Archiving Conferences

What happens in a conference is usually lost the moment the words leave the speaker's lips. Last week I filmed a conference in the University of Western Ontario: Canadian Climate History workshop, so that what happened might be useful to others.

Just because conference presentations aren't in written form doesn't mean they aren't worth keeping.

Consider recording your next conference or conference talk. If you're looking for a place to store it, try ITunes University.

Photo Archive of One Man's World

My father sent me a link today to one of the most amazing photo archives I've ever seen.

Jamie Livingston took a single Polaroid image nearly every day from March 31, 1979 until his death in 1997. The whole collection is roughly 6000 images, which show everything from the evolution of hairstyles, to the urban regeneration of New York City, where he lived.

There are no words, only images. The people in the photos remain a mystery. But, the story the images tell are of one man's world, as he saw it. An amazing story, to say nothing of the collection's value to social historians. If you were born between 1979 and 1997, you might see what he was doing on your birthday.

Take a look:

http://www.gigapan.org/viewGigapanFullscreen.php?id=5890

http://photooftheday.hughcrawford.com/


Definitely worth a look; and extremely well presented. Archives might consider using a similar format for presenting their archival collections online. Why search with words, when our eyes are already built for searching?

Plaigiarism is not Dishonourable

Allow me to plagiarize:

Students must write their essays and assignments in their own words. Whenever students take an idea or a passage from another author, they must acknowledge their debt both by using quotation marks where appropriate and by proper referencing such as footnotes or citations. Plagiarism is a major academic offence.

This addendum came with every syllabus I received during my undergraduate degree. Irony prevents me from telling you which university I plagiarized this work from.

Teaching students what should and should not be cited, and why citing is important is admirable. But, by teaching that citation is a system of acknowledging intellectual debts, students may never learn why we really cite others. Instead, they will cite to avoid punishment, and in some cases will do so when it is not necessary. Plagiarism is bad for several reasons; however, failing to acknowledge an intellectual "debt" to someone else is not one of them.

You are not indebted to someone whose ideas you borrow, rather, the strength of your argument depends upon what they wrote and what evidence they used to support their arguments. You do not cite them as a "thank you," rather you cite them so that a person reading your work has the means to check your sources. So that they can determine if what you say makes sense and is based on a sound foundation.

Hopefully, the person you cited also cited other authors. In this manner, footnotes and citations provide an unbreaking chain of logic / evidence, which goes back to an original source. For this, citations are extremely useful.

There are no victims of academic plagiarism. Plagiarism is the highest form of flattery. If someone sees your work as worth stealing, it must be good. Any undergrad who can write well enough to plagiarize without making it painfully obvious is probably smart enough for a BA anyway.

Transparency in education is important for creating a meaningful learning experience. Students aren't stupid, so maybe we shouldn't treat them like they are.

Plagiarism is not dishonourable; it's just counterproductive.

Open Peer Review

I came across an open peer review request the other day. Ara Basmadjian, a UWO digital history student posted a draft essay proposal on his blog, asking his colleagues for constructive criticism.

Not only is this brave and a nice change from the defensive, secretive nobody look at my paper attitude that so many students have, but, if it works, it might prove to be a good first step into an open peer review system that helps create good, solid scholarship in a timely manner, without the need for the bottleneck of journals. I hope it works.

Doctoral Candidate Candidate

I'm a doctoral candidate candidate and I've spent just about every free waking moment of the last month trying to the read minds of committee members I've never met who will decide my fate.

I've gone to the seminars about choosing a grad school, approaching a potential supervisor, applying for grants. I've written, rewritten and rewritten again every paragraph of my applications.

I've been warned that my project proposal should be compact, doable and specific from one group of people, and warned by another that's terrible advice and I should show broad interest in a range of ideas.

I'm a doctoral candidate candidate, and it's a lot of guess work.

Most Popular Historical Topics of Year 2100?

Everyone likes to think they're unique. But, how predictable are young historians?

What are the history students of next century going to find interesting about us? Will they look into the predictable topics? 9/11 and the sudden concern about global warming? Will they look at us at all? Or will we be considered one of those boring decades that earn little study?

Here's my guesses for most popular history essay topics for students studying our current decade. Some history professor in a hundred years can check if I'm right.

1) Terrorism
2) Global Warming
3) Rise of China in the global economy
4) Fast Food Lifestyles
5) Religious Conflicts

I hope I'm wrong; be unique, students of the future!

Interactive History Displays

I've been working on some projects for Bill Turkel recently that he likes to call "Interactive, Ambient and Tangible Devices for Knowledge Mobilization." In layman's terms, that's "Interactive History Displays."

The project I'm currently working on is an interactive ice core. It's not really ice, but it's a cylinder of plastic, cooled by a device called a "Peltier Junction." When a student touches the ice core, sensors determine where the finger touched and a monitor displays relevant information.

Our current prototype is a cardboard tube, but it's going to get way better, we swear. We have recently started working with a milling machine. This machine is essentially a 3D printer. You give it directions of what you want, put in a block of material - plastic for instance - and it creates your shape in relief.

For those of you interested in the technical details or who wish to follow along with our progress, you can do so here.

But, that's not why I'm posting. The purpose of this project is to demonstrate new ways to engage students with history.

Textbooks have their place, but so many children learn by touching or experiencing. And, because it's not very feasible to truck an ice core into a classroom, we're creating the next best thing. Perhaps better, since most children lack the university degree in paleoclimatology required to decipher ice core secrets.

The interactive display also gives students and educators more control over their learning experience. Students can choose to learn about only those aspects of the core that interest them, by deciding which parts of if to touch. If they are particularly interested in the bubbles which are trapped under the surface, they can focus their attention on that aspect. If they want to know about the dirty section near one end, they can do that too.

These displays can be made relatively inexpensively. The ice core will likely cost about the same as your average science textbook and could be used to teach an entire classroom.

Bill has already started work on a tree-ring which follows the same principles as the ice core.

I think this idea has a bit more potential. So, if anyone has a suggestion for something they would like to see, or that they think would be useful for teaching history, please leave a comment here or send me an email at adam_crymble@hotmail.com. I'd love to hear your ideas, and perhaps we can bring them to life.

Be creative: dinosaur bones, a castle, a dress. Anything is fair game.