Syllabus posted!

I finally got my syllabus ready for the spring semester. In case you would like to see how I structured the course, you can read it here.

I did some major restructuring since the first iteration of the class, but I did keep some of the elements that I found most successful.

Three Reflections

As I revise the syllabus, I have three major reflections on the course.

First, and pleasingly, I feel that the course is much better structured, much more organic (if you will) than the first time I taught it. Despite not having actively prepared to revise the course through structured reading, I am organizing the topics better and have much clearer ideas of what to include and include. The syllabus feels much less driven by a few main texts and more more topical.

Second, and less pleasingly, I feel myself retreating from my earlier "Ceding Control" position. As I prepare the Google Drive document where the students will sign up for presentations, I find myself filling in many of the boxes with suggestions for what someone might want to present in a given week. I have sneakily left most social media off the list of "Big Tools" for students to present, because I felt I had too many somewhat duplicative presentations on that theme last time. Those tactics are the result of knowing better what I am doing and what my goals are, but it might meant that the course caters less to the students' individual interests.

Third, I am still a Reluctant Digital Historian. I cannot get very excited about learning how to use new tools. I like to know that new tools are out there. For example, despite a failed experiment in using TimelineJS in my spring semester undergraduate capstone course, I have added it to the list of Big Tools that students might want to present on. But I do not have much enthusiasm for spending hours learning how to make a tool work for me, unless I know I am going to use it all the time (like my word processor or email). Like last year, I decided to survey my students about their DH background. Last year, I used Survey Monkey. This year, because I knew that UWM has purchased access to a more sophisticated survey tool, I tried to use it instead. But after ten minutes of noodling around, I decided that it was much more than I needed, and not quite intuitive enough. So I gave up and just duplicated my previous survey.

Hashtag

Want to follow this class online? The spring 2015 course hashtag is #HIS717S15.

History 717, Redux

I'm spending a very cold Milwaukee afternoon in my office, prepping a new iteration of History 717: History and the New Media. It's daunting!

One final project

Most of the students in History 717 opted for final papers and projects that are not available online. But one intrepid student took the opportunity to learn about Neatline. The upshot is "The Milwaukee Crime Map Project," available here: http://historicize.us/map/

I hope to make one last post, reflecting on what I will do differently when I next teach this course, currently scheduled for Spring 2015.

Weeks 14 and 15: Presentations

We are winding up the semester. In our last two class sessions, students will present their papers and projects to the class.

Week 13

Readings from Bill Adair, Benjamin Filene, and Laura Koloski, Letting Go: Sharing Historical Authority in a User-Generated World (Philadelphia, PA: Pew Center for Arts and Heritage, 2011).

What we have seen throughout this semester is that historical knowledge roles that used to be fairly distinct (professor/researcher; librarian/archivist; museum professional; journal editor) appear to be getting all mixed up in the 21^st century in the context of the web. This week’s readings introduce in an explicit way how the public as consumers can merge into those roles as well. What are the implications of these developments for how we should training graduate students (and the public) and for how you think about your own careers?

• There is a wealth of opportunities in the digital age to make history meaningful to a wide variety of audiences. How do you pick your focus?
• You personally, in managing your career and avocation as a historian?
• A given museum, library, nonprofit organization, for-profit business, or other organization that you might work for/with?

Introduction

• What are the advantages and disadvantages of publicly curated museum content? Are there any special considerations for the web that are different from in physical museums?
• Why do they say that public curation demands more work rather than less from museums? If public content is professionally edited, then how public is it? What parallels with “reality TV” might reasonably be drawn?
• Ask someone with public history background to talk about Frisch’s idea of “shared authority.”

Nina Simon, “Participatory Design and the Future of Museums”

• If the web remains an open free-for-all, why shouldn’t museums continue to carefully select and present objects within an interpretive framework?
• What is a “folksonomy”?
• What is the difference between gatekeeping and curation?
• Why isn’t soliciting participation enough? Why must one also use the fruits of that participation?
• What is the “proximate model”? What are the shortcomings for taking such a business concept and applying it to a museum?
• The Human Library catalog

Steve Zeitlin, “Where Are the Best Stories? Where Is My Story?—Participation and Curation in the New Media Age”

• What happens if you invite participation and then don’t post what people share?
• http://www.cityofmemory.org/map/index.php
• Do you approve of reviewing and editing public contributions before posting? Should contributors be consulted about the edited version?
• Does the collector have an obligation to store the originals?
• What’s the difference between collecting the best stories and getting everyone telling stories (Alan Lomax and Pete Seeger story that ends the essay)? Is there room for both?

Matthew Fisher and Bill Adair, “Online Dialogue and Cultural Practice: A Conversation”

• What are the practical implications of running an exhibition “that never ends”?
• What are the strengths and weakness of relying on the wisdom of crowds, for example to recommend books through a “favoriting” system?
• P. 53: “mini curatorial interventions”: commenting, blogging, bookmarking, and favoriting

Matthew MacArthur, “Get Real! The Role of Objects in the Digital Age”

• You can’t collect and curate everything, even though everyone might have access. How can we make choices?