Hmm. So we have had nearly fifty minutes to work independently today. I understand that many of you had technical issues that we had to workout. However I am very concerned about the independent work ethic that this group has displayed today. One element that is super important to this class, academic success in your later years of high school and especially in college is the ability to work independently. Do what you are supposed to do. See the number one sign of good leadership is doing what your are supposed to do. Do what you say you're going to do. So you said "oh Ill work on my weeblys, Oh im good I know that my blog is good to go." So when many of you miss the deadlines for the blogs on friday I wont feel bad. That is a part of being college ready. Being able to advocate for yourself. Being able to bucket down and knock out work when you need to and being able to focus when no one is on your back because when you get to college mommy and daddy will not be there to make sure you're successful. Instead it is all on you. If you choose to waste your time, Oh Well. The deadlines are there. If you miss them because you choose to talk and socialize, that stinks. I would seriously reflect on the level of commitment many of you showed today. If it continues this may be a long school year for you.
Happy Blogging. Mr Rudy. Been there, done that. Seen this type of work ethic- it doesn't end up pretty.
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Well with hosting two track meets and a very hectic time of the school year I didn't get as much done on my project this week as I would have liked. I have all the written information into the google sheet template for the long version of the project. I also have all the videos and images I would like to use, however I haven't got them linked on the template. I also have to go through and format the text with italics and bold faced print at some point. I'm currently going to be moving all the images to flickr and then posting them and the video URLs on the google sheet. If I can get that accomplished this week I'll be in good shape and can focus on the visualization of MLK speeches in the following two weeks.
I'm a bit worried about the overall appearance of the timeline. I've spent the whole time so far focusing on the content, but I'm afraid that once I've amassed all of this, when I upload it it will not look too ascetically pleasing. I'm worried about the size of images and videos, too much text and other minor details like that. If those do present issues I'm not exactly sure how I'll be able to combat that problem. If that does look terrible, I do have latitude and longitude coordinates for each event. It could come back to some sort of a map project if that is the case. We'll see, its good to remember this is a process and not to focus on the end result so I'll just keep plugging away. As I read these chapters on debates within Digital Humanities I became quite frustrated with the topics. Not that the writing was poor or that it was boring, but I just felt like many of conflicts or debates that were brought up were not needed. Although Digital Humanities certainly has a history I think its save to say its still an extremely young field. So to make claims of issue with race and gender and location for short falls within the field is a bit unwarranted in my opinion. Many of the points that were brought up were valid, but nonetheless I think it has to due with just has new the field is. Roopika Risam brought up the fact that the field is largely dominated by Canada, the United States and UK by explaining how there were vastly more centers for Digital Humanities in those places than the rest of the world. That is indeed true and not something I would argue against. However I think the reasoning for that is not because there is some great big agenda to keep the rest of the world out, its merely because that is where the means of creating these centers can be met. She brought up the point that english largely dominates the field and that other languages and local vernaculars are missing from much of the field. Again this is true, but this is largely an economic issue. I'm not naive enough to say that the rest of the world is behind and lacks internet access because that is certainly not the case by and large. However the finical support to set up high quality DH centers is not easy to obtain. If it were then there would be more centers. I would just argue that the reasoning for the lack of these centers is because the extra money that is available in other parts of the world it being used for other things as DH hasn't yet become a pressing field everywhere. We even noted in our class that Germany, a highly westernized country with economic power and academic know how, has a different structure for their higher education, thus not having the same means to achieve these DH Centers. To me its not a matter of it being a problem, but more so a reality. Risam also mentions the domination of Western thinking in the DH world. I don't believe this is an issue related to DH, but actually academia in general. There are very highly intelligent people all over the world, but to make a broad generalization, I don't believe the emphasis has been put on the humanities in other places like it has in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. For example there is such an emphasis in India to become a doctor that many many young students pursue that career. As a result there is an influx of doctors working at call centers. The point I'm trying to make that I've now run around Robin Hood's barn to discover is that I get rather frustrated with people claim that there is a great problem with something somewhere but aren't looking at the entire big picture. Now I know I'm not an expert on this, but after we had established that DH is supposed to be about openness and collaboration, it seems silly to me that we would be angry that we are getting more collaboration from one place and not another. Give it time, it'll get there. If in twenty years these number have gotten strikingly worse, then perhaps theres a problem. But despite that fact that the world is connected much more so than it ever has been before, it doesn't change the fact that many places in the more are still at very different situations in their development.
Finally I thought it was rather interesting when Wendy F. Hsu pointed out about working with the public to create humanities projects. She really hit the nail on the head when she mentioned that humanities scholars are often very happy to sit back and explain the problems we see in the world, but are often uncomfortable giving specific solutions. We often view everything we do as for the public good. However I think it is awesome for someone to press the mindset a bit deeper and ask how and why. Why is it good and helpful for the public that I create a Civil Rights Timeline? How does it help the public to document the stories and memories of the Bombing of Hiroshima? As the creators of these projects we should have answers to these questions to justify our work. We shouldn't settle on the fact that working hard and showing knowledge is always super useful. We can create a wonderful work that may not be that useful to the public. So I agree that getting the public involved early in projects is cool. It will lead to more involvement and therefore more relevancy and there is never a bad thing with more relevancy for the Humanities. Adam Rudy
4/7/16 HUM 560: Digital Humanities Dr. Angello “The Fallen of WWII: Visualization to Emphasize the Reality of the Devastation of World War II” As a historian it’s natural to have a certain intrigue when talking about war. After all they are typically central to the process of political history. Nations are formed, destroyed, enlarged and torn apart by wars. Yet, it has become apparent that as a society we have become desensitized to violence and warfare. Children grow up playing first person shooters for hours a day and see war with a glamour almost. Death, carnage and the sheer gore of war is something that has become overlooked in my opinion. However, Neil Halloran’s interactive documentary, “The Fallen of WWII”, that examines the human costs of World War II and the decline of battle deaths since the war does an incredible job of displaying the magnitude of this war in a visually engaging manner. It’s one thing to write that seventy million people died during the war. Its another entirely to visually display it in a way that is utterly eye opening. This documentary is a fantastic example of how a digital element to a humanities project can truly take the scholarship to another level. Halloran utilizes graphes, interactive displays, sounds and skillful narration to portray an eye opening look into the utter devastation that was the second world war. The project was first published in 2015 and has since went on to win numerous awards such as the SXSW Winner for Interactive Innovation, Vimeo best of 2015 and the 2016 Award for Best American Infographic. Halloran has chosen to run an interactive website as well as publish the video on YouTube and Vimeo. The flexibility of viewing options is one of the major selling points about this project. Teachers can embed his video to their own sites and seamlessly integrate it into their instruction. Many of my students mouths began to drop as they watched the visualization show just how massive the number of people that died from the Soviet Union during the war. There is a suggested ticket price of 2.50 on the website, but it’s only suggested. You can also donate larger financial resources of twenty five or one hundred dollars and be listed as a Gold and Silver Supporter of the project in the credits. Below that option Halloran has put a brief paragraph explaining the any donated money intends on going towards his next project exploring more of the trends of war and peace and drones terrorism and democracy. If that project turns out to be anything like this one, he will certainly have to get a larger shelf for his future awards. “The Fallen of WWII” uses a linear narration that allows the viewer to pause and interact with the charts used in the fifteen minute data visualization. Although Halloran is primarily responsible for the project, he did give credit to this collaborators who helped make the project possible. Halloran’s portion of work appears to be herculeon as he wrote, directed, coded and narrated the project. He was assigned by Andy Dollerson on the music and sound design as well as receiving editorial feedback and technical consulting from AlteredQualiea. Halloran and Dollerson have combined to make a ground breaking project that beautifully illustrates the tragedy of WWII. The website also lists that “most of the underlying sources are similar to WWII Casualties Wikipedia Articles” sources. This is a perfect example of taking already existing data but displaying it in a totally new and engaging way. One final note about the website itself is that Halloran has provided a comments section for his viewers to leave their thoughts, ideas and feedback. The comment section was originally listed right below the video, however it has generated so much buzz that it actually is it’s own separate page now. There are close to fifteen hundred comments with some real thoughtful discussion. One comment that really caught my eye actually holds quite a bit of irony for the whole project. A post from “Writzer” wrote, “A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic.” Writzer’s contribution was great in a number of ways, but the great irony is that Joseph Stalin is responsible for that quote. The brutal leader of the Soviet Union was responsible for millions of deaths, but his quote really puts the context of the project into a new light. As a US history teacher we constantly throw around statistics of casualties and deaths, but often do not pause to truly reflect on that fact that all of those people were brothers, sons, fathers, daughters, mothers, grandmothers and so much more. Although Halloran opens up his video by stating that this project isn’t about individual people, but that masses of deaths in WWII. It still forced me to think about just how tragic of an event this really was. The fifteen minute documentary starts by explaining that the average lifespan of an American is eighty years and that an eighty year old today would have been ten when World War Two ended and four when it started. Meaning a soldier would have to be at least eighty nine years old today to have seen combat during the War. Most of the decision makers of the war have since passed away. However this documentary is not about them or individuals, instead it’s about the millions who lives were cut short by the war. To represent those people, Halloran used one tiny person to symbolize one thousand deaths. To begin the visualization he starts by discussing military deaths in the European theater of the war. This is followed by civilians and then the pacific theater. As the visualization begins the viewer will notice a subtle clicking for every person that is displayed on the bar graph and timeline combination that is being created. This does a great job of really emphasizing how many people died in this conflict. By starting with American deaths, he shows that 400,000 Americans lost their lives, most of which was over fighting the Nazi’s. However, there were very high casualty rates at the end of the pacific theater against Japan. As Halloran is narrating he also puts much of the fighting in perspective. He throws in little tidbits about parts of the war. For example he explains that this is a drastic increase of American deaths on D-Day as 2,500 Americans died that day, which is just as many as the entire thirteen year war in Afghanistan in the early twenty first century. This really opens the viewer's eyes to the magnitude of the war. From there the visualization moves to Europe where it begins with all the countries that Hitler invaded to start WWII. Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Greece, Yugoslavia and Denmark are all shown to have hundreds of thousands of deaths. This is quickly follows by the United Kingdom and then German Military Deaths. Although Germany lost relatively few troops in their initial conquest, their bar begins to grow rather rapidly as they start factoring in the military deaths on the Eastern front. The German tower starts climbing well over all the other countries already listed. That is until the USSR is considered. The red soviet bar begins to climb and climb and climb with the subtle clicking of each person sounding very similar to a machine gun. As the tower continues to sour way about every other tower the viewer begins to hear the wind blowing as if you were atop of a skyscraper. You even begin to question if the tower will ever stop. Eventually the bar stops, only then to display 8.7 million military deaths for the Soviets. However some argue that those estimates are low and that number could be as high as 14 million. After this the visualization zooms out for a bit to show the comparison between all the countries in the European theater and if then thrown onto a timeline so you can see and interact with the data from the various times that each country was losing soldiers. Finally all the data is added together to visualize twenty two million military deaths. The next portion of the documentary focuses on civilian deaths. After all they were significantly higher in this war than in previous wars for many reasons. Halloran starts off by discussing the Holocaust and the six million jews that were killed. This is followed by a bar graph similar to before that is breaking down and moving all the deaths by country and concentration camp. Then the non jewish deaths in the concentration camp are factored in. The Roma, Disabled, catholics, prisoners or war and the two million non jewish poles that were killed during the Holocaust are all included on the interactive timeline. At this point in the documentary Halloran throws in another anecdote about sixteen percent of the total polish population died during WWII, the highest percentage of any country. However the country with the highest number of deaths easily goes to the Soviets. Once again their bar steadily climbs as the narration explains the civilian deaths at Leningrad because of starvation and then more due to Stalin’s own cruelty to his own people. The Soviet total settles at an estimation between ten and twenty million civilian deaths. Halloran also explains that the majority of civilian deaths were no accident as hundred of thousands were caused by bombing of cities and fighting in highly populated areas. After this, the viewer is given another opportunity to step back and interact with the data as both the European military and civilian data is morphed into one giant bar graph totaling forty one million deaths in Europe during WWII. The first twelve minutes of the documentary focus on the European theater of the war, which could be a shortfall of this project as it somewhat hurries through the pacific theater of the war. Nevertheless it still does a good job displaying the date in the same way as he did with Europe. Halloran starts by using military deaths and emphasizing that China and Japan had the majority of military deaths. He then breaks it down by other countries that were invaded such as the Dutch East Indies, French Indochina (modern day Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia), the Philippines, Korea and India. One unique part of this portion of the documentary is that the bar graph has flipped and is now counting down. That way at the end of the documentary the European and Pacific graphs can be connected on one major scale. As the visualization continues it is noted that China had the second highest death count after the USSR and too allowed many of their own civilians to be harmed. During the war the Chinese government purposefully allowed the dyke of the Yellow River to flood hoping to slow down the advancing Japanese army. In turn this killed half a million chinese. Halloran again puts this into perspective showing that this was more than triple of the number of people killed during the 2004 Asian Tsunami’s. At this point in the documentary the Asian and European theaters data is combined into one colorful visualization that shows WWII was responsible for the death of over seventy million people. This is more than any other war in history. To add to his claims, Halloran compared his data to the number of people that died during some of the worst atrocities on record such as the Atlantic slave trade, 30 years war, Fall of the Ming Dynasty, World War One and the brutal rule of Stalin and Mao. All these number are dwarfs in comparison to the WWII numbers. Only when adjusted by the percentage of the world population that was killed at the time do the numbers start to compare to the WWII rates. It should also be noted that many of those events lasted for centuries whereas the war only lasted for six years. This marks the end of the first version of the project. After its initial completion Halloran added some additional information and visualization on post war conflicts from 1946 to 2010. What we see if that we are undergoing what has been called the “Long Peace.” Even with the collapse of the Cold War era tension between the US and USSR we have still not seen any major conflict. Since World War II no European countries have fought one another and the largest forty four economics in the world have not fought each other at all. He then breaks down several of the small wars that have happened as Colonial, Interstate, Civil and Civil with foreign intervention. Creatively here Halloran explains that peace is a rather difficult thing to measure, but if we look at the numbers it’s clear that we are enjoying a time of relative peace and if watching the news every night depresses us, many seeing the numbers should give us hope. “The Fallen of WWII” is a wonderful example of how a digital element can add an entirely new level of scholarship to a project. Hundreds of thousands of books have been written about the horrors that were the second world war, but none has been able to display the devastation in such as way as this project. It is a great example of how the humanities combined with digital know how can really enhance scholarship. Properly cited Google Doc Typically I like to at least try to have some sort of a central theme to these posts, if not most things that I write. However I think for this I'll just come out and say it, there probably will not be much of that in this post. Had I read the book the entire way through I think that would have been attainable, but having only read the chapter on texts and chapter on Universities, I'll try to do my best to relate on topics that I hadn't given much though too before.
Texts- A large majority of this chapter related to how we can utilize digital technology to enhance reading. Fitzpatrick commented that one of the major problems that we have run into is the fast that we still always associate reading with books. Even when we have attempted advancements in the field of reading, it always comes back to books. For me personally I struggle to think about how it wouldn't come back to books. After all, I think the Printing Press is one of the top five inventions of all time. Up there with the likes of the wheel, gun powder, the internal combustion engine and the Baltimore Orioles. (couldn't help but plug them as its Opening Day-Maybe it'll finally be our year...wishful thinking right) For centuries the book has functioned so smoothly and seamlessly that we didn't often question its functionality (at least to my knowledge) Only with the advent of computers, the loss of attention spans and the constant connectivity have we started to question why the book has lost its luster. For me, its certainly hard to abandon the format. Yes I am a fan of physically holding a book and watching the pages get that gentle bend as you read them, but more so the functionality of it is simply engrained so deeply that it is hard to change. Even before I read Fitzpatrick's explanation of her students complaints and struggles about hyper texts I too questioned the usability of it. Sure, it'd be cool to have a bit more interaction with what were reading, but I think that changes the entire experience. It would be extremely difficult to discuss the story if you and your peers all reading and manipulated the plot in various ways. After some thought I consider the book experience to be similar to that of riding a roller coaster, where as the HyperText is more similar to driving a car. Certainly everyone can learn to drive a car, but we all have our different strengths and weaknesses with that skill. As for riding a roller coaster, we all go on the same ride, and experience the same loops, turns and twists, and then can relate to the terrifying experience together. That feeling of being out of control is what many people find so appealing about Roller Coasters. Likewise, that escape and being out of control while reading is what attracts so many people, in my opinion. I'm all for attempting to better things whenever possible. But I'm an even bigger fan of if it's not broke, don't fix it. Many are claiming that in fact the book and reading is broken, thus we have to fix it. For me I just don't know if thats the case. I think thats more so a result of systemic problems rather than the function of an age of reliable technology. That may be a debate for another day though. University- I'll admit, I hadn't given this much thought before I read part of Fitzpatrick's book and I certainly am no expert on this topic. One of the parts that really hit home for me in this was Fitzpatrick reflecting on the mission of a University. Although it wasn't necessarily her central premise, I thought it was a unique way to look at this. She brought up the point that many Universities write off their Press's because its not part of the central function of purpose of their University. I think to fully understand this we would have to come to a conclusion about what is the certain purpose of a University in general. Not specific to any one university, but just universities as a whole. I don't know that I even have a real concrete idea of what I believe is a Universities central mission. I know that I believe many parts are important, but at the same time this involves quite a bit of thought. Still for me I believe spreading and developing knowledge while preparing students to their next challenges should be a central focus of a University. Fitzpatrick argued that many Universities and University Press's have run into conflict over this very issue and its often a tricky spot for where the Press falls into this mix. Young professors and Scholars typically run into issues moving up the academic food chain if they run into publishing issues-thus the Press function. As far as for the actual students, the Press is often not in their frame of mind. If its not a central focus for the students, its typically well off the focus of the higher ups as well. I believe one way to bring both the Press and the mission together would be to generate more of a connection between the students and the Press. Certainly professors need to publish papers, but wouldn't it be awesome (and this probably already happens to some extent at places) if those university presses were able to highlight exceptional student work. This would both aid the students resume, introduce them to upper level scholarship and help promote the mission of the University. This would put a larger connection between the University as a whole and the Press. Now I'm not saying that they should publish students work in the same level of journals that the Professors are seeking, but perhaps Quarterly journals focused on various topics. Then share those with like minded Universities and perhaps even promote some collaboration between Universities and their students. Frankly, I'm not sure that this totally helps with the budget issues, but it would promote a greater connection between the two where the press would then be more like a department, rather than off to the side business. I'd like to start by saying I love maps, they excite me and I could look at them all day. However the first time that I was told maps could have a bias I just about lost it. I, like most of the world that Harley was referring to, always accepted maps to be the truth, as is. There was no way that map could be manipulated or changed for certain values. Then I saw examples, and thought about representation and even heard the popular author John Greene discredit this. Needless to say, my Geography 101 professor successfully put my know it all freshmen self in my place. From there I always questioned maps a bit and thought about their potential bias. I cant say that I examined them too closely. I certainly never considered a Road Map to be an act of power like Harley references, but still I was aware. So when I read this quote, I definitely had to take some time to think.
"In modern Western society maps quickly became crucial to the maintenance of state power—to its boundaries, to its commerce, to its internal administration, to control of populations, and to its military strength. Mapping soon became the business of the state: cartography is early nationalized. The state guards its knowledge carefully: maps have been universally censored, kept secret and falsified. In all these cases maps are linked to what Foucault called the exercise of 'juridical power.' [75] The map becomes a 'juridical territory': it facilitates surveillance and control. Maps are still used to control our lives in innumerable ways. A mapless society, though we may take the map for granted, would now be politically unimaginable. All this is power with the help of maps. It is an external power, often centralized and exercised bureaucratically, imposed from above, and manifest in particular acts or phases of deliberate policy." Maps have created a social limit on society. In reality there is nothing in nature telling me that I have left Maryland and entered Virginia, except for the man made sign of course. I could wander into the Potomac, cross it and not even realize that it was the boarder between several states. Without Maps I would have no idea. Now as I run along side the C and O canal I am always aware that just across that medium sized river lies another state. This subconscious effect that maps and knowing my geography has had on me never truly dawned on me till reading these pieces. However, I can certainly see the point that they limit us. Maps tell us where we can and cannot go. Where one controls and where is forbidden. There certainly is some truth to the statement that a mapless society would be political chaos. Not that too much of that is related to the Digital aspect of maps- so lets try to hit that a bit. Number one, Rumsey's collection of maps was really cool. In the future I'm definitely going to spend some more time looking through them and more of what his project has to offer. Many of the pictorial graphs and different perspectives were very insightful and could provide some neat analysis into the subjects they covered. In terms of a digital project, it would be awesome to have a pictorial map that was interactive and when the user clicked on the area, it would provide many more options to learn and explore that area. Now that I actually processed what I just typed I realized we've seen many projects like that this year so that was quite silly. The end of the marking period is getting the best of me. Number two- Hyper Cities- What an awesome project! I have struggled using it, I think simply because I'm not overly comfortable with it, but just looking at the maps of Berlin and New York from various time periods is truly fascinating. I wasn't able to get the same beginning screen that they were in the intro video, but I would love to be able to look at Berlin throughout the 20th century and the impact that post WWII and the Cold War Had on it. This really is a great example of how adding that digital element to a map can make it much more useful and allow the user to interact with it in a way that they were not capable of before. To conclude, the first reading discussed the implication of mapping relying on computers so much now and how the art has somewhat disappeared. I think thats truly a shame. Granted it nice to be able to pull out my Iphone, look at my maps app and know that what I'm seeing is perfectly represented in front of me. The practicality of that is really awesome. But the kid that grew up in the middle of the woods, or that young man that loves to just get lost in a state park for 8 hours and come back to 25 texts asking if I'm alive makes me appreciate the unknown of the world. It must have been so cool and yet also completely terrifying to be Lewis and Clark or Columbus as they ventured off into the unknown. The map makers that worked with them may not have been 100% accurate with their maps, but they sure were authentic in experience. There certainly is quite a bit of value in that and I for one cant see to get quite AS excited about new advancements in mapping without thinking about the thrill of how we got here. I hope this was semi understandable. My brain was a bit fried when I knocked this out. Till next time, Adam Adam Rudy
3/2/16 HUM 560: Digital Humanities Dr. Angello “The American Yawp: Collaboration, Innovation and Simplification” For the better part of the last century there has been a constant for students pursuing higher education, high priced and often less than thrilling textbooks. Students often budget, boarder or even beg for the cheapest textbook price they can find as prices have simply skyrocketed. The American Yawp, a free online collaboratively built American history textbook, according to the creators Joseph Locke and Ben Wright, has made a herculean attempt to change what we have come to expect from college textbooks and their massive price tags. Locke, Wright and their incredible team of contributors have created an online text that is perfect for a survey course in American history. Their creation is an overview of American history from colonization through what they deem to be the recent past, which reaches as far as 2014. One of the many wonderful things about their resource is that it truly is a collaborative living source that is constantly being edited, changed and improved. The format is beautifully simple, yet serves the exact needs of its readers. Historians are notorious for wanting to argue about the nuances of the wording of a textbook. Professors, teachers and even recreational historians are often extremely frustrated by not being about to find a text that meets all of their exact needs. The American Yawp’s collaborative nature has found a way to solve that. Every viewer has the option to add comments or suggest changes to the narrative of American history that has been created. That comment is then reviewed by one of the many contributors to the resource and considered for alteration. Locke and Wright have given the reader a voice like they have never had before in any book, much less a college textbook. While Locke and Wright certainly would not take all the credit for the project, they are the chief editors and brains behind most of the operation. However, creating such a resource is not something that was simply created overnight. The sheer amount of work put into developing this incredible historical peace certainly makes one ponder their motivation for the project. Locke is a professor at the University of Houston Victoria and Wright is a professor at the University of Texas Dallas. Neither school is known for having students with extremely affluent backgrounds. Both Locke and Wright saw this as a way to both improve American History textbooks as well as help out their students. Locke comments on an Interview with the American Historical Association about the project, “Textbook prices are really a problem. Joe and I both teach at institutions where students come from non-affluent backgrounds and the opportunity to take a course without shelling out $300 in book costs . . . thats a big deal. This is why we wanted to do this project.” Later in the interview, they also told a story of a student crying when she found of the textbook was completely free. While publishers are probably dragging their feet at this new innovation, students all over the country are benefitting. They are benefiting not only from the financial consideration of the creators, but also the high quality of the work. The collaboration, the overall viewing and user experience, ability to edit, comment and interact with the material as well as the overall usability for students truly makes The American Yawp a one of a kind project. One of the things that makes this project so unique and such a great example of digital humanities is the massive amount of collaboration that went into and still occurs with the book. Sure, there are two main editors, but they have what seems like an army of highly qualified professionals behind them to support their work. At the bottom of every page of the website is a link to the contributors to the project. The list of contributors is well over one hundred people from a variety of institutions all over the country and even some that are international. It is a good thing they had such a team behind them because this project does appear to be too much for two people. Their whole process started by discussing topics they would typically cover in their survey courses of American history. Once that list was compiled they reached out to active scholars in the field with specific expertise. That list numbered contributors close to three hundred people. From there they had twenty seven chapter editors stitch together the feedback from the scholars they reached out too. However there was one catch. Locke and Wright did not want it to read like an encyclopedia. Instead they wanted their project to be a narrative history and thus to read as such. This editing process must have been extensive. However once that was complete Locke and Wright were able to assemble the first draft of their thirty chapter textbook.To fully appreciate the level of collaboration and attention to detail that went into this project, one must just simply check the credentials of the contributors. They range from Ivy League schools, to scholars at museums to major research institutions and everything in between. They certainly have gotten a wide range of active scholars. The “About” section of The American Yawp claims that it is for scholars and by scholars and it certainly is just that. The forty six editorial advisors, thirty three digital content advisors, twenty eight chapter editors and seven media curators have created a team behind Locke and Wright that current publishers should be very fearful of. One of the things that is truly remarkable about The American Yawp is the need that it meets in the world of academics. Most students view textbooks as extremely boring and ridiculously tough to power through. They are somewhat of a necessary evil. However this free online collaborative book is written in such a narrative manner that the reader can effortlessly flow through the story of American history while not being bored by the minor nuances that true historians love. This is not a textbook written for an upper level course or to showcase the amount of research possible for a book. Instead it is written to satisfy the needs of a survey course. To provide an overview of American history. If the reader is so interested in the material they can dive deeper because of the additional reading section provided in each chapter. The American Yawp does a fantastic job of checking the boxes of what is required to do, but still understanding its place on the totem pole of scholarship. Due to the overall simplistic nature of the project, the interface is extremely simple and creates a very easy platform for the user to interact with. The experience of using this free, online, collaborative textbook is clean, crisp and easy to use. When the reader opens up the webpage they are greeted with a very basic page with a picture of an American flag and a breakdown of chapters. In a sense it simply looks like a table of context as many other textbooks would have. However each chapter is a hyperlink to the narrative of the that period. The two columns in the table of context are broken down as the two traditional periods of American history, before 1877 and after 1877. 1877 being the time when Reconstruction officially ended in the South. Typically most institutions break down their American history courses on the same distinction. They have also provided a primary source reader for each chapter. As an American history enthusiast it is so unbelievably helpful to have those resources at your disposal for free. That makes diving into the content much easier for scholars and teachers. The American Yawp is a one stop shop for anyone looking for an overview of American History. Once inside each chapter, it is broken down by section and topic. Each topic varies in length but generally speaking there is anywhere from six to nine sections for chapter. Additionally at the end of each section, they have provided a recommended citation for that chapter of the textbook. Something that is so unbelievably useful for college students in one hundred or two hundred level courses. It is very evident that Locke and Wright have considered every aspect of this project. They have also allowed for the reader to add their input to the text. At the top of each chapter there is a hyperlink that claims, “The American Yawp is an evolving, collaborative text. Please click here to improve this chapter.” Inside that hyperlink each paragraph of that chapter is numbered and allows the reader to comment and attempt to improve the project. Upon further review some of the proposed comments aren’t of the most serious nature. One comment in the 1980’s chapter read, “Ronald Reagan is a llama.” However the next comment was of a more serious nature. The editors have provided a link to see the most recent activity by a show all recent comments section. That way the editors can see the exact comments and determine the level of merit associated with each comment. This way the readers have a voice and can attempt to improve the project. Certainly something to consider about the project is the usability of The American Yawp in the classroom. Most advanced placement United States History Teachers or entry level college courses would be able to utilize this project in their pedagogy. The open access and price is definitely appealing to college students as well as public school districts. Principals and central office employees would love the sound of a textbook that is always evolving, produced by highly qualified scholars and is completely free. Some critics may claim that a digital textbook doesn’t allow the student or reader to interact with the material or highlight the text. However most colleges give students a weekly allotment of prints per week. Each chapter, printed front and back is roughly fifteen pages long. If one were to consider the cost of ink and a pack of paper, it would only be a drop in the bucket compared to the cost of a traditional textbook. With the printed chapter, students would be able to study and interact with the text very easily. In addition to that many students could simply take notes on the digital form and then study their notes. When you weigh the pros and cons of the situation The American Yawp wins every time based off it’s practically and overall easy to use nature. The only thing left to wonder is why wasn’t a project like this created sooner and when will this happen for other topics? (When transferring over to weebly my footnotes disappeared. Here is a link to the properly cited Google Doc) “The American Yawp: Collaboration, Innovation and Simplification” -Adam If someone asked me to list the best books I've read this week, "Maps, Graphs and Trees" would be at the top of the list. Primarily because its the only book I read this week. As one who is not typically thrilled with the topic of literature, there wasn't a ton that truly captured my attention about this book. I do really enjoy Maps, Graphs and Trees but I did not anticipate that discussion of maps, graphs and trees. Still I found it somewhat interesting to look at novels in such a manner. I also enjoyed looking at the historical analysis of the novels genres popularity and the seeming "death" of genres in British novel sales. I wonder if that is still occurring today and that data would compare if you looked at a similar country such as France. My guess is it'd be pretty similar until the countries had major events that totally shifted life in those countries. The author did get at that when he mentioned the impact of the French Revolution and other major events throughout the first section of the book. Although he liked to point out that we often look at one major event or person in history. I personally feel like you have to do that because that major event or person creates a major impact on the "average/ normal everyday activities" that were alluded too. Certainly the French Revolution or the Rise of someone like Hitler or Stalin impacted the everyday lives of the people in France, Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union. Certainly the events are related. The major changes in those countries certainly impacted the novels being written. That is both in terms of censorship and overall experience of the writer whether it is consciously or subconsciously impacts their writing. I think that ultimately leads to the trends we saw from Genres dying. As country's events shift, so does the persona and experience of writers and readers. On an unrelated side note, I think this data would be a bit more interested today as we have much higher literacy rates. If were truly looking for meaningful data about everyday people pre 1900, I don't believe the topic/ sales of novels is the best choice and many folks either couldn't read or did not have the luxury of reading available to them. Nevertheless, I guess this book did spark some type of reaction from me. One of the other tid bits I thought was pretty interesting was the analysis of a village and the literary map. As one who loves a good map, I appreciated the thought out leaving the village, then coming home to create the circular map. I think maps and mapping is something that is often too overlooked or forgotten about in 2017. The Idea of a literary map never came to my mind as I'm not floored by much literature but I thought this was a unique way to view the story and in some respects similar to what we'd discussed in previous classes about how a DH project asks how can I present this information in a way that is MORE beneficial to the viewer? How can I enhance the viewers experience and I certainly think those maps are one way to do just that.
T-Minus 24 hours till more Digital Humanities, Adam Well as a Linganore graduate it is hard to believe that Mr. Crum is still teaching at the school! But also kind of cool as he's one of the last teachers that have been there for generations of students. Although I never had him I still thought it was neat to have come full circle.
Now coming into this class I knew very little about computer programing. Leaving the class, I may have taken my first step up an Everest like hike of beginning to understand computer programming. Needless to say I am grateful for the ease of use of many of our current operating systems. The phrase ignorance is bliss is vastly over used but I think it is very appropriate here. As far as being tech savvy, I am fairly confident in my skills. However, understanding the inner workings of programing is something that I have absolutely no background in whatsoever. Aside from several of my friends changing careers to pursue a boot camp like programming program, I had little to no knowledge of how these programs actually ran walking into class. It certainly was not possible to walk away with much of an understanding of such a vast and growing field in a matter of minutes. Yet I did walk away very curious. It was nice to finally see/ control what the program was actually searching for. There were certainly times throughout the class that I thought of potential ideas of what could happen. Not specifically related to my future project or really anything within my skill set, but nevertheless I could certainly ponder what could be done. I can't begin to imagine the amount of work that went into creating the programming that I am currently enjoying. Still I thought it was quite useful- at least to be exposed to. I likened the experience to operating a car. Just about everyone has the ability to drive a car, even if they are terrible drivers. The same can be said for operating a computer. Just about everyone has that ability- minus my dad and grandma who are fiercely staying glued to their 1980's view of technology and the world. However, not everybody has the ability to work on a car and truly understand how it runs. Certainly I can identify a few key parts and even identify when some of the parts are not functioning correctly. But to truly understand the workings of the combustion engine you need to find someone else. I felt like it was that same way with the workings of a computer program. I can sure use one, just like I can sure drive a car. But when it comes to fixing said computer program or car, I'm going to need to phone a friend. Still it is very useful to know a little bit about the engine of your car, just as it is to understand a bit about programming. If nothing else it forces one to walk away appreciating everything that our current programs can do. If I were to have to attempt to create the program that would make my Vietnam Timeline project I don't think I'd earn a very respectable mark in this class-or have a functioning timeline. Lucky for me everyone has their strengths and weaknesses and for that I'll rely on others strengths of having built these programs, so I can apply my strengths to create something that is somewhat useful. Spark notes version: programming = quite intimidating, a little cool and a whole new world that I will probably never truly understand. Adam |
Adam RudyHistory Teacher, Cross Country and Track Coach, Runner, Amateur Blogger Archives
September 2017
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