely were.  There's a connection.

This kind of endeavor raises questions about how to extend historical archives to a wider public.  These two collections are the stuff of everyday life in America--at least some people's America, and that in itself is a history lesson often distorted through today's lens of political correctness.  Questions and discussion are undoubtedly forthcoming, but that commentary is the substance of the relevance of history to contemporary times.

The Library blogged about initial public response; the Flickr blog summed up response with the title Wow,  and notes that this is just the beginning of this pilot project. 

New semester, new blog redux

The fall semester, 2007,  History and New Media course at George Mason University is History and Cartography, again taught by Professor Paula Petrik. So, new semester, new class, new blog...

Gone fishin'...

What is there about this class???

The Clio classes at George Mason are difficult and take many of us places we've never gone before. Read the blogs...people go gray, spew bitter invective, question their self-worth, consider dropping out of grad school, and evaluate the merits of the fetal position.  Whew.  Then read them some more.  Compliments, substantive ideas, problems solved--great digital conversations on theory and practice, a kind of classroom community. And achievements. Just look at the projects. Amazing. Thank you everyone.

Gaming, redux...

Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester of the 617th Military Police Company, a National Guard unit out of Richmond, Ky., received the Silver Star for actions during a convoy ambush in Iraq.  She was the first woman to earn that medal since World War II.  Interestingly, Sgt. Hester was flown back to the United States shortly thereafter so that her body could be used as a model for an official war game of the US Army.  Games and simulations are widely used as teaching tools; technology has changed how they are implemented, in business, government, and in the classroom as well. 

Look at Oregon Trail, for example.  Before computers became standard classroom features (in a substantial number of schools, anyway), elementary school children played Oregon Trail as teams over time, keeping score on the blackboard.  Some things weren't possible:  hunting--one of the high points on the computer--couldn't happen, of course.  But the basics were the same:  team work, character selection, consequences of decisions, situational choice of information application, active engagement of empowered learners.   Although less of an immersive interactive experience, Carmen Sandiego (and where in the world is she these days?) is another game that can be played without a computer. 

Would James Gee writing in "Learning by Design: Games as Learning" agree?  Although his article appears as a fervent lobbying force for the inclusion of electronic games in the classroom, embedded early in the article he somewhat tempers his advocacy, "I believe that we can make school and workplace learning better if we pay attention to good computer and video games.  This does not necessarily mean using game technologies in school and at work, though that is something I advocate."

I'd change his statement somewhat.  As he points out, contemporary education has admitted the validity of a variety of learning styles--and a variety of reasons for learning.  No, not everyone will benefit from video and computer games in school--in fact, they would slow down learning for some kinds of thinkers. Their effectiveness, as well, would be dependent on the skill of the educator guiding the classroom experience.  I'd advocate them in some subjects, in some grades, for some students. 

Good educators have devised a plethora of learning experiences that achieve the goals Gee has outlined.  The educator who knows when and what teaching tool to implement for whom approaches god-like proportions.   So, my question is, who is Gee's audience?  Is he, perhaps, singing to the choir?

Wikipedia, instrument of the devil or new media success story?

For the last couple of days, the Virginia History List, a discussion service of the Library of Virginia in Richmond, has tackled the issue of Wikipedia. Negative critics mingle with enthusiastic proponents, but two criticisms predominate--the issue of accuracy and the proclivity of students to use Wikipedia as a primary research tool.

One comment under the inherited subject line, In defense of Wikipedia, came from a professor who is not, in fact, a defender and writes,

Democratizing access to knowledge is not the same thing as democratizing the production of knowledge. I am all for the one, and deeply opposed to the other.  When I say I am opposed to democratizing the production of knowledge, what I mean is that there are good standards in place to ensure that certain kinds of knowledge claims are advanced on the basis of rigorous and responsible methodologies, by careful and qualified scholars. ...those of us who complete academic training are, by virtue of that training, somewhat more likely to know how to employ those rigorous and responsible methodologies for producing knowledge.

Conversely, a Wikipedia fan states,

Wikipedia represents a technology at the very beginnings of the revolution of which it is a part...and already it represents a body of knowledge and an approach to sharing knowledge that promises to dwarf the fruits of Gutenberg's revolution.  Our major problem at this point, I would argue, is not Wikipedia..but the stewardship of those who would (and should) serve as its guardians, guides, contributors, and advocates.  Foremost among those stewards...are us.

Faculty at George Mason University have discussed these issues and their thoughts and uses of Wikipedia are on-line through the Center for History and New Media.

Professor Roy Rosenzweig's article, published in the Journal of American History, , volume 93, Number 1 (June 2006) 117-146,  "Can History Be Open Source:  Wikipedia and the Future of the Past,"  discusses the process of Wikipedia and its implications for producing and interpreting history.

Professor T. Mills Kelly describes a classroom project with Wikipedia designed to help students become better consumers of history in his blog entry, Why I won't get hired at Middlebury.   

Interactivity, gaming and learning

A propos of this week's site visits assigned in Clio:

• The Lost Museum:  three stars because of the linkage between narrative, image and archival materials, albeit a sometimes tenuous one in terms of locational linkage, and the option to dig into available material or ignore it.  Great visuals, but they are not stand-alones and need the accompanying archival matter.
• Historic tale construction:  two stars.  No background material.  Just the assumption that the visitor knows about the Battle of Hastings and the Bayeux tapestry.  If I were teaching an elementary school or middle school history unit on the Middle Ages, I'd look at it as an adjunct teaching tool, but I need a meta-narrative.
• British Library Turning the Pages:  knocked my socks off.  This is what new media can do--bring fragile, priceless items out of the archives and give us access.  (I had seen many of these texts at the British Library about a year ago where they are available on touch screen computer consoles throughout the exhibit space.)  Purists might complain that images, such as those of the Flemish masters or the Qu'ran are neither as brilliant nor detailed as their originals, but so what?  They're good enough to establish the nature of the work, to provide a framework for analysis.  And mostly, we simply couldn't experience them in any way without web technology.

Each of these on-line exhibits is an interactive learning experience, (insert rough segue into topic of gaming as educational tool).   I'm not a computer gamer.  But I am the mother of a gamer, now a college student.

So,  was all this gaming a learning experience, I asked.  It was.  The Civilization series, Age of Empires, Warcraft, reconstructions of contemporary wars and battles all led to some level of historic inquiry into the era, the people, the culture. Having listened, ad infinitum, to the minutiae of battles between Medes and  Persians,  Moors and Vikings (yes, Moors and Vikings, I'm pretty sure that was one of the combinations--totally impossible groupings, weapons, and strategies, in any event), I was a little incredulous.  Nope, he said, there's also the "suppose things had happened differently" factor. 

Now he's a history and archaeology major. But the pursuit of subject-matter, I think, was a by-product of the process of gaming.  The intricacies of constructing and manipulating a world, the sense of control and mastery, winning battles (and three Phoenician archers are apparently able to conquer hordes of Mongols--who knew?).  That was the dominant draw.

Then there was Sim City, and the Sims (who suffered under the diabolical depredations of middle schoolers), but both offered introductions to public administration, financial policy, sociology.  And, again, that sense of control over a world.  Playing them was far better than non-interactive television viewing.

Of course, gaming is different from the on-line exhibit experience. Despite the non-linearity of progression through exhibits such as The Lost Museum, exhibit sites are constructed around specific learning goals and  circumscribed by the selection of materials.  Turning the Pages offers unlimited learning possibilities, but interactivity in this case is designed to maximize the presentation of materials more than to involve the visitor.

Most games are constructed with greater complexity than websites, and seem to offer more creative possibilities.  And as developmental tools, are they really so different from the non-digital role playing games predating computers and the internet?  In fact, despite parallels, they seem far richer than the old cops and robbers or the now-politically incorrect Cowboys and Indians of previous generations.

But I have a question: studies seem to indicate that the games battle and adventure that dominate the market are still predominantly "guy" things?  What  is the alternative and what are the consequences?

Minimalism works...

This week's Clio class readings cover visual architecture in site design.  The presentation of Carole Guevin's article, Visual Architecture: The Rule of Three ignores her own best rules, yet demonstrates perhaps equally relevant points for historians that Wroblewski emphasizes in Visible Narratives: Understanding Visual Organization.  Images illustrate content rather than overpower it; text is image in the sense that it provides a visual link to the hierarchical organization of information; visual organization leads viewers to the information we seek to convey and that they want.

Some rules influencing site design have become perhaps sacrosanct:  pull viewers in in six seconds, or they're gone; play to the quick fix, MTV generation.  I doubt that's true for the preponderance of history sites, perhaps even for sites in general.  Why?  I'd surmise that more often than not, history sites are destination locations, whether they are sites for public history venues, archival sites, or topical sites developed to disseminate research and information.  The visual organization of history sites doesn't necessarily have to hook in the dubious; it has to tell the visitor that the information that they need is there and where it can be found. And the more expeditiously visual architecture enables that process, the better.

So, let's go back to Carole Guevin's article.  It is cleanly on the page and easy to follow; but the above-the-fold section is not visually compelling; it's text.  I am there because I chose the site and I want to know what she's got to say.  It's a destination location; I'm not browsing. Regardless of her presentation, I'd stay there long enough to find out what I need to know, and the minimalistic visual cues keep me focused on the organization of her material without distraction.   It's not pretty, but for this kind of message anyway, it works.