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Gayle Cole

Digital History | Promises and Perils of Digital History - 0 views

  • Gertrude Himmelfarb offered what she called a “neo-Luddite” dissent about “the new technology’s impact on learning and scholarship.” “Like postmodernism,” she complained, “the Internet does not distinguish between the true and the false, the important and the trivial, the enduring and the ephemeral. . . . Every source appearing on the screen has the same weight and credibility as every other; no authority is ‘privileged’ over any other.”
  • “A dismal new era of higher education has dawned,” he wrote in a paper called “Digital Diploma Mills: The Automation of Higher Education.” “In future years we will look upon the wired remains of our once great democratic higher education system and wonder how we let it happen.”3
  • In the past two decades, new media and new technologies have challenged historians to rethink the ways that they research, write, present, and teach about the past. Almost every historian regards a computer as basic equipment; colleagues view those who write their books and articles without the assistance of word processing software as objects of curiosity.
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  • Just ten years ago, we would not have imagined the need for “a guide to gathering, preserving, and presenting the past on the web.” Indeed, few of us knew the web existed. Even the editors of Wired ignored it in their inaugural issue.4 Ten years ago, we would have been objects of curiosity, if not derision, if we had proposed such a project.
  • The first advantage of digital media for historians is storage capacity—digital media can condense unparalleled amounts of data into small spaces.
  • The most profound effect, however, may be on tomorrow’s historians. The rapidly dropping price of data storage has led computer scientists like Michael Lesk (a cyber-enthusiast to be sure) to claim that in the future, “there will be enough disk space and tape storage in the world to store everything people write, say, perform, or photograph.” In other words, why delete anything from the current historical record if it costs so little save it? How might our history writing be different if all historical evidence were available?
  • a second and even more important advantage—accessibility.
  • Our web server at the Center for History and New Media (CHNM) gets about three-quarters of a million hits a day, but on September 11, 2002 (when people looking to commemorate the attacks of the previous year descended in droves on the September 11 Digital Archive that we organized in collaboration with the American Social History Project), we handled eight million hits—a more than ten-fold increase with no additional costs
  • But the flexibility of digital data lies not just in the ability to encompass different media. It also resides in the ability of the same data to assume multiple guises instantaneously. Although language translation software is still primitive, we are moving toward a time when words in one tongue can be automatically translated into another—perhaps not perfectly but effectively enough.
  • Flexibility transforms the experience of consuming history, but digital media—because of their openness and diversity—also alters the conditions and circumstances of producing history. The computer networks that have come together in the World Wide Web are not only more open to a global audience of history readers than any other previous medium, they are also more open to history authors. A 2004 study found that almost half of the Internet users in the United States have created online content by building websites, creating blogs, and posting and sharing files.
  • quantitative advantages—we can do more, reach more people, store more data, give readers more varied sources; we can get more historical materials into classrooms, give students more access to formerly cloistered documents, hear from more perspectives.
  • amlet on the Holodeck, her book on the future of narrative in cyberspace
  • o consider these “expressive” qualities we need to think, for example, about the manipulability of digital media—the possibility of manipulating historical data with electronic tools as a way of finding things that were not previously evident. At the moment, the most powerful of those tools for historians is the simplest—the ability to search through vast quantities of text for particular strings of words. The word search capabilities of JSTOR, the online database of 460 scholarly periodicals, makes possible a kind of intellectual history that cannot be done as readily in print sources.
  • Digital media also differ from many other older media in their interactivity—a product of the web being, unlike broadcast television, a two-way medium, in which every point of consumption can also be a point of production. This interactivity enables multiple forms of historical dialogue—among professionals, between professionals and nonprofessionals, between teachers and students, among students, among people reminiscing about the past—that were possible before but which are not only simpler but potentially richer and more intensive in the digital medium. Many history websites offer opportunities for dialogue and feedback. The level of response has varied widely, but the experience so far suggests how we might transform historical practice—the web becomes a place for new forms of collaboration, new modes of debate, and new modes of collecting evidence about the past. At least potentially, digital media transform the traditional, one-way reader/writer, producer/consumer relationship. Public historians, in particular, have long sought for ways to “share authority” with their audiences; the web offers an ideal medium for that sharing and collaboration.16
  • inally, we note the hypertextuality, or nonlinearity, of digital media—the ease of moving through narratives or data in undirected and multiple ways.
  • the problems of quality and authenticity emerge
  • Moreover, in general, the web is more likely to be right than wrong.
  • Consider, for example, the famous “photograph” of Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby playing rock music together in a Dallas basement. Such fake photographs have a long history; Stalin’s photo retouchers, for example, spent considerable time airbrushing Trotsky out of the historical record. But the transformation of the original Bob Jackson photo of Ruby shooting Oswald into “In-A-Gadda-Da-Oswald” did not require a skilled craftsman. George Mahlberg created it with Photoshop in forty minutes and it quickly spread across the World Wide Web, popping up in multiple contexts that erase the credit of the “original” counterfeiter.20
  • Is there some way to police the boundaries of historical quality and authenticity on the web? Could we stop a thousand historical flowers—amateur, professional, commercial, crackpot—from blooming on the web? Would we want to? Of course, issues of quality, authenticity, and authority pre-date the Internet. But digital media undercut an existing structure of trust and authority and we, as historians and citizens, have yet to establish a new structure of historical legitimation and authority. When you move your history online, you are entering a less structured and controlled environment than the history monograph, the scholarly journal, the history museum, or the history classroom. That can have both positive and unsettling implications.
  • Digital enthusiasts assume that the online environment is intrinsically more “interactive” than one-way, passive media like television. But digital technology could, in fact, foster a new couch potatoÐlike passivity. Efforts to create nuanced interactive history projects sometimes become quixotic when the producers confront the fact that computers are good at yes and no and right and wrong, whereas historians prefer words like “maybe,” “perhaps,” and “it is more complicated than that.” Thus the most common form of historical interactivity on the web is the multiple-choice test. But the high-budget version is little better. Take, for example, the History Channel’s website Modern Marvel’s Boys’ Toys, which is a combination of watching the cable channel and playing a video game. The true interactivity here comes when you click on the “shop” button. As legal scholar Lawrence Lessig has written pessimistically: “There are two futures in front of us, the one we are taking and the one we could have. The one we are taking is easy to describe. Take the Net, mix it with the fanciest TV, add a simple way to buy things, and that’s pretty much it.” At the same time, some wonder whether we really want to foster “interactivity” at all, arguing that it fails to provide the critical experience of understanding, of getting inside the thoughts and experiences of others. The literary critic Harold Bloom, for example, argues that whereas linear fiction allows us to experience more by granting us access to the lives and thoughts of those different from ourselves, interactivity only permits us to experience more of ourselves.25
  • Another concern stems more from the production than the consumption side. Will amateur and academic historians be able to compete with well-funded commercial operators—like the History Channel—for attention on the Net?
Jill Bergeron

4 Free Web Tools to Boost Student Engagement | Edutopia - 0 views

  • myBrainshark (1) is a superb tool that allows students to add a voiceover to PowerPoint presentations, Word documents, videos, and photo albums -- or to simply produce podcasts
  • myBrainshark (1) is a superb tool that allows students to add a voiceover to PowerPoint presentations, Word documents, videos, and photo albums -- or to simply produce podcasts
  • If you are looking for a tool that also allows for video narratives along with PowerPoint presentations (instead of basic audio), I would suggest Present.me (3).
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  • PosterMyWall (4) is a fantastic tool for creating artistic, high-quality posters (5), collages, photo calendars and/or photo cards that can either be shared online or printed out and inexpensively shipped home.
  • PosterMyWall is slightly restricted in terms of the amount of options available for customization (mostly pictures and text), but other services, such as Glogster (6), offer a wider range of options.
    • Jill Bergeron
       
      But Glogster is very glitchy
  • Screencast-o-matic (7) is a powerful screen recorder that allows users to capture anything (8) happening on their screen, as well as voice and video from the webcam for up to 15 minutes in the recorder's free version.
  • Some high-quality alternatives to Screencast-o-matic are Jing (9) and Ezvid (10), both of which are very powerful and offer unique features.
  • Padlet (11) is another free program that facilitates the creation of virtual walls (12) where students and teachers can post sticky notes with almost anything they want.
  • Other similar sites are Linoit (13) or NoteApp (14).
Jill Bergeron

Web tools to support inquiry based learning | Eduwebinar - 0 views

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    This is an amazing resource with web tools and a one sentence description of what they do.
Jill Bergeron

How to Integrate Tech When It Keeps Changing | Edutopia - 0 views

  • Meanwhile, those of us whose skills in tech integration are not quite Olympic class may find the SAMR model (Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, and Redefinition) more helpful for locating ourselves along the continuum of maximizing the transformational impact of technology. What won't work is waiting for technological change to stabilize.
  • You'll never keep abreast of every technology innovation, so allow yourself to be a curious learner that doesn't know it all.
  • top education technology bloggers and ask their advice on social media
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  • Give yourself 30 minutes every couple of weeks to learn a new tech tool from Tammy's Technology Tips, Edudemic, Monica Burns' ClassTechTips, Kathy Schrock's Guide to Everything, Cybraryman's Teacher Tools, or Richard Byrne's Favorite Resources. Happy clicking!
  • "The time I spend helping my students to edit and refine their writing as they write is exponentially more valuable for them than the final comments I leave on their essays."
  • For even more information on this topic, visit Edutopia’s Resources for Technology Integration.
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    This article contains a number of resources to help teachers better familiarize themselves with the myriad of tools and ways in which they can be integrated.
Jill Bergeron

A Gold Mine of #EdTech Resources | Getting Smart - 0 views

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    Video creation, timelines, screencasting, presentation tools, photo editing, miscellaneous gadgets, comics, flip teaching tools.
Jill Bergeron

4 Great Web-Based Mindmapping Tools To Enhance Your Creativity - 0 views

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    This gives a summary of the pros and cons of each of these mindmapping tools.
Jill Bergeron

Adobe Spark | Videos, images and stories made in minutes - 0 views

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    Adobe Spark Page is a tool for students to create a publish pages for the web. They can add text, images, links and video and customize the format. This is perfect for publishing reports, step by step guides or newsletters.
Jill Bergeron

Webtools: No Registration Needed for Students | Nathan Hall - 0 views

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    This is a truly comprehensive list of no registration web tools which is great for teachers of children under 13.
Jill Bergeron

The Analog Teacher's Guide To Bloom's Digital Taxonomy - Edudemic - 0 views

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    Suggested apps and web tools as they apply to Bloom's taxonomy.
Kimberly Marlow

LessonPaths - Create, share and explore Learning Playlists - LessonPaths - 0 views

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    Tool for viewing a collection of web resources and other digital content.
Jill Bergeron

4 Free Web Tools for Student Portfolios | Edutopia - 0 views

    • Jill Bergeron
       
      Weebly does the same things as Google Sites, but it looks way better.
    • Jill Bergeron
       
      Weebly does the same thing as Google Sites and it looks tons better.
  • think of Evernote as the Swiss Army knife of organization
  • Evernote allows students to write, take photos, record audio, upload content and more with the ability to tag items, create notebooks for organization and share content socially.
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  • Evernote doesn't give teachers any way to moderate its use by students.
  • Evernote isn't publicly viewable, either.
  • what Three Ring offers that Evernote doesn't is teacher-created class accounts. In other words, teachers initiate the use of Three Ring in the classroom by creating classrooms within the teacher account and adding students to each class
  • Three Ring
  • students can create and upload content from their own devices and tag, search and share their portfolios
  • Three Ring even allows parents to view their students' accounts once linked by the teacher
  • This is the effect of good portfolios. They craft a narrative of learning, growth and achievement over time.
  • If your school is fueled by Google Apps for Education, then using Google Sites (3) to create student portfolios, or "Googlios," makes perfect sense.
Gayle Cole

Edmodo vs Blogging - 0 views

  • Grade 6 embraced Edmodo from the start and used it in many ways,
  • class blogs have started to surface ( still limited to class member only access) and this has started to blur the lines between Edmodo and the class blogs. Our ICT Leader recently attended a network meeting and other leaders there questioned the purpose of Edmodo if they were already blogging
  • how to make a convincing argument for both Edmodo and blogging being transformative teaching and learning tools
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  • Edmodo as an all encompassing classroom management/teaching and learning/collaboration system.
  • My favorite feature of Edmodo and a big difference between itself and blogging. I’ve written a few posts on how I’ve used groups to organize my lessons with different small groups.
  • It’s simply a feature blogging doesn’t offer
  • convenience and ease of creating groups for different subjects or smaller groups within that group so that specific groups of children can collaborate and discuss.It takes no time to set the groups up and they can be altered at any time.
  • the simplicity of the Edmodo discussion wins me over compared to blogging. Simply add a note explaining the topic of the discussion, which can include images, videos, embedded links to other web tools, links to other sites, click Add and the discussion begins. All it takes is to hit the Reply button and the discussion is in full swing. The one feature I would like Edmodo to add is the ability to reply to a specific comment like you can in blogs. It can be a bit cumbersome having to write a reply to someone who wrote something 10 comments back.
  • sharing files is very easy with Edmodo
  • the polls and quizzes on Edmodo can be created much more quickly, albeit only by the teacher
  • Extrinsic motivation through Badges - Not everyone’s cup of tea, but if you like to use stickers or awards, Edmodo has its own reward system called badges. You can create your own (but it’s a lot easier to just grab badges already created by other Edmodo teachers – I’ve collected 190 of them from my connections) and to encourage or acknowledge student effort or work, you can simply select their name in your class list, select a badge and award it to the students
  • a good way to collate a whole bunch of comments for your student reports without doing any more work than giving that badge toa student.
Jill Bergeron

Flipgrid. - 0 views

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    This tech tool allows teachers to write out questions for students to respond to with videos. This would be a great resource in a foreign language classroom.
Jill Bergeron

Tackk in the Classroom - 0 views

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    Interesting tool for creating lesson plans, presentations and projects.
Jill Bergeron

Mind Mapping Software - Create Mind Maps online - 0 views

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    Collaborative mind mapping tool
Jill Bergeron

Kiddle - visual search engine for kids - 0 views

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    A visual search powered by Google's editors and Safe Search.
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