Intro (Digital History)

I signed up for this class to meet the capstone requirement for my Communication/Digital Studies major. After reading a brief introduction about the course last semester, it became more appealing. To be honest, History was never my favorite subject in grade school, but I look forward to learning more about the transformation from then and now (analog to digital) and apply some of my digital skills throughout the semester. Being that the class is half history and half digital studies minors/majors, I think it’s a great opportunity for everyone to learn from each other and produce some quality projects.

Why I am taking this class

Throughout my college career, I have been able to get by with the bare minimum as far as technology.  I am not on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, etc. Only in the past two years did I get a Pinterest account and yesterday I signed up for the first time on Twitter.  Even though my lack of digital knowledge has not been a problem for me, I can already foresee how it will be when I begin my career as a middle or high school teacher.  These days, it is not uncommon to find a sixth grader with a smartphone, which for me at that age was not even a thought.  As I saw (and continue to see) more students constantly wanting to use technology, I realized that I needed to become more well-versed in things that I previously had no interest in engaging with, as well as useful digital tools, and this is the main reason I am taking this class.

Many of the students I have worked with in my practicums seemed to express little to no interest in history or social studies, and if they did, they were only concerned about getting a good grade in their class.  When they would get bored, they would pull out their phones and become, as one of my professors in the College of Education put it, “actively disengaged.” As a future teacher, however, I want my students to be actively engaged, which can be achieved by “connecting the new to the known.” This phrase is one I learned in my education classes and it means to take the preexisting knowledge your students come into your class with and use it to teach them something new.  In this case, if I can devise a way to incorporate technology, which is something my students are very familiar with, into my lessons, this will hopefully help keep them more engaged and give them a framework to understand new concepts in history and social studies.

Introduction: Why am I here?

I signed up for Dr. McClurken’s class for  several reasons, the first being that it looked like one of the most interesting classes for this semester and I had heard good things from friends who took the class. On a somewhat more intellectual level,  I am interested in gaining more proficiency with using digital tools within the context of the history discipline in order to promote more interest and understanding of history. I like using the Internet, both for personal entertainment and to do research, but I do not have too much experience with digital projects, so I am hoping to get a wider skill-set in the digital history field that I could use in the future out of this class.

Worksheet on Choosing a Topic (Sellers)

Choosing a topic for any paper is a process. Completing each of the following steps (in any order) should help you choose a topic that is appropriate for the assignment. We will have a library research session focused on primary sources in Simpson Library 225 on 1/27, and you need to turn this worksheet in on Thursday, 1/29, so you should be doing some work even before that library session.
  1. Briefly describe the library research that you did towards choosing a topic. Include at least two reference books that you used and three library search-engine subject headings that you found useful.
  • I used the hand out from Jack Bales to make an advanced search on the UMW Library website, using words like “Documents, Sources, Letters, and Personal Narratives” for subject headings. I then used the “Uncovering Primary Documents” page in the History Department guide.
  1. Briefly describe the internet research that you did. Name at least one useful website for online archives that you surveyed (do not include simple library catalogs.)
  • For online archives I utilized the library of congress as you suggested in class and the search came up with an abundance of pictures but lacked in the written documents section. So I went back to the History subject guide page and found a list of sites to search from; “Primary Documents in American History, Historic Diaries, and Eyewitness to History”.
  1. You should talk to at least one member of this history department about your topic and at least one of the primary sources you have identified for it. Arrive at that meeting with some initial research completed so you have something to discuss. Name that professor and provide a summary of their advice. Please have the professor sign here at your meeting:____________________________
  • I have emailed Professor Mackintosh, and he said he is willing to sit with me during his office hours, so I will try and meet with him in the coming week.
  1. You must have a primary source for this paper.  Provide any pertinent information on that primary source including website and/or call number—in other words, how you’re going to access it.
  • The cprr.org website has an eight page primary source from a traveler that crossed the once endless seeming span of America in five days. I emailed, and saved the link to myself.
  1. Are enough secondary sources available on this topic? Briefly discuss the most recent secondary sources you have found that were published by a university press and/or academic journal.
  • I do not think that secondary sources will be of any problem to me in for this historic topic. Some of the most recent works that I found throughout the sites and databases are that of Social History, referring to workload and psyche.

“With great power comes great responsibility” – A Digital Identity

With the exponential growth in technology over the recent decades it is clear to see, the world around us has changed greatly. From the beginning of the internet, to the flourishing social connectivity it has become and provides. The benefits with the growing fields in technology seem to have an endless cumulative significance to many aspects of everyday life, from friends to work and studies creating a Digital Identity.

As an individual living in this technologically inclined society we need to ask: How does this all affect me, and what is my digital identity? To answer these questions I have to take into account all aspects of my limited tech-savvy life style. The most popular place to look into for an individual’s Digital Identity would first be Facebook. When looking at my digital social media history Facebook, Instagram, and videos, I have no harmful posts, or pictures that would hinder any sort of resume or background search. In the past I have not written posts about anything derogatory or anything towards an individual or group calling them out. I have made very few posts, mostly pictures of family or church gatherings on facebook, and what I think to be artistic nature posts on Instagram.

When looking at all other aspects of my social identity, or parts that are not controlled by myself, maybe a few newspaper articles in some town archives where I grew up showing patriotism or honoring a trip to a national choir competition. Also ther would probably be some articles on my Year of full time volunteer service through City Year and how I was the Keynote speaker, and some school archives probably have my name in some graduation database. I know that I personally need to start building and working on my professional Digital Identity to round my online image.

Welcome to my Site!

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Hello internet users, welcome to my umwblogs site!

My name is Lila Spitz and I am a senior at the University of Mary Washington majoring in American Studies. I am particularly interested in Social Justice Issues, History, Museum Studies, and Education.

I also enjoy listening to Jazz, Swing, Funk, Broadway, and Classic Rock music, reading biographies and realistic-fiction, traveling within the U.S. and around the world, admiring Modern Art artwork and Art Deco architecture, and playing and watching tennis.

The purpose of this site is to document my work in HIST 428: Adventures in Digital History.

I hope you enjoy reading my posts and I encourage you to write a comment about my posts if you have a comment, question or suggestion about what I write.

Example Blog Post

This is a blog post. Blog posts can be journal entries, reflections, a piece feature piece, a short argumentative piece, an analysis, a small photo gallery, and much more. Blog posts by default can be categorized and tagged, meaning they can have taxonomy assigned to them. Using categories and tags will keep your blog posts organized and improve the searchability of them. You can also set a featured image for blog posts which will act like as thumbnail or defining image for the post.

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