“Progress means getting nearer to the place you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer.If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man.”
― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
So the question for this weekly progress report is “what constitutes progress?”
I am learning the ins and outs of Digital Humanities – I am evolving in terms of my understanding of the larger significance of changing presentation modes from text to Digital Formats. There is improvement in my abilities to navigate tutorials and digital interfaces that are growing with practice, practice, practice. This practice IS frustrating, but skills are skills and skills get developed through repetition. Preferably the practice would be fruitful, rather than fruitless. I spent hours in tutorials, I then searched for videos on the tutorials, and user forums. I have contacted complete strangers and asked for help. I called in somewhat helpful techies, but they got frustrated also. I studied other’s exhibits…. trying to figure out how they were adapting the same theme I was using and getting very different results. I spent more hours with dual screens following the directions and trying to make my page work. I have something similar to the plan…but not quite what I had envisioned. I have another section to go… but don’t even know how to attempt it or if it is possible to do.
The challenge for the traditional historian is the shift in time. Traditional historians spend time in documents and research, not in presentation. The loss of research time to computer construction is quite frustrating because it feels like “wasted” time. A portion of the frustration arises out of unrealistic expectations. Omeka is “an open-source platform” for digital archives and collections. It is described as, “makes web-publishing easy”. Furthermore, “The developers at the Center for History and New Media have done a wonderful job providing a concise and understandable tutorial for first-time Omeka users”. Teaching Hist.org There should be a caveat behind these words…..’if you are already a developer, have computer programing or web skills.
Our public humanities literature promotes awareness of audience. Review of local history and community websites demonstrates their need to define themselves as relevant to outsiders. I have become acutely aware of ‘unintended bias’. While struggling to navigate digital tools and production, I am wondering if my historical content is as difficult for digital natives to learn or appreciate, as learning the digital platforms is for me. I think about the classes I teach and I believe it is. Historians have jargon and expectations – surely you know when the U.S. Constitution was signed. ‘Everyone understands that there are 3 branches of government in the U.S. and why the Supreme Court decisions are significant’…but really, not so much. In on-line tutorials, it is evident the person who wrote the tutorial knows the product. Their knowledge assumes digital literacy in the person to whom they are explaining the process. I find myself spending as much time looking up instructional terms or for other sites explanations of the tutorial ideas, as I do actually implementing the tutorial. There is a gap between the novice user and the literature around web design and development. There are gaps between the historian and the historical novice. There are gaps between the person or organization creating a public humanities exhibit and the audience.
Some of the challenges I have faced are: It took me 2 weeks to get my page sort of working and then I realized there was a problem with the version of the Omeka Exhibit Builder I was using (from others working on similar projects – all along, I thought the problem was me). I upgraded my exhibit builder and lost my exhibit in the process. Working with Support is difficult, because even Support acts like you should have a certain degree of expertise to even be attempting this, ‘What were you thinking?’ …’I don’t know, I believed your promo that this software is designed for the non-techie?’.
I have made progress in: The Support site told me to change the source code….yeah, right – well I did, but it didn’t work…so fortunately I was able to change it back. But I actually had the courage to change the SOURCE CODE! I have learned, I am capable of following instructions that are more and less helpful. Dual screens are really helpful. I have realized that techies in person are much like the tutorials – they are thrilled with what they are doing …while I struggle to follow. This has led to a critical realization … when I talk history, I am thrilled with what I am doing and people may be finding it hard to follow.
History must be a public endeavor. The world can become isolated in digital silos. The rewards of digital history are more understanding and connection. Humanities engagement teaches how other people think and how to conquer obstacles and how to work together. Learning new tools and skills is time consuming and frustrating and making the world PROGRESS!
Notes:
https://quotation.io/page/quote/progress-means-getting-nearer-place-want accessed 3/30/18
http://teachinghistory.org/digital-classroom/tech-for-teachers/25115 accessed 3/30/18
Some of the work shaping my thinking: Tim Sherratt, “It’s All About the Stuff: Collections, Interfaces, Power, and People,” Journal of Digital Humanities 1, no. 1 (March 9, 2012), http://journalofdigitalhumanities.org/1-1/its-all-about-the-stuff-by-tim-sherratt/; Michael Whitelaw, “Generous Interfaces for Digital Cultural Heritage Collections,” Digital Humanities Quarterly 9, no. 1 (2015) http://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/9/1/000205/000205.html; John Kuo Wei Tchen, “Creating a Dialogic Museum: The Chinatown History Museum Experiment,” in Museums and Communities: The Politics of Public Culture, edited by Ivan Karp, Christine Mullen Kreamer, and Steven D. Lavine (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992) 285-326. Katharine T. Corbett and Howard S. (Dick) Miller, “A Shared Inquiry into Shared Inquiry,” The Public Historian, Vol. 28, No. 1 (Winter 2006) 15-38. Michael Frisch, “From A Shared Authority to the Digital Kitchen, and Back,” in Letting Go?: Sharing Historical Authority in a User-Generated World. Edited by Bill Adair, Benjamin Filene, and Laura Koloski (Philadelphia: The Pew Center for Arts and Heritage, 2011) 126-137. Spichiger, L., J. Jacobson, Telling an Old Story in a New Way: Raid on Deerfield: The Many Stories of 1704 , in J. Trant and D. Bearman (eds.). Museums and the Web 2005: Proceedings, Toronto: Archives & Museum Informatics, published March 31, 2005. http://www.museumsandtheweb.com/mw2005/papers/spichiger/spichiger.html
