Searching for Information In the Digital Age

Research methods and ways of communicating information has rapidly increased with the emerging social media technologies such as Twitter and Facebook. Along with the ability to communicate information by means of social technology, the data gathering phase of research has dramatic advanced with the ever evolving technological related developments in search engine tools. The recent collection of articles for this week reading assignment shedded some light on a few of the innovative data mining techniques and software development within this new digital era. For example in the article entitled “From Bable to Knowledge”, discusses ways to comb through massive digital collections. Using programs such as Application Programming Interfaces (API’s), researchers are empowered with the ability to find patterns in data by having the ability to “ query databases directly from server to server without using web interfaces”. The technology which undergird the operation of the myriad of API’s software such as Syllabus Finder allows teachers to investigate common ideals, concepts and references that can be used to develop their courses. As well as understanding data techniques to extract information from huge historical digital archives, researchers should understand the ways in which search engines search for topics and the rank order of keywords in search outputs. The article on Digital History Hacks (2005-08) covered the topic of exploring innovative ways in which digital historians are clearly getting information on individual search behavior by analyzing keyword listings with different types of concordance software. Knowing about the concordance process can assist one in developing better search strategies and key words and tags to draw people to your website.

 

Digital searching has increase historians ability to sift through enormous amounts of information. With an information overflow of data,  historians we still need to incorporate traditional historical methodology techniques to organize material and to present information in a meaningful yet scholarly way.

Notes

Daniel Cohen, From Babel to Knowledge: Data Mining Large Digital Collections, available at http://dlib.org/dlib/march06/cohen/03cohen.html. Acessed October 22, 2012.

Patrick Leary, Googling the Victorians, available at www.victorianresearch.org/googling.pdf. Accessed October 22, 2012.

William Turkel, Digial History Hacks: Methodology for the infinite archive, http://digitalhistoryhacks.blogspot.com/2006/10searching-for-history.html. Accessed October 22, 2012.

 

Twitter Impact on Education

The rise in social media is having a significant impact on the discipline of education and its many related subfields such as history. The institution of higher education seems to be having a renaissance in student engagement with teachers who incorporate elements of social media tools. The recent article I read focused on the use of twitter as an agent to promote learning within classrooms in higher education. The researchers argued that Twitter has the ability  to sustain students interest in subject matters and create more active involvement in their own learning process.  According to this article, live tweeting can  help facilitate more concentrate efforts to listen  and pay closer attention to classroom subject matters and enhance  one’s ability to gather information. Teachers love this ability of Twitter because more student engagement  tend to lead to better discussions during class lectures,  besides it encourages students to become more receptive to information which tends to produces more positive educational  outcomes such as good grades for students.   Furthermore, the article  discussed that most teachers under utilize Twitter by placing too much emphasis of its usage as an effective tool for enhancing inclass room discussions.   Thus, the main argument within this article suggest one of the most effective usage of twitter is its ability to enhance active, informal out-side class learning.   Interesting to note when I read this article was the evolving terminology of Twitter and other social media tools use which seems at time pretty asinine. This article introduce me to the word “Twibes”,  which  is when a entire classes  forms  Twitter groups and spread information in real time”.

Twitter and other social media tools are here to stay. Intellectuals who are still asleep in the use of social media as a means to enhance traditional teaching methods will become dinosaurs as more students become aware of the linkage of these tools as means to increase learning and better their grades. As the author suggest one day  “…students will demand that faculty members communicate digitally, via instant messaging, Twitter and other technologies”. When that day arrives professors will either adapt or fall victims of the new paradigms in learning, that new social media tools such as twitter  are forcing on field of higher education.

 

Notes

Eva Kassens-Noor. Twitter as a teaching practice to enhance active and informal learning in higher education: The case of sustainable tweets. Active Learning in Higher Education 2012 13:9 . Access  October 18,2012http://ehis.ebscohost.com.librarylink.uncc.edu/eds/detail?sid=611bfb34-5caf-4eb7-a674-1b46461ec40b%40sessionmgr14&vid=3&hid=4.

The Evolving World of Digital History: Implications for Historians and their Practices

Transforming the intellectual landscape of historians is the rapid emerging and ever evolving technological developments within the field of history. The  wave of new social media,  increase access to research databases and  new ways of publishing traditional historic material are creating rapid changes in how historians practice and think about history.  Reviewing the articles on the American Historical Association  (http://www.historians.org/index.cfm) website gave me a very concise overview of the plethora of issues and changes facing historians in the digital age.

            Key highlights which were  interesting to me focused on teaching methods. Examining  David Voelker article  gave one insights into ways in which  new teaching pedagogies are being shape by technology.  David Voelker in “Blogging for your Students” suggest digital history practices are allowing him to have more interactive classroom  discussions and more efficiently guide reading assignments.   Using blogs as a reading prompt seems to be an effective way to engage students to think critically and make them become more active readers.  I can personally understand the value using blogs to facilitate  reading comprehension development within historical subject areas because the input from professors and reading prompts can help you navigate through difficult reading material. I know when I took a history class on Slavery, my professor blog which had some definitions of important terms made the reading assignment easier for me to understand.    Besides, assisting scholars with coming up with innovative teaching methods to enhance their impact on students learning digital history is impacting scholars on a personal, intellectual level.

            The emergence of digital history allows scholars more collaborative way to interact with other scholars and to reach new audiences. As discussed in “ H- Net: Digital Discussion for Historians”  H-Net  (http://www.h-net.org/) is a convenient way for historians  to post and exchange ideas,  to moderate discussions groups and  to list scholarly references.  In my personal examination of this site, I was overwhelm by the amount of topics and discussion groups.  Freeing scholars from the traditional modes of publication (print journals and books) I think is one of the most profound impacts of digital history innovations for the individual history scholar. Many more historians can participate in the public discourse of history related subjects.  Digital history allows historians the ability to publish directly to the web using outlets such as blogs, wiki’s and the growing amount of online historic journal sites. These methods allow more scholars to participate in the publishing process and  bypass some of the stifling and political referee journal publications with all there rigid rules and self selected editors.  The freeing of the scholar from the academic plantation of traditional publishing and tenure methods, I think is one of the most important and rewarding elements of coming from the new field of digital history.   

 

Notes

 

An Editor note, History and the Changing Landscape of Information, http://www.historians.org/Perspectives/issues/2007/0705/0705tec1.cfm. Accessed October 11. 2012.

Matthew Gilmore,  H-Net: Digital Discussion for Historians, available at http://www.historians.org/Perspectives/issues/2007/0705/0705tec1.cfm. Accessed October 11, 2012.

David Voleker, Bloging for Students, available at http://www.historians.org/Perspectives/issues/2007/0705/0705tec7.cfm. Acessed October 11, 2012.