Overwhelming Data Mining

    I am a everyday user of search engines like Google. I use it to look up movie times, recipes, and I always use it to start off my research on projects but I never really put much thought in the importance of such a tool. The actual work that goes into searching millions of websites and databases can cause anyone a headache.
    There is an extreme about of variables that go into how a search engine mines through every individual piece of information out there. It takes in consideration the chance of misspellings and all the ways a researcher can search a topic like U.S. History or American History or History of the United States. The programmers and programs have to take in account how people think and how they expect their information to be presented to them.
    Aside from the scientific programming of mining data, a relationship forms between history and the immediate present. At any moment we can search an issue or topic and because there is an extensive about of organizing based on a classification of words, letters, and numbers, we can access information that may have been lost over time but now can be read at any computer across the world.
    I will admit I am completely lost when it comes to understanding the detail and science that goes into data mining for search engines. But I am forever grateful for the easy accessibility that it offers.

Twitter: Making Education more of Conversation

     In the article How will Twitter revolutionize academic research and teaching, the positive aspects of social media are described as active listening in an academic conversation. In the article the author talks about how when someone in academia uses Twitter for educational purposes they are no longer standing at a podium in front of a lecture hall but more at an equal level like in a seminar room. It discusses how Twitter followers are automatically an active participant that (hopefully) want to add to the conversation and can easily do so with the ease of the reply button. With active participants come constant and genuine feedback that help not only the "tweeter" but all those who follow them. Twitter offers opportunities to anyone willing to click the follow button and according to the article " can lead to an ethical shift towards active efforts for engaging new audiences and widening participation beyond the ivory tower walls" that most people regard as higher education.
     Although I am slow on the uptake of Twitter, I do see the mass potential it offers to have an immediate conversation with a million people all across the globe. It gives people an informal way to conduct research, form thought, and suggest theories. What is great about Twitter is that it is a two way street of information. I can read what other people are thinking and on the rare occasion that I have something to say, I have the perfect audience already waiting to be involved and participate.

The Ups and Downs of a New Relationship

    History and technology are not two things, that in the past, have necessarily belonged together. However, in this new age of digital media it seems only fitting that the two have a long-lasting relationship. With a relationship so new, the bad tends to come with the good.
    In Talking Shop with the "Gutenberg-es", recent recipients of the Gutenberg-e award discuss the ups and downs of being published in an e-book format. It is difficult for new historians to get published and this award offers them a chance to publish their works in electronic form. Although electronic resources are a growing legitimate source, some winners still felt being published didn't feel real without that hard copy in hand. Others felt as though their work would be easily accessible to scholars around the world. When dealing with such a relatively new media, it seems as though the preconceived negative notion of e-books is hard to forget. I think to offer historians an opportunity to get their work and ideas out to the public should only be seen as a great perk of history and technology's new relationship.
    I also looked at  H-Net: Digital Discussion for Historians, which highlights the strengths of technology and history working together. I just recently learned of H-Net and can not believe I went so long without using it! Its an online resource for historians, that has 180,000 subscribers that contribute to 181 separate discussion networks. The availability of ideas and concepts are literally at your finger tips. I can not imagine a researcher not being able to find something of use with 181 different discussion topics. H-Net helps to post announcements and news that historians would find useful. Maybe I am still in the beginning stages of love with this website, but I can't seem to find a flaw with history and technology converging in this case.
    I think that the misconceptions of e-books will fade as the field of digital media strengthens and with every new technological advance the historians will doubt its contributions like a never ending cycle. Regardless we are benefiting from the accessibility of information that this relationship of new technology and history has to offer.

Respect for Wikipedia

    I have always been a major supporter of Wikipedia. I love that I can quickly look up a topic to settle a bet, a discussion or my own curiosity. Every time I begin learning a new topic or have a project to do I go straight to Wikipedia, just to get my mind in the right place. However, I would never even dream of using it as a legitimate source in a paper or project.
    The most exciting new discovery on Wikipedia for me is the history tab. I always understood that anyone could edit an entry but I never realized that the reader could see every edit made on that page. So I looked up random historical topics like Modernism, History of Sexuality, and Abraham Lincoln.  How I ended up on these three pages I'll never know but it was actually surprising to me how much work goes into a Wikipedia page. There is a lot of activity in the editing section for it to be organized by volunteers. On all three of those pages there were edits done within the past few days. These edits weren't because of complete idiots messing with the pages, they were to improve grammar and clarify the information.
    Then under the talk tab there is a multitude of people questioning ideals and theories to see if they are relevant enough to be included on the page on Modernism. On the Abraham Lincoln discussion section there is a warning that all edits are monitored by a bot and will be removed if they have not been approved within a month.
    There seems to be a serious professionalism that Wikipedia adheres to, in order to maintain this as a reliable free community based encyclopedia.Yes, it is easy to edit but it is also easy to contribute, and if the system works, it is also easy to catch those violating the rules. Although my love for Wikipedia has never wavered, discovering  the history and talk tabs may have made it more reliable in my eyes. Will I try to cite it in my work? Absolutely not. But now I no longer just use Wikipedia but I might actually respect it.

Group Contract and the Beginning of a Great Project

    The process of completing our group contract was much easier than I expected. With a starting off point as broad as WBT, I wasn't sure we could narrow down a topic that we would all be interested in. I wanted everyone in the group to enjoy or at least be intrigued by whatever topic we decided on. Amanda was the one who was initially excited about the idea of following the WBT's Woman of the Year awards as our focus for this project. After the rest of us looked into it, we knew that this was the best way to go about the loads of information we found in the collection and to showcase the women who helped Charlotte grow.
     It seemed too easy for a group project to get started so smoothly but it only got easier when it came to handing out the task because each of our strengths started to show and we realized how well balanced of a group we are. Luckily, Blake has experience with Omeka and the actual digital compilation portion of the project. I started digging through the archives looking for all the documents and support and so did Amanda. Amanda and I were able to meet and organize what each of us had found and as it turned out we work well at organizing and processing all the information into a theme for the project. Andrew jumped right on the research and found an awesome resource of the digital interviews of the winners of WBT's Women of the Year. We all plan to do our equal share of research but its nice to know we can rely on each other along the way if we need the help. The only thing that may come up as an issue would be our schedules. It seems as though we can never physically meet at the same time but the group is really great about communicating through email and meeting up with whatever partial members are available.
      Once we talked to Dr. Cox we were able to narrow down what we specifically wanted to get out of researching these women and which women in particular we were going to spot light. The decision was made that we would break down the winners by decade and discuss what made the women stand out in our local community and also what was happening in Charlotte at the time. I think the end result of the project will be a great resource to see the role that women played in the development of Charlotte.

Useful Plugins for Omeka

    The idea of a timeline may be somewhat of an outdated way to organize information but in a digital format it can be extremely helpful and interactive. In Omeka there is a plugin called Neatline Time in which the user can upload links of important dates and events onto a timeline. This application would be extremely useful to any exhibit that is showing a progression of any kind.

By offering the information in chronological order the viewer is able to make connections not only with important events in one topic’s history but it would also offer a broader view of what else is happening in the region, state, country, or even the rest of the world. 

For my group’s research on WBT/WBTV, I think the timeline would be beneficial in showing the stations advancements over time. WBT was involved in a lot of ground breaking “first”, that can be compared to other stations through the south and the rest of the country. WBT began in 1920 and has covered a lot of topics in American history. Its role in radio and television communication was extremely innovative and ahead of its time. The best way to show what they accomplished in those years is to lay out the major milestones on a timeline.

I think that almost any exhibit can find use for a timeline, to put the events in perspective of the world around them.

Contributing to an Archive : Review of Fold3

    A digital archive is typically an online collaboration of documents and information compiled in an accessible format for a certain audience of scholars, researchers, and in some cases opened completely to the public. The digital archive I chose to explore was Fold3, it is a public digital compilation of  U.S. military records. It uses basic public information like census records, enlistment forms, government documents, court files, and city directories to gather information on U.S. veterans. It also allows for the public to upload stories, documents, letters, and photos of loved ones to help "complete" the records.
    A digital archive of this kind can be extremely useful to genealogist or people hoping to expand the branches of their own family tree. I took this opportunity to do a little researching of my own and was able to find a few documents on my grandfather that served in WWII. What is really neat about this site is that I can upload photos, documents, and can even add stories of his to go along with his entry in Fold3. I like that the family members can help create and add to what is called the memorial page.
    At first I thought that this site would only be useful when researching genealogy, then I started to explore their spotlight sections and realized that this is a great primary source to understanding military life in the U.S. as far back as the Revolutionary War. The user doesn't have to know anyone who has served in the military to research and learn. I got lost in letters, photos, and personal accounts from most major U.S. wars.
    This site does offer quick access to their documents and is easily navigable,  it took me less than five minutes to find my grandfather's file. Fold3 explains that its purpose is to" help you discover and share stories about these everyday heroes, forgotten soldiers, and the families that supported them.", that is exactly what I was able to do. Fold3 makes these files, that would normally take up space in a cabinet, become meaningful information that families can use to build and archive their own history.