In an effort to inflict some discipline on my writing habits and to share interesting historical happenings I discover about my hometown area, I have been writing a local history column about Aurora County, South Dakota, since January of 2013. … Continue reading
Today I created my first Twitter account in the middle of reading a course assignment, http://webwriting.trincoll.edu/engagement/wright-2013/. During the setup, I picked a few accounts to follow, but quickly ‘unfollowed’ them. WTMJ4 must tweet ten times per second! The two entertainment personalities tweeted nonsense. All that’s left is a few people I know personally, my professor, and some theater and tourism sites in the Milwaukee area.
The author of the article provided some good examples for using this tool to teach journalism students. The more interesting examples centered around the students tweeting individually with a shared hashtag, which turned it into a group event. The students all attended the same basketball game, commenting and responding to each others’ commentary. As journalism students, their education focuses on observing events around them and documenting them in real time. I can see how Twitter helps with that.
How does Twitter help historians? The author suggests using Twitter to assign a research topic to history students and then asking them to tweet their findings. Another idea was to review a historical debate conducted on Twitter and use that discussion to support an argument. I’m not so sure a debate in the cloud provides strong argument of much, other than their are strong differences of opinion in interpreting a particular topic.
How useful is this for historians aspiring to pursue their profession outside of academia? I’m curious if any of my classmates can see value in Twitter for Public Historians? Although I can see it as a way to ‘market’ museum events, my imagination fails me beyond this.
What is Twitter? Who is the audience? What are the behavior’s of the audience? What is the motivation to find and follow tweets produced by historians? Is it more useful as a group activity, engaging people in something that is event-related with some time limits, such as the basketball game example? Is it a way for people to stay informed about organization or topics that interest them? Do people want to get lots of tweets every day on the same topic? Do people spend a lot of time on Twitter? How do they find the tweets that matter?I haven’t used it and I don’t have a sense for how or why people become engaged in this digital tool.
I use and enjoy Facebook, but I’m having trouble ‘getting’ Twitter. If you use and like Twitter, please let me know how you find it useful for students and teachers of history and other history professionals. I want to have an open mind on this, but I’m not sold yet.
I am taking a graduate class this semester at UWM on Digital Media. One of the requirements for the class is that we blog about the topic of this course. As someone who studied computer technologies in the early 1980s, it is interesting to read the books that identify the genesis of ‘digital history’ in the early to mid 1990s. My digital experiences pre-date HTML code. I used something called ‘memorandum macros’ (it looked a lot like HTML) to develop adult-learning courses on UNIX and C Programming. It was a text-based word processor, useful for writing resumes as well. I still use my first public e-mail address from the early 1990s, but, before that decade, was using work email at the BellCore Training Center in Lisle, IL. It’s been about thirteen years since I quit working and teaching computer and security technology courses, but I’ve tried to keep up-to-date with new technologies for personal use – like iPhoto, iMovie, You Tube, and Facebook. I’m pretty good at Excel and Word, although a refresher course would probably be helpful as I’m sure I use the old tried and true more often than looking for the new, better and faster. I can even program in Access. I bought my first Mac in 1983 (used), but we always have both Mac and a PC at home – and I have to work with a PC at my non-profit job. I guess that makes me electronically bilingual. I’m looking forward in this class to learning new tools that will help me more effectively produce and consume history in the digital world.
Adding to our Plankinton experience, we are leasing an apartment on the third floor of the Plankinton building for 12 months. We leased the space to explore downtown Milwaukee on weekends, provide a writing retreat for me during the week, … Continue reading
It’s been awhile, but I’m back. In my newest endeavor to improve my skills, I have started writing a monthly local history column for the Plankinton weekly newspaper, The South Dakota Mail. As soon as I clean up the citations … Continue reading
Last week I was recognized by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for solving a history mystery – that is, successfully researching the true date of the Plankinton statue. While my primary purpose for this blog was to practice using technology to … Continue reading
I’m on a mission to write the Plankinton story. Join me on this journey of discovery – with some side trips to correct old errors and fix any new ones I make along the way. Stay tuned and chime in!
Here’s a lesson in carefully reading your source: In the previous post I paraphrased the 1892 newspaper article and wrote that the pedestal was nine feet high. After a more careful reading of the original source, I discovered my mistake. … Continue reading
Two stories published in the 1892 Milwaukee Journal reference the installation of the John Plankinton Statue in the Plankinton Hotel lobby rotunda. The statue was placed on a pedestal, nine feet high, (correction: statue and pedestal together are nine feet … Continue reading
Plankinton Statue dated to 1883 Date of Plankinton statue is in dispute. Many sources claim the statue is 144 years old (1868), but it is more likely to have been created during the mid 1880’s when the sculptor, R. H. … Continue reading
