Mission Accomplished

As the semester ends and I reflect on the process of creating an online exhibit, I realize exactly how much my team and I have accomplished and learned.  As the digital age moves forward, people have access to information they never would have without the internet and technological advances.  Our group set out to show how architecture has changed over time and how it has played an important role in shaping Charlotte.  My architect, Charles Christian Hook was one of the preeminent and most accomplished architects of the early twentieth century in Charlotte and North Carolina.  Although Hook designed some of the most famous structures in Charlotte such as the Belk House, Duke Mansion, and most of the older fire stations, little is known about Hook and his work.  I wanted show Hook’s work and display how it was and remains an important part of the Charlotte landscape and culture.  Much of what people see of a city depends on the architecture and Hook enriched Charlotte with his classic styles which have stood the test of time. 

At the beginning of the semester, I was unsure about working with Omeka, the online exhibit builder.  The program was completely new to me and I was unsure if I could master the language in a short period.  I became pleasantly surprised when I learned how user friendly the software was and how quickly one could manipulate the site order to create a unique exhibit.  Software such as Omeka plays an important role for those who wish to display important pieces of history with people who may never have access to the items featured.  At the beginning of the semester I blogged about how technology was taking over history and I have to say I was reluctant to embrace digitization.  Throughout the semester while working on the site, I have come to appreciate the importance of digital history.  We can share items and materials with large amounts of people without them having to travel in order to do so.  I believe this opens history up to a larger audience and allows them to treasure what we in Charlotte see on an everyday basis.

My group and I jumped into this project head first, tackling obstacles along the way such as a clear point of view for our project, how to organize it, split up the responsibilities, and to make it interesting for people visiting our exhibit.  I am very pleased with how we all worked together and helped each other along the way.  I can honestly say that this has been the best group I have ever worked with.  We were all excited and passionate about our topic and everyday pulled their weight.  I have never worried if someone in our group was not doing their work.  Every time I would work on the site, I would see new additions and improvements.  Each person is equally represented in the site and we meshed tried to mesh all the work in order to show a complete, collaborative effort.  In this way, our site does not look as though four different people with four different points of view did it; rather the site represents a group effort between us.  In addition, all of us collaborated on every aspect of the site from the design to what to include.  We decided not to designate any one person to any one part of creating the site such as having one person enter metadata or upload the items.  This helped us to work together and produce a site that looks as though one person created it.

The title of our exhibit, “Building My Charlotte: How Architecture Shaped the Queen City,” encompasses what our group set out to do from the beginning.  We wanted to show how architecture is important to a city, how early architecture remains important today, how visitors view the city,  and most importantly,  how three architects beautified Charlotte with their designs.  Jacquelyn worked with Martin Boyer, Melissa with Louis Asbury, and I with Charles Christian Hook, all of whom were important architects of their time.  Jill chose to use Mary Boyer’s postcard collection to show the social aspect of Charlotte architecture and pull together the entire exhibit. We decided to organize our site not by person but by theme.  In this way, we were able to show the bigger meaning of the site: the importance of Charlotte architecture.  The exhibits are divided into four themes: Architecture and community shows the role of the building in their communities, Charlotte: then and now shows how Charlotte looked in the early twentieth century and how the buildings looked when they were built as compared to today, Introducing new designs shows how each architect used new designs, and Meet the architects show information on each architect.  I believe this was the best way to organize our site because it adds flow, is comprehensive, and is easy to navigate Each of the architects added their own touch to the Charlotte landscape, most of which still stands today.  Each of our architects still has buildings that shape the Charlotte landscape; Louis Asbury’s work includes the Mecklenburg County Courthouse and the Myers Park Methodist Church.  Martin Boyer’s work includes the Mint Museum and the Major Stuart Cramer House, and C. C. Hook’s work includes the Hayes Residence Hall at Queens University and the Duke Mansion.  All of the buildings are still in use today, either for the first intended purposed or transformed for another purpose.   

Overall, I believe our site, http://buildingmycharlottearchitecture.omeka.net/, showcases a unique look into Charlotte’s architectural past and present in a way that is neither usual nor boring.  I am very pleased about my team’s collaboration on the project.  This class has taught me to embrace digital history and use it to my advantage.  Through working on this project, I now think that online exhibits are a great way to showcase history so many people may enjoy it.

Different Writing for Different Outlets

After examining Yahoo's style guide for writing for the web (http://styleguide.yahoo.com), it is easy to see that writing on the Internet calls for a more direct, active, and focused voice.  Often when writing papers, it may take a lengthy sentence to explain and your point across.  Also, in academic writing the you of yous and Is are generally not accepted, so other words and the formation of the sentence must be changed in order to accommodate those needs.  Web writing on the other hand, accepts the use of you and I, making it easier to write direct, active sentences.  For the web, I assume the choices are made in order to keep the reader engaged and entertained, rather than explain an argument or thesis when longer sentences in order to thoroughly get your point across.  Both styles of writing call for active voice, but Yahoo's style guide suggests the use of string verbs and short sentences.  Personally, I do not like the use of short, choppy sentences, so usually I lean towards longer more eloquent prose.  This is usually more acceptable in academic writing, but for the web I can understand why shorter to the point sentences are preferred.  Over all, the style guide can be useful for all kinds of writing.  Some of  the headlines for the different sections are:

Proofread and Test before you Publish
Shorten and Strengthen Sentences
Write for the Web
Identify your Audience
Define you Voice

All of the sections can be useful in any type of writing, however you must be conscious of what type of writing your are doing and pick and choice which advice best suits your needs.  However, the title of the page can fit all kinds of writing perfectly "Start Strong, Stay Strong"

 
A useful tool to analyze your writing online is the Writer's Diet at http://www.writersdiet.com.  This tool looks at your writing and tells you whether it is lean, fit and trim, needs toning, flabby, or heart attack territory.  It does this by looking at the use of different words in the text such as verbs, nouns, and prepositions.  After plugging in the above paragraph the Writer's Diet said my work was "fit and trim" because of my use of different types of words.  However, it did suggest that my verbs need toning but my use of it, this, that, and there is lean along with my nouns.  The tool is useful to see how direct and active your writing is, but of course the Writer's Diet is not going to be accurate in every case because it lacks the ability to "read" the text.

Digging for Facts

I wanted to focus on one article this week which is From Babel to Knowledge by Daniel Cohen.  The main reason for doing so is the fact that in my recent research on a particular obscure historian, most of my hours of research have been fruitless and redundant.  Most of my frustration stems from the fact that search engines such has Google and Bing retrieve lots of the same information over and over, and some sites that are not even relevant.  So much digging for information I know exist on the Internet made me really relate to Cohen's article.

I realize that research before the Internet was more intense and difficult, however now that we have the technology, Cohen's idea about a more effective way to search for information and to eliminate the extra "noise" holds great potential.  For those that want specific information in the form of a question, his H-Bot site makes more sense than having to search for the wanted subject then having to scan all the sites for the exact question you are looking for.  Using natural language to find an answer makes much more sense like phrasing "When was the Empire State Building erected?"  Instead we have been trained to first search for "Empire State Building", then look for the answer within the search results.  The potential for this kind of research is exciting and should be looked at seriously.  If a search engine of this kind were to grow, it has the chance to become bigger than Google or Bing.  There is a great need for a simpler and more productive way to search for information on the Internet, and there is no doubt that this type of query system would become the leader in academic research.

Tweeting the Past

I found an execellent article in the NY Times that is a great example of how history is being re-lived and taught on Twitter.  The article, The Tweets of War: What’s Past Is Postable (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/28/arts/re-enacting-historical-events-on-twitter-with-realtimewwii.html?_r=0) Explains how one man decided to tweet some events during WWII in real time as though they were occurring in the present.  The project focused on Germany's invasion of Poland and how people would have felt during the time.  The uncertainty and stress about the war are meant to felt through the tweets as if the invasion was occurring in your own backyard.  The author of the  the Twitter feed RealTimeWWII, Alwyn Collinson would tweet up to forty times a day about what was happening at the exact same time 72 years earlier.  This project attracted many new followers to his Twitter feed, proving how interested followers are in history being represented in a new interactive way.

Some historians say this a novel way to represent history even though it lacks what readers can find in a " coherent narrative and analysis only books can provide".  That being said I think this represents a great way to get people, especially younger people, interested in history.  New media sites, especially social media opens the door for many new ways of learning about a particular topic other than through boring textbooks and sitting in a classroom where they may not be so engaged with the subject.  Everyone can remember reading through textbooks being bored out of their mind and not absorbing anything the authors had to say.  When people experience and learn through new and inventive outlets such as the one mentioned in the NY Times, people are more likely to learn and absorb more than through traditional techniques.

Collison's twitter feed is just one of the few who are taking this new approach to history.  Others such as @PatriotCast, about the Revolutionary War (although it no longer exist) and Robert Falcon Scott’s doomed 1911 polar expedition, have also taken this approach to a new way of enveloping people in history as if they were there themselves.

Historians and Technology

Many people might believe that historians are always in libraries, searching archives, and going to do field research, all of which omit technology.  However, more and more information is being gathered to offer new ways to approach history, whether it be teaching tools, ways to research, or sharing information to a wider audience.  The American Historical Association is loaded with information for historian on new research tools and offers opinions on how to approach history in the digital age.

One article,The Digital History Reader: Teaching Resources for United States and European History (http://www.historians.org/Perspectives/issues/2007/0705/0705tec3.cfm), offers incite into a new tool that can be useful to professors, teachers, and students.  It is based around specific questions in history and how to answer those questions, instead of like many websites that only offer an overview of the event.  The Digital History Reader is based on argument questions in history and each module pertaining to a specific topic follows guidelines to teach students how to answer the question.  Each module contains an introduction, context, evidence, assignments, conclusion, and resources tabs, related to the question allowing the student to look at different angles of the topic.  The article also states that it "focuses on individuated, compact questions, but these questions have been carefully chosen to introduce students to a wide array of historiographical trends and historical methodologies."  The Digital Reader's goal was to teach students that history is not fixed, rather it is constantly evolving, requiring the student to think creatively about a particular topic or theme in history.  The site is also very easy to use and offers many ways to learn about a topic either from essay writing or taking a online quiz.  

Another article, Blogging for Your Students (http://www.historians.org/Perspectives/issues/2007/0705/0705tec7.cfm) offers incite to the uses and advantages of student and teacher blogging.  Blogging of course, has many benefits for teachers and students by allowing assignments to be posted in such a way where there can be discussions, open communication between the teacher and class, as well as opening to students up to a new ideas.  Personally, I enjoy blogging because it allows me write in  a stream of thoughts and ideas, which leads to a building onto those thoughts and ideas.  It is can be viewed as a more restrained brainstorming session, allowing the creative process to flow.  Of course blogging does not replace lectures or research papers, but it does create a more self-conscious student.

Technology is coming whether us book lovers like it or not, so we need to get used to it and embrace it, plus lots of it is very helpful and awesome to explore.

Wikiproblems

The week we were asked to look at Wikipedia pages that contain historical content and discuss what we see.  For this assignment I really wanted to look at pages about large topics that often spawn heated debates.  Therefore I chose The Civil War, The Holocaust, and just to spice it up...Marxism. (fun).  All of the topics are commonly debated over because of people's different views, whether it political, religious, or social.  Often the readers of Wikipedia misunderstand its purpose, which is to state the facts without any biases, and for wider topics to have an overview explaining the particular topic without much detail.  For these topics, this is a very difficult task for the contributing writers because there are so many causes, results, and interpretations of these topics.

The first sentence of the Civil War page states that it is sometimes called the "War Between the States", which was changed from the original which said that it was sometimes referred to "The War of Northern Aggression".  That in itself can cause biases which lean toward sympathy toward Southern States with the North being the "bad guy".  For someone who is just learning about the Civil War, details like this can help form opinions toward one side or the other, which may not always be correct.  Although it is hard for opinions of the writer to sneak in, it is their job to try their best to be unbiased, and unfortunately the nature of Wikipedia lets anyone change and write about a specific topic.

The next site was the Holocaust, which is a much more sensitive topic.  One of the main criticisms I noticed on the discussion page was whether to use the term Nazi-Germany or just Germany.  In my own opinion it should remain Nazi-Germany simply because it was the Nazi-run government who implemented the mass murders that occurred at the time, not necessarily the Germany nation as a whole.  However, with Wikipedia, there is not room for such discussions and interpretations because it is an "encyclopedia", not a monograph or peer reviewed book or journal.  Large topics such as the Holocaust and the Civil War cannot be researched in depths through outlets like Wikipedia because that is simply not its purpose.

I saved the best for last which was the Wikipedia page on Marxism.  I have to say that the discussion page on this topic had the most heated and controversial debates over what the page should include or not include.  I had to giggle when I saw that even before you scroll to the discussions, there were all kinds of disclaimers about the page such as "Discussions on this page often lead to previous arguments being restated", "Marxism is part of the selected content on the Communism Portal, which means that it was selected as a high quality Communism-related article", This is a controversial historical topic that may be disputed.", and "This is not a forum for general discussion of Marxism. Any such comments may be removed or refactored."  These disclaimers must be posted on a page such as this because of the highly heated debates that it causes.  The term Marxism or Marxists has been used too liberally throughout recent U.S. politics that the true definition is often times disputed by someone who thinks it may be something else.  Also, if that person chooses they can change and edit the entry to their own liking.  However, Wikipedia does police these changes rather thoroughly, there may be people who view the page before it is corrected.
In conclusion, Wikipedia is great if you are leisurely wanting to learn the ins and outs of a particular topic, but for academic use and research, Wikipedia is no where near what needs to be studied.  Often times the citations are not even from credible sources, so to me, it should not even been considered as any type or research aid.

Omeka and Road Trip!

I don't know about everyone else but I am certainly glad we will be attending the Omeka workshop tonight.  I have played around with it a little bit, however I know that there are a lot more ways that will make our website fun and visually pleasing that I have yet to discover.  It seems like Omeka is a great way for people with little skill and a small budget can create their own websites for things they are interested in.  Especially in the case of history an online exhibits, it is interesting to see how others view and interpret history.  The items people choose to exhibit and how those items are explained says volumes about the historian who published the work.
On another note...I have plans to visit the library again today and dig more into the archives that are available.  Also, I am planning a road trip around Charlotte next week to find some of the buildings that are still standing that were designed by CC Hook.  From what I hear some of these buildings are completely run down and in total disrepair, especially the train stations.  But on the flip side, I also have heard that some stations on the outskirts of Charlotte have been completely restored and are standing proud and beautiful, a testament to an earlier time and place.  I will keep posting to let everyone know how the trip went, even if at times I might be disappointed at the state of the buildings.  Can wait to check it out!