II. Intersection of New Media and Education
If educators want to take advantage of digital advancements, they should understand the nature of the latest technological innovations. Lev Manovich has asked, “What is new media?” He answers his own question by describing new media as all objects that are reduced to “numerical representations” or those that can be “described using a mathematical function.” This process of reducing many different forms of media into a numerical representation is called “digitization.” Once digitized, this new form of media exhibits its uniqueness through its ability to undergo “algorithmic manipulation.” Taking a photograph of one of Rembrandt’s paintings would be putting it in a new form of media, but digitizing the original allows it to become “programmable.” The digital object can be acted upon.10Manovich, 19, 27-8.
Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin call the process of representing one form of media in another form of media, “remediation.” These authors argue that, “remediation is a defining characteristic of the new digital media.”11Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin, Remediation: Understanding New Media (Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1999): 45. Digital technologies are unique because many different forms of media may be translated into similar sets of numerical representations. Bolter and Grusin assert that this same uniqueness prevents the digital environment itself from being unique, since it must always rely on earlier forms of media to define itself. They do not see digital media transcending its ties to older media. Bolter and Grusin do not perceive the growth of new media as a revolutionary development because of its reliance on earlier media. Only when new media can shed its reliance on old forms of media will digital technologies become revolutionary. Only when writers, researchers, and artists envision their works initially and completely in a digital environment with its own lexicon will the digital revolution be complete.12Steven Holtzman, Digital Mosaics: The Aesthetics of Cyberspace (NY: Simon & Schuster): 15.
In a talk at George Mason University in the fall 2003, George Welling described the extent to which we currently rely on earlier forms of media to describe the digital environment. For instance, information on the Web appears on “pages” and we remember our favorite ones by marking them with “bookmarks.” The words we type are digitally coded in a binary system that the computer can store in its “memory.” We refer to groups of code as “files.” We can further group any number of these “files” in “folders.” The visual space we see on our monitors is referred to as our “desktop.” Desktops used to be the surfaces where we placed our computers. We gave unfamiliar items familiar names to help people understand the new digital environment and make it seem less foreboding. People are comfortable with older forms of media such as books. They understand them. The conventions used in books such as page numbering, footnotes, and glossaries developed over hundreds of years.13See, Alberto Manguel, A History of Reading. Penguin, 1997. Randy Bass notes that, “These elements of apparatus that accompanied book technology served especially from the Renaissance forward to ‘stabilize’ print.”14Randy Bass, “Can American Studies find a Whole in the Net?” American Studies in Scandinavia (Fall 1996). Quoted from the on-line version. See also, George Landow. Hypertext: The Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory and Technology. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992): 19. In Welling’s view, the revolution will be completed when the digital environment sheds references to older media and lives up to its potential as a unique form of media unlike its predecessors.
Even if current digital technologies do not meet the criteria for a revolution set by Welling or Bolter and Grusin, they certainly provide a unique environment that history teachers may utilize. In education, or for that matter any discipline using new media, the great advantage of using digital technologies is that all of its components may be reduced at their most elementary state to “the same digital code.”15Manovich, 49. A Woody Guthrie recording, an Ansel Adams photograph, and a letter by Ernest Hemingway are all different types of media, but after digitization they may all be combined and made available through the same computer interface.16Guthrie, <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/clipserve/B000001DJY001001/0/104-7187750-6448767>. This clip came from Amazon.com’s website selling Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land: The Asch Recordings, Vol. 1.” The American Memory project has a Woody Guthrie section at <http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/wwghtml/wwghome.html>; Adams, <http://www.royaltyfreeart.com/ansel/ansel/14_1332a.html>; Hemingway, <http://www.lib.udel.edu/ud/spec/images/hemingwa/2-3.jpg> from “Ernest Hemingway in His Time: An Exhibition” This part of the University of Delaware Library’s Special Collections and is maintained by <askspec@hawkins.lib.udel.edu> Last modified: 06/24/02 and viewed on June 9, 2004. A professor of twentieth century culture could put together an online syllabus that includes these resources and more so that students would not waste their time tracking them down in different sections of the library. Providing students access to source material is certainly one of the most common uses of the Internet by teachers.17Dennis A. Trinkle, and Scott A. Merriman, eds., History.edu: Essays on Teaching with Technology (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2001): xii.
In order to determine the extent history programs used new technologies, the American Association for History and Computing conducted a survey of the roughly 660 history departments in the nation. Forty-seven percent of those responding indicated that they developed Web sites for their courses. A closer analysis of the survey results revealed a wide variety of posted material and technological sophistication. Although some teachers developed elaborate interpretive sites or document archives, most “sites” consisted largely of course syllabi and links to related material. The divide here usually resulted from the higher level of training and technical support offered by larger universities.18Dennis A. Trinkle, “Technology and the History Classroom: Where Are We? Where Are We Headed?” in Dennis A. Trinkle and Scott A. Merriman, eds. History.edu: Essays on Teaching with Technology. (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2001): x-xii.
The value of support and reinforcement provided by interdisciplinary exchange goes without saying. The computer sciences used to be yet another isolated field of study. Now the arts, sciences, and humanities all use varying degrees of software and hardware in their curricula. Basic computer skills and an understanding of technology are reinforced across disciplines.19Charles T. Evans and Robert Brown, “Teaching the History Survey Course using Multimedia Techniques,” Perspectives (February 1998). From class to class and throughout their every day activities, students’ computer skills are continuously developing.
As students increasingly rely on the Internet to assist them with their class assignments, it becomes necessary for history teachers to instruct these students how to sift through the questionable information for the useful and accurate content. As Gertrude Himmelfarb wrote, “The internet does not distinguish between the true and the false.”20Gertrude Himmelfarb, “A Neo-Luddite Reflects on the Internet,” Chronicle of Higher Education, (November 1, 1996): A56. Without a means of “quality control,” as Howard Gardner put it, “Information and disinformation commingle comfortably and as of yet, there are no reliable ways to distinguish sense from distortions and downright nonsense on the Net.”21Gardner, Disciplined Mind, 44. The burden then falls to the history teacher. There are several organizations and websites working to aid teachers and students looking for reliable history content as well as to bring stability and credibility to history scholarship on the Web.
One of such websites is “History Matters,” a joint project between the American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning of the City University of New York and the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University.22“History Matters,” Viewed on July 12, 2004. <http://historymatters.gmu.edu/> In addition to providing a forum for discussions the teaching of history, this Web site provides high school and college teachers with a number of useful online tools to assist them. Among the resources available are interactive exercises to teach students how to use various forms of evidence in the course of historical investigation. Historians show students how to get the most out of a wide variety of sources such as maps, music, photographs, newspapers and advertisements.23For information on some teachers have used “History Matters” in their classrooms, see Tracey Weis, “Evaluating Websites for History Teachers: Using History Matters in a Graduate Seminar,” The History Teacher (May 2001); and David Kobrin, “Using History Matters with a Ninth Grade Class,” The History Teacher (May 2001).
“History Matters” can also be used as a portal to direct students to reliable and acceptable information. Carl Smith has asked whether, “[T]he unregulated culture of the Internet made cyberspace a bloated refuge for work of questionable value that otherwise couldn’t—and shouldn’t—see the light of day?”24Carl Smith, “Can You Do Serious History on the Web?” AHA Perspectives OnLine, February 1998. The easiest way for students to begin their research may be with one of a number of available search engines. The problem is that search engines do not make qualitative value judgments. Listed URLs make no determination whether the linked sites are questionable or credible. Educational Web sites appeared alongside agenda-driven content.25Michael O’Malley and Roy Rosenzweig. “Brave New World or Blind Alley? American History on the World Wide Web,” Journal Of American History (June 1997); David Kobrin, “ Using History Matters with a Ninth Grade Class,” The History Teacher (May 2001). “History Matters” allows a teacher to direct students to sites that have been reviewed by historians and be reasonably assured that the historical content is reliable.
A group of researchers at Stanford University’s Persuasive Technology Lab have been studying what influences people to believe certain information they find on the Web. Their studies into “Web credibility” resulted in the publication of the “Stanford-Makovsky Web Credibility Study.”26“Stanford-Makovsky Web Credibility Study: Investigating What Makes Web Sites Credible Today” 2002. The findings of this study are summarized in the Lab’s “10 Guidelines for Web Credibility.” The list does not contain any surprises, but it can act as a checklist for people designing Web sites. The suggestions include: “Avoid errors of all types, no matter how small they seem,” “Highlight the expertise in your organization,” and “Show that there’s a real organization behind your site.”27B.J. Fogg, (May 2002). “Stanford Guidelines for Web Credibility.” A Research Summary from the Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab. Stanford University. www.webcredibility.org/guidelines Paula Petrik maintains that “a well-thought out and well-designed site suggest credibility.”28Paula Petrik, “What Can Good Web Design Do for Humanities Projects: Reflections and Case Studies,” DC Area Technology and Humanities Forum, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia. October 2, 2002. Petrik is a professor of history at George Mason University and the associate director of the Center for History and New Media. Unfortunately appearances may be deceptive and she warns that a slick looking site may be completely devoid of credibility. Students visiting a Web site may not realize who is providing the information they are using. Teachers can use the findings of Stanford’s Web Credibility Research to help teach their students to view Web sites with a critical eye.
Carl Smith asks, “Can You Do Serious History on the Web?”29Smith, “Serious History,” AHA Perspectives. The answer is, of course, yes. Unfortunately, translating historical scholarship into an electronic medium is a very time consuming process and even then the value and viability of electronic scholarship is still hotly debated. Fortunately some organizations like the American Historical Association (AHA) have committed themselves to promoting new media advancements. In 1999 the AHA established the Gutenberg-e prize with a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The AHA hopes to legitimize electronic publishing and “change attitudes of academics toward e-books.” The simple fact that an organization such as the AHA would put its influence behind such an effort reflects well on the future of electronic publishing. They even hope that “the program may also contribute to a new conception of the book itself as a vehicle of knowledge.”30“Gutenberg-e Prize,” offered by the American Historical Association and Columbia University Press for dissertations and monograph manuscripts in history.
Even as some historians cling to familiar methods of research and teaching, they may dream of a time when they are freed from linear narratives and chalkboard lectures. There is a new generation of history graduate students that has grown up exploring digital environments. Robert Darnton marvels at these new historians and observes, “Having spent their childhood with computers, they will know where they are going when they leap into cyberspace.”31Robert Darnton, “A Historian of Books, Lost and Found in Cyberspace,” Chronicle of Higher Education (March 12, 1999): B4. One hopes that this new generation will use technology to truly find a new way to teach and visualize history.
In 1999 the editors of American Quarterly published an on-line edition of their journal as an experiment in digital scholarship. The four articles produced for the issue could not have been published in the traditional format of a scholarly press. The articles incorporated sound files, video, and even took advantage of the hypertext environment to construct a non-linear narrative. American Quarterly offered a group of scholars a unique opportunity to present their work in a manner that more fully utilized their sources by integrating multimedia applications. When we reach the point of offering scholars consistent outlets to fully realize their work, historical research will be revolutionized by fundamentally changing how we perceive scholarship.
Next Section: New Media as Assessment
10 Manovich, 19, 27-8.
11 Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin, Remediation: Understanding New Media (Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1999): 45.
12 Steven Holtzman, Digital Mosaics: The Aesthetics of Cyberspace (NY: Simon & Schuster): 15.
13 See, Alberto Manguel, A History of Reading. Penguin, 1997.
14 Randy Bass, “Can American Studies find a Whole in the Net?” American Studies in Scandinavia (Fall 1996). Quoted from the on-line version. (http://www.georgetown.edu/crossroads/guide/asins96.html); see also, George Landow. Hypertext: The Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory and Technology. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992): 19.
15 Manovich, 49.
16 Guthrie. This clip came from Amazon.com’s website selling Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land: The Asch Recordings, Vol. 1.” The American Memory project also has a Woody Guthrie section; Adams, <http://www.royaltyfreeart.com/ansel/ansel/14_1332a.html>; Hemingway, from “Ernest Hemingway in His Time: An Exhibition” This part of the University of Delaware Library’s Special Collections and is maintained by <askspec@hawkins.lib.udel.edu> Last modified: 06/24/02 and viewed on June 9, 2004.
17 Dennis A. Trinkle, and Scott A. Merriman, eds., History.edu: Essays on Teaching with Technology (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2001): xii.
18 Dennis A. Trinkle, “Technology and the History Classroom: Where Are We? Where Are We Headed?” in Dennis A. Trinkle and Scott A. Merriman, eds. History.edu: Essays on Teaching with Technology. (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2001): x-xii.
19 Charles T. Evans and Robert Brown, “Teaching the History Survey Course using Multimedia Techniques,” Perspectives (February 1998).
20 Gertrude Himmelfarb, “A Neo-Luddite Reflects on the Internet,” Chronicle of Higher Education, (November 1, 1996): A56.
21 Gardner, Disciplined Mind, 44.
22 “History Matters,” Viewed on July 12, 2004.
23 For information on some teachers have used “History Matters” in their classrooms, see Tracey Weis, “Evaluating Websites for History Teachers: Using History Matters in a Graduate Seminar,” The History Teacher (May 2001).; and David Kobrin, “Using History Matters with a Ninth Grade Class,” The History Teacher (May 2001).
24 Carl Smith, “Can You Do Serious History on the Web?” AHA Perspectives OnLine, February 1998.
25 Michael O’Malley and Roy Rosenzweig. “Brave New World or Blind Alley? American History on the World Wide Web,” Journal Of American History (June 1997).; David Kobrin, “ Using History Matters with a Ninth Grade Class,” The History Teacher (May 2001).
26 “Stanford-Makovsky Web Credibility Study: Investigating What Makes Web Sites Credible Today” 2002.
27 B.J. Fogg, (May 2002). “Stanford Guidelines for Web Credibility.” A Research Summary from the Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab. Stanford University.
28 Paula Petrik, “What Can Good Web Design Do for Humanities Projects: Reflections and Case Studies,” DC Area Technology and Humanities Forum, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia. October 2, 2002. Petrik is a professor of history at George Mason University and the associate director of the Center for History and New Media.
29 Smith, “Serious History,” AHA Perspectives.
30 “Gutenberg-e Prize,” offered by the American Historical Association and Columbia University Press for dissertations and monograph manuscripts in history.
31 Robert Darnton, “A Historian of Books, Lost and Found in Cyberspace,” Chronicle of Higher Education (March 12, 1999): B4.