History 419 Fall 2022

     Chapter 5 deals with historical blogs, and how they revolutionized access and discussion of history through using the internet. Blogs offered enjoyable reads while also offering a wide range of historical topics, based on where you looked. Also, because blogs were created on an individual basis, each blog was unique and each author had their own way of doing history. It seems today that blogs, for the most part, are dead, but I would say that they are still around, just in different mediums. Now in the age of visuals and screens, historians and history enthusiasts have created websites, channels, and countless videos about their historical interests and research. For example, YouTube channels like Tasting History, A Day In History, and Weird History are all informative platforms, just like a blog, and have their own unique way of telling history, just like a blog. If anything, you could say these are upgraded blogs, as historians now have the ability to do more than ...

 Chapter 5 discusses how the writing of history has changed over time. A main focus of this chapter is on journals and how they specifically have changed since they have pretty much always existed. Of course with the evolution of technology, journals have now been moved to an online platform. This is obviously useful to us as young students because we can look up scholarly journals on things like JSTOR and EBSCO. Of course we can go into the library or something as well to find old physical journals that may not have been transferred to an online format but that is far less likely, so writing online is much more desirable in this day and age. Historical journals and just journals in general have always been around but in this new ear of digital communication there are so many more possibilities since everything is so much more accessible. 

 The use of social media in history has become argumentative, collective, and difficult to decipher the real from the fake.  The nature of many of the apps have lead the history corner of said apps like twitter to become unsustainable for productive discussion in the eyes of many.  This is not to say there are not resources available on twitter.  As I have mentioned previously in this class there is a great resource of Ukraine war footage.  This is a resource, and a strength to short form sites like twitter.  The problem and reason academics are leaving is because of the uncertainty that comes with this, as well as the wide spread use of bot accounts that make understanding a video or its context virtually impossible. There is room in the history field for these unprofessional sites, and I personally think they are necessary for the pooling of raw information and unfortunately false information.  It should be on these other sites where a more long form...

       Scholarly conversations used to account for tenures and promotions through journals back in the day. As journals continues, historians however evolved communication by newsletters through postal systems, blogs, discussion blogs, and then social media creating communities for historians. Blogs were created to feel more connected and it allowed many and all to log in and read.  It was a way to create a cohort of like minded people. Blogs transformed into projects, research outputs and keynotes for books. Blogging was the clearest wat that connections were built influenced by technology. Blogs were the starting propel of new platforms for communication such as twitter. Twitter allowed conversations to towards a more real life chat feel. In other words, the platform of blogging through technology, still used today, influenced other means of communication for historians

 In this chapter, Crymble focuses on the use of blog posts and the internet when it comes to historians documenting history and writing scholarly articles. It explores how it has changed the conversation and how academic journals or articles are written online. Crymble writes, "This notion of a space of one's own was important for early bloggers. Commenting would rise in prominence over time, but the blog was the domain of the blogger. You could visit, but there could be no mistaking whose space it was." Though this seemed like something new for this way of writing history, Crymble believes it was not a huge revolutionary change but just an evolution of the way scholarly articles are done into a different form of consumption. It will be interesting to see with social media and other aspects, just how this continues to evolve. 

Chapter 5 talks about the rise and fall of Scholarly Blogs. These started out as scholarly journals which started in 1665, published in Pairs. Starting with the postal system then moved through to social media and blogs there were new virtual communities of historians that developed. This transformed a new era of Digital communication. With the changing of technology developments allowed historians to communicate in new ways and gave them new opportunities to share their ideas. This chapter really made me understand what an evolution it was to be able to blog. The second wave of blogging is writing together. Historians are able to work together, giving different outlooks, and breaking down some challenges that they were not able to do before this. Blogging has led to new ideas and new voices in the study of history. 

 Chapter Five discusses the creating of writing in our history. There have been different forms of writing throughout history dating back to thousands of years ago, but the progression of writing too today has developed significantly. This chapter discusses journals and how they are used today. There are journals that are used for a variety of different reasons. Journals are mainly used to keep track of information or thoughts that have popped up. This could be seen as a journal because it is the putting down of knowledge to paper. Journals have originally been written by hand but overtime there have been advancements in technology which have allowed for them to be written on the computer. 

 Journals have always existed.  Since the creation of writing, people have wanted to put their thoughts and ideas to paper (or whatever they had at the time).   Journals over time have changed with technology.  This blog itself is a journal.  It is a journal about the book technology and the historian just written digitally.  this different mode of conversing allows for a different spread of knowledge.  Blogs and other journaling websites have allowed people to share their ideas and debate among themselves.  Although the internet can breed false stories and claims it can also provide more history and truth than other modes of writing.   With the mass multitude of media available at all times, these sites are visited very much anymore.  They are linked however to people's streams which connect different sites in one area.  this allows for the spread of information in the fastest way possible.

 "Nothing exists at present for the historian who wants to use a computer but has not the slightest idea how to proceed" (Edward Shorter). He encouraged the application of soft skills and he wrote on step by step skills for quantative historical studies. The chapter summarizes the fact that most historians and social studies teachers are self taught when it comes to history digitally involving storage, research etc. In the 1970s and 80s, microcomputer revolutionized the world. Also introducing an abundance of technological tools for historians. Many historians reported the use of software to accompany their work. Decades later, "traditional methods" were used by few historians. While there was some hesitation and unfamiliarity to these new technologies, they ultimately changed the way of scholars, historians, history journals, and teachers in their ability, enhancements, and methods. They "offered inspiration for what might be done and encouraged historians to ...

 In this chapter Adam Crymble focuses in on the invisible college, as he focuses in a lot on the importance of being able to learn things yourself by experience or research, he focuses on how self-learning resources become important in the very beginning of the chapter and uses mathematics as an example, he focuses in on teaching the teacher math. he gets very in depth and gives a couple pages detail as for why it's important to learn things by yourself. he preaches for a bit how to be aware of new opportunities and to put yourself out there with new opportunities daily, he then goes into a shift in procedure and breaks down everything. wraps up his chapter by talking about how everything is going towards a digital pace and reflects on his reasonings for why it is important to be able to learn on your own in chapter 4. 

 While reading this chapter I found it interesting to be alerted of the difference between old and young people. Technology between generations is very different and todays youth are more comfortable with technology compared to older generations. This chapter also has a focus on quantitative historical study and how it can be implemented in classrooms by teachers. By using computers to do research, this allows students to be open to the internet and all the functions of a computer that will benefit them in all aspects. The chapter also touched upon how there will always be complications and problems within the relationship between people and technology, because technology is always changing. 

 This chapter starts out by talking about Edward Shorter's The Historian and the Computer: A Practical Guide. This talks about the process of designing and interpreting results of a quantitative historical study. While reading more about it I thought it was interesting to see how teachers can move that information into a classroom or to a student. This can take students into a type of learning that includes all different type of skills, methods, and or disciplines. The idea of invisible college is interesting and offers a certain way that some may like to learn from. With part of this came THATCamp which got people who have similar interests in the same room where they can learn from each other. Of course there will be problems with this and it may work for some and not others. There were major problems discussed in this chapter, like the 2000s. But it is pointed out that there will always be problems because technology is always changing so each person has to go through a challeng...

 Chapter Four discusses the advancements that we have had in technology over the past 50 years and what has changed within technology. This then transitions into talking about how these advancements in technology have influenced a more developed classroom. Classrooms now rely heavily on technology for many of the lessons that are taught and also for assignments that are given especially in college. Most colleges have a platform that the students rely on directly to see their assignments and their grades and everything else. Now we are more reliant on technology then books and other "older" resources. 

 One big takeaway from this section is how far technology has come over the years and how the ways we utilize it today would have been unimaginable even 50 years ago. Almost everything used to be on paper and now nearly everything can be found digitally. This is a huge change and the older generations are sort of suffering the consequences because they have to learn how to operate in this new world whereas the younger generations are just growing up with the new technology. One thing this made me think of is phone books- everybody used to have them but now everyone just keeps contacts in their phones. I'm not even sure if they make phone books anymore but I know that when I was little we still got phone books so that is one example of a big change over a short amount of time. Another big change is with education- you can now take courses online which is something that has never been possible before and it is even more prevalent now after the pandemic. 

 Technology has allowed for the spread of information and skills much easier.  A 5 minute video on how to fix your car is more technology than a person in 1950 saw in their entire life.  Because of this easy flow of information, people have created entire education programs online.  This has allowed for education to be provided for free at all times.  this has also changed the way the common day is.  The common day is full of technology that was not even fathomed of in the past.  This has forced the older generations to learn more faster than younger generations to stay up to date and in line with the newer generations.  This has also led them to feel as if they are almost forgotten or left behind in a world before technology.   All of the do-it-yourself books and videos have created a more independent society that does not need a fix-it man anymore.  the average person with the help of these tools can accomplish things that in the ...

 The chapter brought about the interesting concept that the overwhelming presence and level of opportunities made it paradoxically blinding.  The idea developed by the author here is that the immense level of skills that could be applied in the new age of history have left some people in a situation where they believe they are not contributing at all.  The author describes this problem by demonstrating that older generations of historians could look to solve their problems with guides or  broad scale help whereas the current generation needs help on an almost individual level due to the speed at which technology has progressed. I personally agree with the assessment made by the author here.  I agree that the example of the student and her call for help from twitter was an excellent barometer for the developments discussed here.  The author makes a claim which I agree with which is that all though the history department she studied under would tqatisionaly b...