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Hurley highly emphasised the idea of digital divide in the article Chasing the Frontiers of Digital Technology. It relates to the socio-economy that caused various opportunities in accessing the internet and digital technologies. While digital technologies are prospecting new ways for current and future historians to proceed projects in more unique approaches, it is also essential for public historians to take a moment and think who did they miss in the targeted audience? What are the alternative approaches left for those who can not access digital information? And how much of the impact when delivering historical information is through digital technologies? Participants in civic engagement are people; thereby, people in different age groups, reside in different countries, and of course people with different economic income. As suggested by authors from both readings this week, possible approaches for historians to increase engagements by using digital technologies is; for instance, the virtual city software and digital way to display museum; by arraying larger group of audiences, public historians are enhancing civic engagements.
Bonnell and Fortin describe spatial turn as geospatial data. In particular, the GIS system was heavily analyzed. Authors in the article had highlighted many crucial roles that GIS have, such as it integrates materials from various sources, allows users to see spatial patterns, and introduce new interpretations. In addition, using GIS to investigate the histories of indigenous people and cultural values. In other words, rather than merely collecting historical information, visitors can use GIS to comprehend information better. GIS is also used to solve problems; as authors have emphasized
“GIS greatly enhances the potential of this work by enabling the manipulation, analysis, and output of location information within the historical landscape.” In other words, GIS can enhance flexibilities in historical researches.Layering digital information onto real-world environments can offer historians numerous advantages, and constructing an augmented reality is one of these significant advantages. Historians are not only interested in collecting and documenting historical information; many are also interested in disseminating information from the past and teaching students about their findings. Therefore, by layering digital data, it enhances the design of the contents for historians that are wanting to educate others about history. There can be scenic senses and building a tour experience for visitors. Furthermore, it helps historians to create interactivity among visitors and with other historians. Navigation is also an advantage, using phones and GPS features historians are able to get to one point from another. Thereby, it promotes flexibilities for historians to create, design and collects information.
3D objects and virtual reality can be effective for historians as teachers, communicators, and researchers. In promoting learning experience for children, no matter the age group, virtual reality and 3D objects can enhance the “fun” incentive for children to participate. Thus, they can have a greater potential to “observe information.” As suggested by Bonnett, there can be various strategies to increase students’ interest in learning. For example, “widen the domain of history from political and social history to include cultural history.” Widen the domain can increase options for students to participate and engage in learning experiences. The second strategy is to “make students participants in the generation of historical models, textual and three-dimensional,” gaining the hands-on experience can be helpful that it reinforced the fun experience, to comprehend the historical information better and add their interpretations to the event. It will also help communicators and researchers to retell the information, and convert them into story formats.
I think historical simulation through computer games can provide a new language to interpret the past. It offers knowledge about the past through a contemporary lens (a digital approach). For example, in many Chinese museums, in order to enhance young children’s knowledge about the past, people have developed computer games such as Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and the Qing Dynasty. Thus, computer games can be a tool to support dissemination of historical facts and educational purposes. According to the author from the article “Historical simulations and Future of the Historical Narrative,” one insight they highlighted was that games and play are useful tools in learning about histories. As an Early Childhood Educator, I found this is especially interesting as over the years, there had been articles and news reports published to explore the potential negative impacts of technology, rather than demonstrate the positive side about computer/digital games. Why was it controversial? After reading both articles this week, I realize I need to view the topic in a neutral way when examining the impacts.
Big data has become a popular analytical tool that just started to evolve years ago. It has launched a new era of technology due to it’s new found perspective. For historians, it is especially significant that newer approaches like big data are continuously improving its archival methods. However, big data is a tool that is not controlled by humans manually, therefore it has little to no empathetic meaning. Thus, it is essential for historians to not be hubristic, implementing risk preventions to take in considerations of the advantages and disadvantages for digital approaches like the big data. When people first discovered the big data and other digital approaches, we often attain the benefits of the method first before noticing the possible negative side-effects. In addition, as we have learnt in many chapters from the course readings, technologies can not completely guarantee data preservation. For historians, big data does save time and effort in some way; for instance, when collecting data. Nonetheless, big data does need more in-depth detailed analysis from historians to interpret it.
I agree with Milligan’s view. As digital technologies are experiencing rapid development, platforms opened for internet users can expand. People are sharing their views, ideas through websites, and can be useful for historians to collect and analyze for archival and research purposes. Often collecting information may be varied ranging from documents to historical interview transcription; by using websites as a source, it can enhance the accessibility for historians. On the other hand, historians can not find just archival information from any website; the reviewing process will need additional criteria and tools to support. Thus, in the not-so-distance future, websites have the potential in becoming major sources for historians, however with extra tools in historian’s toolkits.
Wikipedia is one of the most common sites that I tend to use when I need to learn the basic information of a specific event. My impressions to the site prior reading the materials, participating in the discussion and completing the lab were that Wikipedia is a basic tool but written by scholars, and it only comprises the primary information without details. However, after new insights gained throughout discussions, readings and the training modules, I realize that my views were incorrect. Information on Wikipedia is contributed by many others, including those who are not scholars. Secondly, information on many topics is written in details. As well, many images attached on Wikipedia were from archival databases, and there are also many links that allow readers to click on and learn. Furthermore, before reading the assigned articles by Rosenzweig, I have never learnt about the NPOV policy. Thus, it was meaningful for me to gain new knowledge.
The Neutral Point of View Policy is beneficial that it protects Wikipedia to step into a “controversial vortex” and to face unnecessary lawsuits. Besides, contributors can express their factual interpretations without having to worry about being attack by others on the platform. While the NPOV policy is beneficial, there are also weaknesses that the policy contains. Firstly, often one of the main reasons that visitors visit the website was that they wanted to seek opinions and heard two sides. Thus, it can lose many website visitors. Although the policy had implemented, over the years people also found that not 100% of published articles were NPOV, further evaluating taken place and it is time-consuming. Lastly, being neutral is hard for Wikipedians as people are inherently biased, which is true for evaluators also that they are using their judgements objectively or subjectively to assess an article. Thereby, being “neutral” is complicated as it has many variations.
I agree with the author’s opinion. The requirements for creating digital history are more complex than projects involving paper and ink. I think that people have higher expectations for digital history, in particular, the design of the delivering approach. For instance, if showing history through websites, how the site is organized can be inevitably influencing audiences’ reading experiences. Thus, digital history is requiring more creativities than other paper and ink projects. Furthermore, the targeted audience is another aspect that needs more in-depth consideration. Taking the Chinese Palace Museum as an example, (English version) https://en.dpm.org.cn/ , (Chinese version) https://www.dpm.org.cn/Home.html. The target audience was explicit as shown by different languages; however, with the Chinese version, there is more detailed information on the website. Also, with the rapid development of technology, telling history digitally or reading history digitally can expand the target age group population, and developing strategies in coping with different “history learners” in different age group can be challenging.
Google doc, text message on our phones (Samsung and iPhone) and Facebook messenger are the three digital tools we always use to communicate. Google doc has the advantage of allowing another person to see the changes in details. If members are making changes in the document, changes can be saved immediately. However, one shortcoming is limited features compared with Microsoft Word, such as fonts, photograph options. Furthermore, the text message is convenient that it did not need the internet to send out messages; however, one shortcoming is that the text messages were not free. Facebook messenger is another tool that we use, it comprises many features, such as audio recording, image, location, plan, games and other features that were in the messenger app. I can also use it both on my mobile phone and the web. The disadvantage for Facebook Messenger is they need internet connections to access. Seeing from the above response, it is evident that digital tools have both advantages and disadvantages. When choosing the communication tools at the beginning of the term, we have never realized benefits and pitfalls of the digital tools, as the only “characteristic” of the tool we focused on was to see which tool we can both reply the quickest.
Google Scholar, Proquest, and Baidu are the three research tools that I use almost on a daily basis, each of tools had its advantages and shortcomings. If I designed a search engine for historians, I could have two features. Firstly, to have metadata recorded in other languages rather than only in English. As seeing digital images in the archives online (e.g. Clara Thomas Archives and Special Collections and Archives of Ontario), the metadata for digital photographs were in English; however, what if non-English speakers want to learn about Canadian history? This also can be a way to increase accessibility. Secondly, for historians and users have searched and cited the source, there can be an online consent signed to allow for disclosure of their emails; thus, users can share immediate thoughts when accessing these sources.
Metadata is the information that describes the data. Libraries were one of the first “platforms” that metadata applied, as digital technologies had emerged throughout the years, metadata became an essential tool in help users, researchers, and archivists to navigate down resources. There are three types of metadata, which are descriptive, structural and administrative. From the class visit to the Clara Thompson Archive and Special Collections, metadata can be the first impression that users will see, to try to state the metadata as close as to the historical records is critical, misstated metadata can cause confusions to researchers when accessing resources. Furthermore, it is also playing key roles in facilitating sharing data and reusing after each metadata.
Although digitizing historical records can provide the advantage for people to access the resources, it is also evident that there are also possible pitfalls that archivists should be cautious to digitize every record. Firstly, the machines for scanning the records might not be able to scan the exact copy of the texts. For instance, the paper that is used originally when establishing the documents, and sometimes they are the hints in seeing the progress of histories. Secondly, capturing the contents that are not on the historical records, such as a side sticky notes. Furthermore, ensuring the quality of the scanned documents is also unpredictable that some scanner might do a better job than others in scanning the text to digital format. Maintaining the digitized records is also an important aspect in digitize everything. It is evident that there is no 100% guarantee for the technologies that keeping the digital files. Over the past few years, there were many news reports that highlight how medical records of patients in hospitals that were missing, and one of the main causes was due to technological errors. Seeing the possibilities that can happen with hospital digital records, it is also to possible reflect on the dilemmas that archivists may encounter. Moreover, the cost in using a high-quality scanner is expensive, and the maintenance of the scanners can also be expensive by taking in consideration of the usage on an everyday basis.
Podcasting is one of the ubiquitous tools used in digital technology platforms. It takes unique approaches for speakers to communicate with listeners. As the traditional archives were focusing on authenticity, authorization, podcasting is underlining the aspects of personal, experiential, and collective (Hogan, Mél, 2008, p. 204). From the reading about the different emphasis of podcasting in this week’s reading, I also found that podcasts are providing with more flexibility. For instance, for speakers to share information through various techniques of expression, which when recording, they can include different elements such as to comprise atmospheric sounds and techniques to present information about the past. Alternatively, to record podcasts in storytelling style. Besides, podcasting approach can increase the visibility for other historians and audiences that are interested in learning. It challenges the traditional archives that for a specific topic is sometimes hard to find information. Thus, visibility offers easier accessible information to audiences or learners.
I am enjoying listening to the podcast in Chinese that talks about the events that happened in the past. The name is called “YanJiangLu,” if it is translated directly to English, it would mean a “Presentation Log.” Unfortunately, it does not have an English version; however, I still wanted to include in this week’s forum that it relates to the history education aspect. The speaker in the podcast had converted history lectures, books into a storytelling type of expression, as well he was collecting other scholars perspectives within one podcast. As listeners of this podcast, I can gain multiple perspectives and meaningful information from one episode in “Presentation Log.”
