http://chnm.gmu.edu/staff/josh/courses/AU377/students/thelen Tue, 19 Dec 2006 18:01:41 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en This blog started as a requirement for a requirement for my digital history tool of research (TOR).  Using it to post responses to the weekly reading assignments and comment on other students' posts, I started to appreciate the role of an academic blog as a sort of middle ground between ... http://chnm.gmu.edu/staff/josh/courses/AU377/students/thelen/archives/63 My ideas about blogs in history classes are pretty similar to my thoughts on wikis in educational settings. There's a lot of potential, but I'm still not sure how things will work out. That said, I do have some ideas about how I'd like to at least try ... http://chnm.gmu.edu/staff/josh/courses/AU377/students/thelen/archives/56 Below is a sample assignment showing how I would use a wiki in a college-level history course. It's far from a perfect assignment and I would love feedback about how to improve it, but I think it conveys some of my basic ideas about how wikis could reshape classroom ... http://chnm.gmu.edu/staff/josh/courses/AU377/students/thelen/archives/57 Rather than blather on and on and on and on about Scribe and how I organize my research, I've put together a powerpoint tutorial of the program as I use it. It's a text- and image-heavy file, because it is intended to stand alone, online, to help other people ... http://chnm.gmu.edu/staff/josh/courses/AU377/students/thelen/archives/61 I have yet to spend a dime on photocopies at the National Archives. In fact, it probably costs me more to get to the Archives than to actually do research there. Now, I know it doesn't technically cost anyone money to do research at the National Archives, but ... http://chnm.gmu.edu/staff/josh/courses/AU377/students/thelen/archives/59 I was thinking of making a screencast for one of the requirements for my tool of research. I probably won't at this point because I don't have a microphone and I'm still not completely comfortable with the software. But, it's fascinating stuff all the same. And, to ... http://chnm.gmu.edu/staff/josh/courses/AU377/students/thelen/archives/55 Putting theory into practice wasn't originally how I imagined the process of researching my dissertation. Instead I saw research as I imagine most historians do: a chance to dive into original documents and learn about the past first-hand. I was actually recently chastised for spending too much time ... http://chnm.gmu.edu/staff/josh/courses/AU377/students/thelen/archives/54 Below is a paper I wrote in the Fall 2003 for Bob Beisner about the usefulness of the internet for historical research. Like the internet, the format is not exactly traditional, but he found it entertaining. “… but Dr. Brown, there’s so much information on the internet!” “I know, Gordon, but most ... http://chnm.gmu.edu/staff/josh/courses/AU377/students/thelen/archives/53 On June 1, 2006, I attended a Photoshop workshop sponsored by the Center for Teaching Excellence. Since I was the only student, it was a particularly useful tutorial. I never realized how much you can do with the Photoshop software. I learned to change colors, shading, effects ... http://chnm.gmu.edu/staff/josh/courses/AU377/students/thelen/archives/52 Honestly, I hate admitting I don’t know things. My sister loves to tell me “You don’t know!” -- especially when I would respond to anything she told me with “I know.” So, it was interesting for me to be in a class where I had no delusions of knowing and ... http://chnm.gmu.edu/staff/josh/courses/AU377/students/thelen/archives/51