It’s hard to keep on top of the latest technologies and tools for digital humanists, and knowing how to use those tools effectively is an entirely different matter. The Humanities and Technology Podcast, fondly known as THAT Podcast by Jeremy Boggs and myself is a new endeavor to meet those needs. Offering both a video and an audio version, we lead our viewers through the new and challenging obstacles of digital tools.
The inaugural episode of our monthy podcast features an interview with Matt Mullenweg, the inventor of WordPress and a screencast of ScholarPress Courseware, the educational WordPress plugin to manage a class blog and course information. Each episode will follow a similar format, focusing on both an interview and related teaching screencast that leads viewers through the process of using digital tools. The editing in this is a little rough at times, but as our first effort podcasting I’m happy with what we’ve come up with.
Last month I set up a blog for the American Studies Crossroads Project as a way to keep people up to date with changes made to the site. Since 1995, Crossroads has provided a comprehensive and integrated platform for pedagogical, scholarly, and institutional information for the international American Studies Community. New content is being added, including a future exhibit on the organization of disciplinary knowledge on the web. Visit the blog, and subscribe by RSS or email.
If you haven’t seen Crossroads in a few years, give the main site a look as well – it has a terrific new design and some useful material for teaching and learning in American Studies.
I’ve resisted the urge to reflect on the state of Finding America since it first went live; until now. So this isn’t a New Years epiphany, but an opportunity to reflect on my blogging process and give my readers a preview of how I plan to shape the blog’s future. I’d encourage readers to subscribe to this blog to receive future updates via RSS or email updates.
As the centerpiece of my personal website, Finding America highlights my academic pursuits and research. This includes work that I’m doing at the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University and the American Studies Crossroads Project at Georgetown, among my own personal research of computer-based pedagogy and the intersection between culture and technology. I broadly address the Digital Humanities while maintaining a focus on American Studies. First going live last spring, my readership has since grown to about 40 subscribers.
I’ve experimented with different approaches to blogging by varying my frequency, content, and voice over the past year. My strongest moments have not been single posts, but series of posts which, connected together, reveal layered arguments and observations. So over the next year, new posts will often be more analytical than the news-like format I’ve more-recently adopted. One notable exception will be any work that I’m involved with at CHNM, which I’ll plug and discuss in greater detail. So if you’re interested in Omeka, ScholarPress, or THAT Podcast, you’ll continue to learn more at Finding America. For the interesting links and stories that I sometimes reflect on, I modified my blog’s design to include my del.icio.us links, which serves that purpose. You can also subscribe to them by adding my del.icio.us profile to your RSS or as a fan.
Lastly, I’d like to put forward an approach to blogging I’ve sometimes practiced and hope to continue which is focused around experimentation and building. I’ve found that mini-projects both expand my insight in a particular topic, and start a conversation at Finding America. Two great examples of this are the Sigil Archive and the American Studies Tagline. These were self-started projects of my own: one to explore historical roleplaying communities in Second Life, and the other to experiment with the visualization of academic texts and provide a new tool for AMST scholars. Blogging and the internet as a medium is a rich platform for these projects, which I’ll continue to explore. I know of several projects in the near future, and can only dream where my research will take me in the future; thanks for joining me.
