Data, Data everywhere... but what do we do with it?

For this week's reflection, I am going to focus on Daniel Cohen's "From Babel to Knowledge," and Digital History Hacks: Methodology for the Infinite Archive, "Searching for History."  First of all, I was a little slow on the uptake when each article was discussing APIs, programming interfaces, H-bots, algorithms--but that's not new.  However, when I did process what Cohen was talking about, I was amazed by what computer programmers are able to accomplish.  The ability to set up search engines to "mine data" and then use that to better construct a website and its efficiency in being available to a greater online audience is quite fascinating.  Before reading the blog "Searching for history," I hadn't given much thought to queries made on search engines.  (I also now know that "clearing history" does not erase the data from existence.  Sigh.  So many things to learn still.)  But the uses of this data are never ending.  Aside from creating programs to search for syllabi, or understanding how people use history, data mining and analysis must support a wide variety of online sites.  

I am currently listening to my all-time favorite Pandora station, Neil Young radio.  And I imagine that Pandora uses some type of data collection that indexes various songs, yet gives them multiple categories (similar to the ingredients of the cocktails index).  In this way, Pandora can be adaptive when you choose to "like" a particular song, or "dislike" another.  The program must then begin to add more songs which match up with that favored song's "ingredients," and vice versa with disliked songs.  

Going back to Cohen's article, I was intrigued by the notion of H-Bot.  Its ability to answer factual queries through data mining, supports the idea that this would free up professors and students to focus on more analytical ventures of topics, not having to get hung up on specific factual details.  This can be related directly to our discussion of Wikipedia a few weeks ago.  This site promotes only factual information, not subjective analysis.  Disregarding its frequent fallacies, this site is in actuality in league with these H-Bot programs, and can help pave the road for more extensive and expansive analysis once the facts have been quickly ascertained.

Go on, get down with your "Old Man"/"Heart of Gold" self...

Twitter for Education (?)

For this week's reflection, I found an article discussing the use of Twitter in education in Romania.  But if they had not mentioned that they were writing from across the ocean, I would have never known.  "Can We Use Twitter for Educational Activities," by Gabriela Grosseck and Carmen Holotescu first gives a brief description of Twitter and then discusses the pros and cons of utilizing this media tool both in and out of the classroom.  I agree and disagree with some of their points about the positive aspects of using twitter in the classroom.  As far as exploring collaborative writing, I would agree that twitter promotes writing as a fun activity, while fostering (to an extent) editing skills.  But as far as developing literacy skills, I cast a wary glance.  It seems counterintuitive, seeing as the 140 character limit prompts the tweeter (?) to use every known abbreviation known to mankind, while making up a few along the way.  So in this sense, encouraging students to use this abbreviated language is not necessarily a good idea. The authors do include this in the bad points section, but I feel that the literacy concept of twitter is much more flawed than the authors suggest. 

However, sharing ideas instantaneously, allowing shy students to have a stronger voice in class, including absent students in the discussion (what up, Jennifer), are really great assets.  On a professional academic level, Grosseck and Carmen also suggest that Twitter enables greater project management and even promotes collaboration across schools, states, and continents!  I am also intrigued by the notion of metacognition: a process of reflecting on your learning.  In this sense, twitter could potential serve a similar purpose as blogging, yet in a more immediate, concise way.  Bloggers really have no limit to their journal; twitter would force one to sum up their thoughts on a topic, which is critical in many aspects of learning--what is the point, what is the bigger meaning, what are you trying to say/prove?

Overall, I can see many positive attributes of twitter used in an educational setting as proposed by Grosseck and Carmen.  I also heartily agree with many of its flaws.  Yet this article, and the general discussion of twitter our class has had, has influenced me not to be so critical of social media as educational tools.

H-Net might be my new best friend...

After looking over several articles featured by the AHA, I was intrigued by two in particular.  The first discussed in detail the ins and outs of H-Net, an online resource I unfortunately just learned about in the past month.  Matthew Gilmore's H-Net: Digital Discussion for Historians really offered some great information on just how expansive H-net truly is.  The variety of categorizations for different topics is very appealing for users, as this would increase the probability of success when searching for a specific topic.  I think I will be utilizing this resource more in the future, particularly for the upcoming months and researching potential thesis topics.  I can use this site to read about what might already be out there in the research world, and maybe put some feelers out if an area is lacking in research.  Lately, I have been considering looking at illegal trans-Atlantic slave trade in the Antebellum period, particularly in Charleston and Wilmington, and this resource and its accessibility is perfect for exploring this topic and gaining some "professional folk wisdom" on the topic.

The idea of "professional folk wisdom," as discussed by Daniel J. Cohen in Zotero: Social and Semantic Computing for Historical Scholarship, really appealed to me after having worked in a variety of research settings, both academically and professionally.  Researching and reading about a topic can become overwhelming at times.  Surrounding yourself with professionals and other academics who have experience in the topic is essential in providing some guidance and direction.  Cohen notes that one can gain these little tidbits of knowledge from academics, professionals, endnotes, bibliographies, or even acknowledgements.  Originally I was not familiar with Zotero, but it seems to be somewhat similar to H-Net, yet much more expansive its in offered information and resources.  I do think that creating a bibliography can be a bit daunting and it is oftentimes difficult to sift through material that seems useful to your work from material that actually is useful.  Having the material at hand, along with connections to other professionals and academics from whom to glean those bits of folk wisdom is certainly showing me how much history and digital really can go hand in hand.