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Kids These Days and Their Video Games

Our technical activity with Twine was probably the most fun I’ve had in a graduate class so far! I don’t always walk away from a class thinking it was fun, usually I use words like ‘interesting’ or ‘thought provoking.’ But creating paths in Twine while we learned I kept thinking about how great this application is for storytelling and in general reminded me how important fun is in our profession (and really all professions.) But especially in an educational setting with children. Of course, historians have a deeply ethical duty to integrity, but being creative with our storytelling is so important! Our small-group may have taken some liberties with our historical realism and kept our Twine adventure light-hearted but again it impressed upon me the potential for delight using this type of method of narration. The mix of audience interaction with storytelling I think is a really important and under-utilized tool.

Unsurprisingly this was reinforced with our other activities in this lesson. Now, I’m not saying that Oregon Trail was the most historically accurate game out there, but having playing it when I was in elementary school I can say it has left a mark on me. Playing this much beloved game from my past now in my late 30s, I realize how much of this game was insensitive and inaccurate. But at the same time I can see how the interaction aspect of this game really captured my imagination as a kid.

One of the examples from the  Krijn H.J. Boom et al, article reinforced that idea that interaction is a key component in learning. In it a Holland educational group used what they termed RoMeincraft which blended the gameplay of MineCraft with rebuilding ancient Roman cities. The RoMeincraft integrated play with history and even inter-generational (kids played while grandparents helped). What was most influential about this type of video game/history integration was that it did not involve violence. I can’t think of a “history” game I have personally played that didn’t involve violence (thinking mainly of Civ V.) Being weary of this tendency towards violence is certainly something a serious historian who is looking to use gaming as an educational device needs to be aware of. Beyond violence I can see that there are a lot of ways using gaming and storytelling can be either trivialized or manipulated. But for now (at this point in my career) I am going to try to lean away from the cynicism and lean into potentialities for using gaming and/or interactive storytelling.

One of those potentialities is podcasting! It is a bit of a trope now how easy podcasting is, it’s likely your neighbor is doing it, but it really is a fantastic way for historians to get their research out there in a format that is relatively low barrier to entry. I listened to the Green Tunnel Podcast by RRCHNM hosted by Mills Kelly (Click here to listen) and I enjoyed it so much that I went back to the beginning episode and will be listening to it on my walks with my dog. The host was able to integrate so much information, history, oral interviews, current events – it was very seamless. Ultimately, this module made me really hopeful and excited for some of the new ways historians can create projects that aren’t just digital, but also interactive and tell stories in creative imaginative ways.

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History

Omeka, Copyright, & DH Exhibits

My Dog as an item in Omeka

This week’s technical activity was one of my favorites for the very fact that it felt like here was a platform that could successfully pull together a project. I could see how our previous technical activities, OpenRefine, QGIS, WordPress, BaseCamp, etc were all little parts of what a final vision of a research project would look like, but Omeka showed where and how they could live together in a final presentation. The learning curve was much lower this week too! I think the first week’s activity around Reclaimed Hosting and WordPress helped build into how to use Omeka so the skills translated nicely as I built an exhibit of my two beautiful dogs. I can see myself using this tool beyond ClioWired and it’s likely that our group will use it for our final project at the end of the semester (so be on the lookout for that!)

On a more serious note, the readings and discussion we had on copyright was very illuminating. The readings highlighted problems that I was only vaguely aware of. I have personally had to reach out for copyright permissions last semester when I used archival materials collection at the National Park Service in a published work – but I was lucky to have no real roadblocks (mostly because where my article was being published was not monetized.) Where I was most surprised was the enormous costs of academic journals – especially in the science field. It almost seems counterintuitive to have these academic journals require such a high cost of entry despite the original reasons for copyright laws to “promote the progress of science and arts” per Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the Constitution (as seen in the Crash Course video.) To me, the way modern academia functions (in the journals and publishing realm) seem counter to this kind of open sharing. Obviously, that is a reductive framing of the entire problem in articles/journals/access to research – this isn’t the space to discuss the intricacies of that – but I can say that I am firmly in the pro-prepublish and piracy camp.

Finally, I perused the recommended Digital History websites before class, but I didn’t linger as long as I liked due to a busy weekend. A few days after our Monday class I returned to the Hurricane Digital Memory Bank regarding Hurricane Katrina & Rita with Helene’s aftermath fresh on my mind. I approached this memory bank now with a different mentality – that these items, snapshots, and memories are precious and contain meaning and represent historic moments that would be lost to the public if they were not sustained in this way by the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media. The digital realm is not a perfect place for memory, but then again, no place is so – this week made me reflect on not only the work that goes into maintaining a site like this, but also the intentionality of upkeep. I’m glad this project continues to be accessible for future generations. Here were some interesting items I found while perusing the collection:

Hurricane Archive Example 1

Hurricane Archive Example 2

Hurricane Archive Example 3

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History

More like Geez-IS

Because I am a historian of place, space is one of the fundamental contexts in which I operate. I felt self-assured going into this weeks Module because I had previously worked as a Geospatial Analyst at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and at other various places during my time in the Air Force. Likewise, I found the articles to be interesting and engaging, it made sense with the vocabulary I had picked up from my work prior. The methodology walk through in Loren Siebert’s “Using GIS to Document, Visualize, and Interpret Tokyo’s Spatial History” was incredible. Figure 5 showing the “Annexation patterns in in Toyko and Kanagawa” on page 560 was a particularly innovative way to show movement in a static image. All in all I felt good about walking into Module 4!

But of course, dear reader, as per usual attending class brought frustration (in a good way!) At its base I like QGIS, the software is hardy and the application of it will surely be useful, but getting beyond the learning curve in class was difficult for me. Especially working off a laptop without a mouse. I had supposed my previous experience would somehow translate to new software, but quickly realized that what we were doing was fundamentally different than what I did in my old career. Where my job prior had been using historic imagery to anticipate the future, my new understanding was to uncover patterns from the past and interpret meaning as it related to that historic context. This is a significant change. Appreciating the use of GIS outside of my earlier career is, in many ways, a rehabilitation of the methodology for me. Rather than using it in a way that is so associated with military functions (often ending in death and destruction), this shift towards using GIS to interpret human meaning and patterns for historic research purposes is sublime. Is that too intense a word? I do not think so, it feels like a recovery of a tool that I had associated with negative emotions. So I’m pleased to be able to pick this tool back up and cultivate something other than an “intelligence product.”

Having a discussion with Dr. Otis about data display really brought this point home. I was asking her about moving displays to show change over time or perhaps a sliding map (similar to how Annabelle’s excellent blog post this week [seen here]) and while Dr. Otis did not discount these methods she shared with our group some other options such as small multiples.

Median Lot sizes in each of 3 Residential Zone Types

The above image I took from a Cartographer’s blog found here.

As Dr. Otis explained the merits of a static map, I found myself agreeing wholeheartedly. It allows the reader entry into the data in a more logical way. The reader can follow the information with their eyes on their own time and not be merely dazzled by movement. That’s not to say a moving map or GIS image has no place, but I think maybe doing so in a more restrained fashion could allow that one portion to be more powerful and significant rather than overwhelming the reader with movement and flash. What I am taking away from this lesson is that learning GIS will be both time consuming and necessary (at least for my focus.) I want to be able to show change over time in a way that focuses on placeful-ness and references key physical/geographic features. I also want to incorporate using small multiples somehow and I would like to find the best way to show relationships between humans and the landscape. Going back to the article by Siebert and her GIS visualizations, it makes me want to think cleanly and creatively about displaying data. To that end I think reading broadly and looking at how other historians are utilizing GIS will help me glean ideas on best practices. I am also looking forward to seeing everyone’s end of class digital projects and how or if they use GIS data or visualizations!

 

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If you’re interested here is how the USAF uses geospatial data:

 

 

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History

Perfect Naming Convention_BlogPost_use_final

Project management, Agile Projection, empowerment, budget proposals, incremental progress, effective team collaboration, stakeholders, meetings…SCRUM? What is this? Am I back in the Air Force drinking the buzzword stew? Yes and no. This week’s readings made my eyes glaze over, not because they weren’t helpful, but because they were and they reminded me of a not so distant past where I had to manage (small) projects of my own. As much as the Edin Tabak article made good plain sense (especially in the context of Digital Humanities) I found it to be a difficult read. I think when it comes to managing a project this sort of article is best coupled with being a junior partner on an actual project. Without real world context it can be insufferable to slog through. Especially with sentences like this: “this will enable a progressive and incremental cycle of creative uncertainties and their provisional closures, presented through the modular deliverables” (Tabak, para 26).

This is why I was thankful that our in-class exercise of playing with the PM website BaseCamp. Our group made quick work of plugging in all the info for our “project” for NEH funding. The context of the in-class activities helped solidify some of the ideas in Tabak’s article.

But I also felt like I was being sold something. Promises of the most efficient way to manage my project sounds so innocuous, possibly even a positive good, but I still felt like my attention was the product. Or if I’m not being sold something I feel like I was the one being managed. Maybe, contrarian that I am, I do not want to do what I do faster, perhaps the “sitting” with the research questions or the sources or the conversation between my colleagues is something that cannot be scheduled or iterated or channeled so forcefully. Reflection cannot be scheduled so simply. Perhaps I need to walk around with my dog about where to go with my project. I recognize I am coming from a place of tremendous privilege; I currently do not have to fight for grant money, I do not have a huge project I am working on, just some ideas that interest me and will haunt me for my life. For instance, my (potential) thesis idea about how the landscape operates on the human person (both in body and soul) and how the reverse is true, that humans operate on the land, the physicality and unity of it (and what it says about us), won’t be contained in a project. It will haunt me forever, this wonderful question about how we interact with and change the land and are changed by it. It has an expression in history, but it can’t be contained in one historical project and therefore it can’t be scheduled or to-do-listed or even put into words perfectly. It defies management. Or maybe it’s just an excuse for me to whine.

In the end I think I will hold this information on Project Management with a light touch. There were great lessons to learn in this module about prioritization and deadline setting, plus the information on Collaboration from the Gabrielle Griffin and Matt Steven Hayler on how creative projects can be better at team efforts. So while I probably will refrain from adopting most of the technical aspects of Project Management into my individual studies I think doing so in a group setting makes sense.

Here are some landscapes I’ve seen recently that I enjoyed —

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Distant Reading Vs Deep Maps

The readings this week highlighted a principle which had been dancing the edges of my periphery concerning digital history. That in order to incorporate a new method or technique into ones method of doing history there necessitates a shift from attention elsewhere. This shift of attention can be something groundbreaking like the ability to crunch large amounts of data in relatively short amounts of time to produce historical change over time at a scale never before dreamed of. Or something less revolutionary (but still important) like the ability to house historical citations in software like Zotero. Regardless of the degree of radical-ness the incorporation of digitization and use of large amounts of data with the help of computers has meaningfully changed how historians approach their work.

Laura Putnam’s article in The American Historical Review entitled “The Transnational and the Text-Searchable: Digitized Sources and the Shadows They Cast” draws on both the causes for excitement and potential pitfalls of this shift. Her linkage of historians turn to digital sources highlights the explosion of transnational research now available at the fingertips of scholars. Digitization has created the ability for what she describes “side-glancing and borderless term-searching,” which are essentially ways that historians can both interact and connect with sources in ways that allow scholars to ask new questions (Putnam, 380). Beyond the quickness of retrieving this information and the international outlook she also emphasizes the boon to searching, being able to trace individuals or microhistories and effectively. Yet this sort of searching has the potential to be a double sword. Putnam mentions several pitfalls to be wary of from problematic methodology (cherry picking, not citing data sources) to what is lost when the historian does not physically go to the archives (archivist knowledge, in country experiences), to the implications of power (what gets digitized and why), decontextualization, and more. Putnam’s article, I think successfully weighs importance of the benefits and traps of digitization, it gave me a lot to think about (and the title of this blog post.)

Meanwhile, Johnathan Blaney’s article “A Culture of Non-Citation” felt almost like a zooming in of what Putnam could have easily listed as one of the hazards of increased digitalization. It goes to the failure to have a full discussion on methods of digitization, standardize citation, and teaching of how to use digital sources appropriately. Before I moved on to the final two articles, I admit dear reader, I decided to skip ahead and explore the two databases linked in Module 2.

The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database created a real wow moment for me in terms of understanding some of the power that digitization has on visualization. The time-lapse visual over the course of just a few minutes created an incredibly memorable and effective way to see data. It was clean, direct, and purposeful and quite frankly one of the best (and smoothest) displays of digital history I have ever seen. To be fair, that list is quite small, but still it gave me an understanding of the power of using data and digitization in this field. It was like an alchemical transmutation of data into visualization and as such fascinating. The last two articles were useful in comprehending the size of data and the distinction of “smart” data and “big” data, but I felt the in-class exercised showed me just how tedious working with data could be.

The technical activity we did in class was to fiddle with the application OpenRefine. Having loaded a data set we fumbled around with faucets and filters until Kenzie helped walk our group through the finer points of how to extract what we wanted to know. One big lesson I’ll walk away with is how easy it was to dismiss or forget the fact that we were looking records of those who had died. I found myself joking about the spelling of the word “consumpcon” for consumption without really feeling the weight of the meaning as cause of death. It didn’t weigh on me until later how morbid that was that I forgot the little flattened piece of information mitigated through my screen and an application was describer for a human being who had perished. That thin piece of shame I felt for failing to have compassion reminded me of S. L. Ziegler’s piece about being good data brokers. Ziegler’s suggestion is that empathy is a powerful and necessary tool against the de-personalization of digitization and I am going to try to be alert to that in the future.

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Blog Post – Module 1

 “WordPress!?! Aauggh!” – Our fellow historian Chris Nelson on Slack

To me, these two words, and emphatic punctuation, aptly capture my feelings towards using WordPress. But why? In the early aughts my best friend in high school and I shared a WordPress for typing class where we would practice keystrokes and create stories. Like an improv-group brought to blogging one of us would write a chapter then the other would write the next chapter, exchanging control of the blog and plot. At the time, I found the process of picking out a theme thrilling, publishing posts took on a giddy air, and the fact that someone could “discover” our little blog made us feel both nervous and excited. We left our WordPress behind within a year of graduating high school and both my friend and I migrated to Facebook (now that we had college emails addresses which were required at the time.) And so, WordPress faded from my mind until I took HIST 390 at George Mason University.

Here was where the “Aauggh!” sentiment kicked in. Over a decade later the tool seemed almost clunky compared to the fresh excitement it had offered in high school. Now picking out themes and posting and learning the ins and outs of the site management felt tedious. It wasn’t WordPress that had changed, rather the character of the internet and how I now approached it. In reading Adam Crymble’s book Technology and the Historian Transformations in the Digital Age I found evidence of how and why that change had taken place. In his chapter on the Rise and Fall of the Scholarly Blog he discusses a political blogger, Hossein Derkhshan, who was imprisoned for writing about the Iranian government. Upon his exit six years later he found the Internet to be a very different place: “the way people found content had changed dramatically” (Crymble, 151). Crymble locates this as being the result of “filtered algorithms” which are especially chosen for viewing by the popular social media sites (Crymble, 151). In more than decade that had passed between my interaction with WordPress my attention and appreciation for it as a tool had evaporated. I now felt that it was a borderline ineffective tool which required too much of my time to use.

Reading Crymble and his history of DH I found his call to action to investigate “structures of power on the Internet” to be a powerful one (Crymble, 151). Most importantly because I had gone from an active participant in my high school days, writing and posting, to a passive recipient who was merely consuming content. Much of Crymble’s text had a similar effect on me. I enjoyed his emphasis on getting the geneology of DH correct, that it was begat by at least two streams of thought (statistical and linguistic) and how historians work to incorporate digital media in the classroom and make their own classrooms to learn how to use digital tools effectively. I found his categorization of DH in “research, collection management, teaching, learning, and communicating” to be helpful in battening down this tricky term. (Crymble, 165).

Yet most helpful in cinching what DH is was our classroom discussion. In my group, Asha Isable, came up with a brilliant metaphor to help describe the qualities of DH. She likened it to a physician attempting to diagnose a syndrome by looking at various characteristics. Not every presentation of the syndrome will be exactly the same, but there was bound to be some overlap. For example, not every historian will be helping with collection management digitally, but they may create a project which is presented digitally – not the same, but still both digital historians! Our other group member Xaioyi Sun brought in her expertise as an Art Historian and discussed how online exhibits were now more accessible than ever before (a crucial feature in this time of COVID.) Finally, Kenzie Hool rightfully discussed some of the potential dangers of digital history with the advent of AI and misinformation. In sum, reading Crymble’s work was enlightening, but our class discussion between fellow historians was engaging and exciting. I feel more confident going into the digital world with these historians by my side.

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History Matters Publication

My senior thesis for my BA in History has been published by the undergraduate history journal “History Matters” which is run by Appalachian State University:

History Matters

It was such a pleasure to work with the archivist at the National Park Service, the editors at App State, my George Mason professor (Dr. Oberle), and, of course, my family (who read the paper numerous times ❤). Special thanks to my wife Martha Jane, my favorite conversation partner, this article could not have been completed without your input and discussion.


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