Thursday 21

-From the questionnaires we see that historians agree about interest in using the web for research and teaching more than for publishing, though that is also an interest. There seems to be more interest in breadth of material.

COLLABORATION:-Historians work alone, few respondents work collaboratively. One of us commented that this is also the stereotype of the web--the lone net cruiser. We tend to reinforce this in our teaching, we want students to come up with ideas on their own. While recognizing the difficulties, the group agreed that collaborative web projects should be encouraged. Some models were described.

ARGUMENT:-We have used web as pedagogy and research rather than for making an argument. The editor in our group described efforts to make authors integrate illustrations into an argument rather than just decorating an article, with little success. Agreement that it is important to think about how this is a medium for developing an argument. How to use it as a vehicle for making a statement rather than illustrating it. We should be clear about the appropriateness of using technology. Unless there is a compelling reason to use the tech it is just illustrative and expensive. We need to do it because it helps to change the discipline, not just use the tools because they are available.

RECONSIDERING BASIC PRINCIPLES:-What is valued changes over time. We most highly value individual inspiration. The web medium forces people to reconsider basic principles, issues always around but we aren't forced to think about it in our normal practice. New tech might force us to rethink it.

-potential of web sources for better and multiple interpretations. Data bases might change our conclusions.

PRO-ACTIVE:-Don't treat this as "how are we going to catch up?" but "how are we going to shape the future?"

TRAINING NEXT GENERATION:-How do we train students to be proficient and effective in web based research, teaching, and publication? We should get grad students to learn how to create a virtual text. I assume this will become easier. If it's going to realize its promise (and we need really good demonstration projects) then we're getting students to think about the text in a different way.

NEW STRUCTURES/THE END OF NARRATIVE? -History has always been written as a narrative. The current technology is good at taking things apart instead of creating narratives. The Valley of the Shadow site started out with a historian who was then 'pushed out' to allow for others to write the history themselves. There is no form of narrative on the site. We have no way of writing an integrative text.

-Id like to make a pitch for open-source courseware. Id like to see us make a statement out of this meeting.

General Brainstorming:

-are we letting the end product shape what we think we want.

-potential of the 3-d text. Ability to go to different levels of text,start at high school version that can open up to college level and then to advanced.

-that is what the very best museums do. You can read as much as you want in the interpretation.

-that's part of the task, the notion of writing for various audiences.


 

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