weisner

1. I thought that there was a lot of practical and useful advice on building websites and finding audiences in this week’s chapter of Digital History. Although we have discussed the concept of an audience in numerous classes, I hadn’t really given any thought to the potential audience of a website. I found the tips for attracting contributors to be especially helpful. I can see how it would be really important to tailor your methods of soliciting comments to fit your prospective audience or group of contributors. The author gives a great example of collecting soldiers’ stories and the difference between email and IM contributions depending on the age group being surveyed.

2. Although the issue of qualitative concerns is addressed to an extent, there is not much on how to edit stupid contributions. I don’t feel like the author really discussed the possibility of receiving useless and inappropriate messages on boards (like the ones we encountered on the Pearl Harbor site). He mentions that log-ins and passwords for contributions often discourage people from contributing to a site. But I think this could work the other way too. If you ask people to provide some information, or make logging-in a mandatory process before you can post anything, you could weed out those who are serious from the immature idiots who are just bored.

3. I am so impressed with the September 11^th Digital Archive. The site is enormous, I’m pretty sure I could spend a ton of time just browsing the basics, let alone reading all of the stories. It’s almost overwhelming. This is a great example of a way to preserve recent history and open it up to a wide variety of people and memories (although you do run the risk of tasteless remarks and immature behavior). However, while I found this an incredibly important and fascinating archive, I was a little thrown off by the Thin Blue Line website. Is a discussion board really necessary? I’m not really interested in reading people’s experiences with a pregnancy test. I don’t know who the intended audience may be in this case, but I can’t imagine it is very large.

Thought Number One:

In the Digital History book (specifically, the section entitled Mapping the Web) the authors make a great point about categorizing websites. Clearly, it’s not easy to attain a level of organization. However, the authors argue that this process forces web creators and authors to think about genres, or as Agre defines them in his article, “a particular sort of audience and a particular sort of activity”. Keeping in mind the genre is a great way to stay on track…historical information is only helpful if it is given with the proper audience in mind. In a way, it’s ironic that a medium intended to increase speed and efficiency of information gathering also causes an increase in deliberate actions and thought in some ways.

Thought Number Two:

I was really impressed with the web examples that we had to check out. First of all, they helped clarify what the authors of the Digital History book meant by dividing information into five main genres of history sites, which follow certain patterns. Clearly, it seems that these are broad categories, as many of the sites are used for multiple reasons. I also really wish that I would have had access to these sites when I was in grade school and high school. The Pearl Harbor site and the Valley of the Shadow are incredible resources for students. I don’t think I’ve ever really given much thought to how much potential the web has to revolutionize teaching methods. I wonder how extensively these sites are really used in the classroom however. Am I right in assuming that although the information is available, schools and teachers are often lagging far behind? And that many still find the web to be an unreliable source?

Thought Number Three:

Another great benefit to the web is that it allows access to many museum objects that just can’t fit in the building itself. For example, the Smithsonian site showcases a ton of artifacts, most of which are not available for public viewing. When we took a field trip to the Smithsonian last semester for our Public History class, we learned how much “stuff” the Smithsonian has in their possession, and how little of that is able to be contained within the museum. Websites provide a great way for the public to access these extra objects.

My first blog.