Category: digital history

This past week our website has really begun to take shape. Working with Omeka has been an experience. I think my biggest challenge has been assuming that editing the web interface would be as easy as in WordPress, and while I value the archival elements that Omeka has, I wish a better option existed that blended the best elements from the two platforms together.  So far my biggest issue with Omeka is getting the homepage configurations right. There seems to be some presets to the main tables on the page which I’m hoping to get around by possibly creating a new page and linking that as the new homepage instead of using the default option.

Another issue I’ve had this past week is sourcing images to highlight the content we already have. I was able to find a a great painting by Carl Rochling of the battle of Fredericksburg which I used as a backdrop and then layered a slightly transparent copy of one of Murray’s letters. I think this new banner gives a good sense of what our website contains, and the personal/ intimate feel that we’re going for. I also attempted to create an image of for our site introduction by combining both the Murray and Slaughter photographs, but I mistakenly forgot to account for the Union flag, which is incorrect in the image. I’m going to email our contact Luisa from the national park service and hopefully she can point me in the right direction as to picking a more accurate flag for the time.

This week my main goal will be completing/ revising page aesthetics and getting the skeleton of our website in order so that our group can organize our information in a clearer more definite way.

The last few days I’ve been working on revising both my resume and domain of one’s own to resemble more of a digital portfolio of my cumulative work at UMW thus far. Admittedly I  spent quite a lot of time on the aesthetics of the site itself. I’m a fan of  minimalist style but I also wanted my site to be customizable  so that I could include widgets like an “about me” and icon links to my other social media accounts. It was tough to find a layout that worked, but I’m happy with the current results, although I’m sure after my presentation today in class I will be tweaking a few things. I have already included a “projects” page which has a few selected digital media projects, unfortunately I don’t have anything substantial to show for my second German major yet, but that should change in the fall after I have completed my honors thesis. I have also included both a text and link to a copy of my resume / CV in the menu bar. I think I’ll continue to edit my resume since this assignment has given me the opportunity to really overhaul the information I previously had down. I’ll be planing to use my resume in the Fall and the university’s upcoming internship fair, so this updated website will also be a good asset to have for the near future.

The past few weeks have taught me how important digital identity is. It has become more important for me to be aware and in control of how my digital identity is portrayed. I have updated my website, adding my resume and Portfolio of Digital Works in order to showcase some of the academic work I’ve done, as well as some of the experiences I have had. After this semester ends, I will definitely be adding the HCC website to my portfolio of digital works.

Wasn’t quite sure if I needed to make a blog post about this, but I ended up recreated my Digital Resume/Portfolio.

It’s a work in progress, but it has a few of the works that I am pretty proud of, like my interactive fiction games. I suggest that if you want to play one of them, play the Pokemon one because the Fire-Man game is a bit weird without knowing the context of the class that I created it for. I listed my Privacurity site as well, so you can visit and maybe learn how to keep yourself safe online.

Anyway, here’s the link: http://boscoe.net/

So far for the HCC Project, we’ve completed two interviews. We originally scheduled two for last Friday, but one of our interviewees cancelled. The President Hurley one went really well, but we had a little bit of trouble with the microphones. The interview with Hall Cheshire was better since we didn’t have any mic troubles and we got a lot of information from him. I’m currently working on the videos to upload to YouTube, so we can begin to embed them on our site and show them to the class for the next presentation. We have more interviews on Monday and Friday, but I’m not worried.

The three websites I looked at were the Footprints in the Digital Age article for Educational Leadership,  the Personal branding in the age of Google blog, and the personal site of Jessica Reingold. One of the first things that struck me about the latter site was the relative simplicity of it; it was primarily just a method of presenting her resume and portfolio. Because of the visually interesting way in which her website allows her to do it however, it is very distinctive and memorable. So, my first takeaway from her website would be that the digital world allows excellent presentation of very basic and rote information.

 

From the Footprints in the Digital Age article, I had two main takeaways. The first, not surprisingly given the article’s focus, was about how much the actions of kids on the Internet could later affect their digital footprint. I mostly just read the Internet when I was younger, and never really posted anything associated with my real name before college, so this doesn’t really apply to me too much directly; but with the ever-increasing amount of kids who are present on the Internet from a young age and using it for any variety of purposes, a considerable part of any individual’s digital footprint may have been made well before adulthood. This could certainly be problematic for anyone later on in life, depending on how they wish to present themselves on the Internet.

The second takeaway from that article for me, also not surprisingly, was about networking. Leaving a digital footprint from a very early point in your life has some potential pitfalls, but on the other hand, when well managed and guided, children can also find communities and other individuals who share their interests and hobbies and potentially aid them, both casually and even in a more professional capacity later on.

From Seth’s blog, I took away two rather simple lessons. The first being that simply put, Google can be a permanent record, and anything you do or say can end up there, including personal habits that may not look attractive to a potential employer. The second, more specific thing worth keeping in mind is that you should be careful what you say online about your ambitions as to your career, since a potential employer could easily see a disconnect or a lack of commitment  between what you say and your application to that particular job.

 

1. In order to create a strong digital identity, you must create a personal brand- you must be aware of and in control of your brand by defining your values and characteristics.

2. Just about everything we do online can be traced, which contributes to our digital identity.

3. In today’s world, it is virtually impossible to not have a digital identity. Even if you actively try to not leave a digital footprint, you are bound to leave one somewhere without even realizing.

4. Today, even children need to be conscious about their online activities-digital footprints start from a young age. Even games that kids play online can leave a digital footprint.

5. “Google never forgets.” Every action you take online is like a permanent record. It is important to think long and hard before posting anything online because it can be traced. Ultimately, this could have a negative affect on your career and reputation if you are not careful.

Back in my Sophomore year, I made a rather early “rough draft” for my Digital Portfolio as part of my final grade for Into to Digital Studies. It doesn’t look that great right now, but I’m sure it will look a lot better once I sit down and work on it for a good amount of time and incorporate what I learned from the three websites that I looked at to learn about Digital Identity.

The first lesson that I learned involved advertising your work. Looking at the Professor McClurken’s site, I noticed that he has listed probably everything that he was involved with directly on the homepage and even the side menu. Doing this is rather important for your Digital Identity. Whenever someone stumbles across your name online and end up at your website, they can easily learn more about you and contributions online. It could even lead them to collaborate with you if they have similar interests and arguments as you.

However, in order for them to collaborate with you they need  some contact information. That is the second lesson I learned from browsing the websites. You don’t need to put your phone number, but your e-mail is a must and possibly your Twitter and Facebook if you don’t mind future colleagues looking at them. If you didn’t list any online contact information then how would one expand their Digital Identity?

To continue on the thought of social media being viewed by your boss, another lesson to keep in mind is linking to profiles that you want others to view and have your personal accounts private. It’s best to keep in mind that you shouldn’t post anything that could ruin the Digital Identity that you’ve already worked hard on while using those public accounts. One wrong post could ruin everything and there really isn’t a way to start over since once something is posted online, even if it is later deleted, it still can be found online.

If still don’t want to risk using your social media then one of the last lessons should cover that. When making your Digital Portfolio, you should include a short biography informing the viewer about yourself and how you contribute online. Not everyone that ends up on your site will know you, so why not tell them about you? A bio helps them learn about you and understand why you are involved in certain topics. For example, if I blog online about privacy issues and someone decides to check out my website, I would have a bio that mentions how I am in the Digital Studies field and how I’ve worked on projects involving privacy before.

One final lesson that I learned from viewing McClurken’s site, Fleshing Out the Digital Selves in Practice article, and the Controlling Your Public Appearance article. would be keeping your Digital Portfolio simple. You don’t want to startle or scare away potential followers by having crazy colors and a wacky background, unless your online identity is wacky and crazy. What you really want is to have the tone of your website match with the tone of your online persona. If they didn’t match, there would be confusion and possible negative feedback towards you and your works.

Well, we’re about at the mid-point for the semester so far. In regards to my group’s project, I feel quite good about how it is going so far. We have been clearing all of our self-set milestones and deadlines so far, and we are all doing quite well with our own particular section of the work. The next milestones in our immediate future are doing some video work, which Kathleen and myself will be doing, and completing the task of reading through all of the letters. As I have typed up existing (handwritten) transcriptions of the Slaughter letters, I have already read through those letters in some detail. The Slaughter letters do present one potential difficulty going forward; they’re nearly all to Mayor Slaughter, rather than from him. We were planning to do some audio recordings of the letters, but the lack of letters actually from Slaughter makes this project somewhat problematic, at least in regards to Slaughter in particular. That future difficulty aside however, we are making good progress.

At this point, my group has our website created, as well as four interviews set up with faculty/staff involved in the HCC, for the week after Spring Break. The first of these  meetings is with President Hurley. Personally, I am very much looking forward to speaking with him. I think he will provide a great perspective on the building that we may not have had otherwise. We plan to ask him about his involvement in the building, as well as what it means to him having the building being renamed after him. I can’t wait to hear what he has to say. Hopefully, after the four interviews we now have set up, we will have enough information to begin working on the timeline for our website. We can continue to add to it as we conduct further interviews. It s exciting to see the planning of our project start to form into action. My group also went on a walkthrough of the building with the Building Manager of the HCC, and all of us learned many capabilities and features of the building that we never knew about.

Tomorrow in class, we will present to the class where we are with our project so far, where it is going, technical issues we have run into, and challenges we have faced. I look forward to hearing where other groups are with their projects.

Hello everyone! Today, I’m bringing you a small update for our Convergence Center project before the first big presentation. We ended up scheduling most of appointments for our interviewees for the week we return from Spring Break. We will be interviewing Hurley on Monday and quite a few people on the following Friday, so we will be quite busy. I’m not too worries since we all had training for the upcoming interviews.

We had some trouble with the test site that we were messing with. We needed a way to link pages and posts together and luckily, I remembered how to do that. I didn’t do it for all the pages because I wanted everyone in the group to be okay with it. They were, so we ended up finalizing our domain name after being unable to add-on to the actual UMW website. The name of our site will be explorehcc.umwhistory.com and if it works out in the end, whoever manages the UMW website can merge our site with existing Convergence Center one.

The last thing we ended up accomplishing  was gathering some files from John Morello to help expand our timeline. Since only one member from our group, Andrew Steele, was able to meet with him, I can’t really talk about the files, but I will do so in a future post once I see them for myself.