For the French Revolution site, the content is there. The content is great. The content just needs to be presented better. First of all, a visitor needs a better idea of what is on the site than what is currently presented on the main page. I have revamped the information architecture and hammered out a few pages for this week. They aren’t bad, but I know they need some more styling. Some things will be impossible to accomplish even for the final next week because they relate to the information that is stored in the database which needs to be revamped. That will take some time. Here is my preliminary design.

I also commented on Jenny’s blog that: (1) I think her design is great and a very good use of the web to present historical content because it is interactive and dynamic, and because it provides information that probably isn’t available elsewhere, so real value added. And, (2) that for those of you in the history program, I can understand how it is hard to worry about your content as you design these sites, but the class is about the design, and so, in my humble opinion, you are allowed, even expected, to neglect your content a little bit as you focus on learning design. That way, later on, you can simply recall all the fundamentals of design you’ve learned in this class and apply them with ease, allowing design worries to fall to the background as you write brilliant history. Right? I would add that I thought of using a paper I wrote in graduate school years ago for one of our projects, and I was far too concerned about whether or not my content was still well-written and indeed good enough to be posted online. So I completely understand the worry, and I can tell you I am much happier this week working on “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” where I absolutely do not need to worry about the content, only about its presentation.

I have also commented on Mark’s blog, saying that he has organized a large project very well, and he made some great image choices. I also think the site would benefit from more consistency in header style and from more dreary or violent colors to provide an appropriate and consistent ambiance throughout the site.

One of Gee’s arguments, in the section about “co-design,” is that a great quality of games is that they can make players think and learn. I would argue that some clever players could play the game without seriously thinking or learning. Perhaps then Gee would say they are learning without knowing they are learning and he would argue that is a good thing. I would counter that learning without awareness that you are learning often leads to what he says later on in the article: “the well-known phenomenon that students with As because they can pass multiple-choice tests can’t apply their knowledge in practice.”

I do think Gee has some good points. He fails to acknowledge that many of his principles are actually applied in private schools and for many years have been part of the reasons parents choose these schools over the public educational system. These schools, generally speaking, do not “dumb it down” because they aren’t required to move as slowly as the slowest student in class. They also incorporate creative methods of learning, personalized attention and feedback, and interactivity. I would add that most science classes and language classes have more creative and interactive curricula than English or history classes. What about dissecting animals in biology lab? Or mixing chemicals in chemistry? Nowadays, language classes no doubt use computer programs to facilitate learning and to provide additional interactivity outside of class.

The bottom line for me with Gee’s argument is that some of his principles are good, but none can be employed without also reading and writing and attending class in the traditional way.

Niall Ferguson’s article “How to Win a War” was inspiring and very convincing and nearly makes me want to go out and buy that game The Calm & the Storm. He makes a clear case for some valuable ways video games can be used in an educational manner. Particularly with counterfactual questions. Games other than The Calm & the Storm, he says, are “just playing Space Invaders…with fancy graphics.” Still, without some basis of knowledge with which you enter the game and some discussion with a teacher about what you’ve played in the game, how can you know that the students are learning and learning to think in new and different ways?

I’ve commented on Ken’s Historiarum about using gaming as a teaching method because video games are a common experience for children today, and on Jenny’s blog about how Gee must have hated his own experience in school and how Ferguson’s article makes a more compelling case for the value of educational gaming.

I am approaching the design as if it really were an assignment for CHNM, but at the same time, I’m trying to let myself do things that may push the limits of design to come up with something totally different. Since I’ve been reading The Zen of CSS Design, I’m inspired by those designs and trying to incorporate many crucial design elements: color, repetition, alignment, imagery, and proximity. It’s hard work. I’ve been meticulously working with a gridmaker that Jeremy showed me in Photoshop, and trying to get all the margins and boxes aligned with all the right spacing ain’t easy. I’ve had to re-create images over and over and over and do lots and lots of math. I’m trying to keep it simple and clean, as is my style, and yet I want to incorporate lots of color and imagery. I keep thinking I’m almost there, then I decide to change something.

I’ve commented on Ken’s, Marty’s, Steve’s, Chris’s and Bill’s blogs about their designs and about Bill’s comments on mine…that, yes, when I find time, I will try to post something of my process for any of you who are interested. Unfortunately, my parents are coming to town, and we have our final design project. But, if it would help any of you, I’ll try to get something up next week. And, thanks Bill, for the vote of confidence. Unfortunately, the site didn’t turn out as well as I’d hoped.

Nonetheless, the Lost Museum seemed really cool at first, but as I started to wander through, I felt like I wasn’t getting anywhere. I do like the concept of a virtual museum very, very much, but I really dislike having to slide my mouse around until the cursor changes, then click, or more realistically slide it back to that precise spot where the cursor changed and then click. Then you ask yourself, is there anything else to see in this room? Well, let me slide my mouse around some more and see. Frankly, I would have to be incredibly interested in that topic in order to stick around and slide and click all over the place. (I have a similar reaction to playing Myst, but I’ll save that commentary for later.)

The Historic Tale Construction Set was a riot. I loved the style and music. Monty Python-esque. But, I had a hard time getting it to work or understanding the point. That said, it was pretty well-designed with an easy to understand drag and drop tool. But, there were no other links or any additional information about the site, how to use it, or who designed it.

The British Library’s Turning the Pages site looked very exciting until I had to go download the Shockwave plug-in, which I believe I had downloaded and installed a couple of weeks ago. Even still, I couldn’t get the site to work properly. I kept getting Shockwave error messages. Designers ought to be concerned about this very problem: does my user have everything he or she needs to view my site? If not, does my site prompt them to go and download it, does it not function without some special technology, and does my site “downgrade” effortlessly and effectively so that a user, who doesn’t have or doesn’t want some extra doohickey they have to leave my site to go hunt down, download, and install, can still enjoy the content of my site. I always try, though I’ve never designed anything so fancy. Maybe this is part of the reason I haven’t. After finally getting a book to open and making several clicks elsewhere around the site, I grew frustrated over a failed zoom attempt and left. The designers of that site should talk to Steve Krug. Or at least read his book.

Then, I couldn’t login to the system to read Josh Brown’s article (can’t remember my email password since I never, ever use Webmail), so I’ll get that from someone later perhaps? But, this is yet another frustrated effort today. Lastly, for now, the article on Participation Inequality made me want to scream. The implied tone of the title is that it is somehow bad that not everyone participates in interactive web experiences. So what? Not everyone votes either. I myself am usually a lurker, and I like it that way. And, frankly, I don’t much care what the average web user has to say about my blog or anyone else’s. I don’t want some random person editing the article on the Tiananmen Massacre, I want an actual expert on Chinese history to tell me what he or she thinks. Why does everyone need to have a blog or need to post in it more than every once in a while? I don’t see much advantage in a greater portion of the web user population converting from lurker to contributor. The only benefits I see, at least from the article, are commercial. Marketers can better target their customers, customer service can change its practices, etc. Aside from the advantage of a discount or special offer, what advantage does the user have in contributing?

I see the web as a resource, a place that makes information more accessible to more people more quickly and more easily. That, alone, is a very good thing. And that is, I believe, what history and new media is about. Not about requiring your users to participate in some sort of interactive experience, but to make information available to them that was previously unavailable. The goal should not be interactivity and participation but access to and comprehension of information. If these goals can be achieved with some degree of non-annoying, no-additional-downloads-required interactivity, More Power To It.

See my comments on Tad’s blog, Ken’s Historiarum, and on Maureen’s blog.

Frankly, I don’t understand how one person can master his chosen historical field (plus a couple of minor fields), a few foreign languages necessary to do exceptional archival research, and learn to create digital archives —actually, I’m sure there are many exceptionally bright people who are capable, but certainly not all scholars are so gifted. It makes me think that, with the exception of the 10 people in the world who are capable of doing all of this, scholars will spread themselves too thin to be effective in their primary fields. We can’t all do everything. If, for example, you are an expert in colonial American history and you have a profound understanding in American constitutional law and political philosophy, how can you also master French, Spanish, XHTML, CSS, PHP, and JavaScript? Can you really be a master of it all?

But, I digress. I don’t think this is Ahmed’s point. I do wholeheartedly agree that the digital arena is an excellent place for historians, and all scholars in the humanities for that matter, to engage the public. Ahmed raises three main questions: “Who am I, as a scholar? What is my role within my community? What are my responsibilities to the public?” In his writing, there seems to be a hunger for being more than a scholar, more than a teacher. He cites examples of some who have gone beyond the halls of academia to the public realm, primarily through television. This kind of public involvement, to Ahmed, seems almost like conduct unbecoming a scholar—with its “mass-communication demanded sound-bites” and “rhetoric.” To his goal of being a “socially-engaged scholar,” he argues that the digital world is the place where this goal can be met. While I agree, and I’m sure to garner some flak from my colleagues, I have to point out that as a professor of the humanities, you have a ready-made connection to public society: your students. Isn’t this one of the reasons many people choose become professors, to teach? Not only are there your students, there are your writings, your publications, which presumably is one of the reasons why publications are generally required for tenure —because this is how you contribute and engage the public in your chosen field. Not that one shouldn’t strive to reach beyond these two forms of public communication, but don’t forget that they are there. The way I see it, the Internet, especially the “Web 2.0 World,” is an extension of these two realms. Historians, for example, can better reach their students this way, and reach more students; they can reach more of the general public as well. It is really another form of publication that allows new and different forms of interaction, especially with regard to visual communication.

On Jenny Reeder’s blog, I raise the question of whether the notion of historian as interpreter claims too much. It does strike me as rather pretentious, but I know from my own research that this is what we strive to do. Any thoughts?

About the argument as to whether the footnote should be superscripted and why it should look like print, I would say that why shouldn’t it look like print? In the case of history, it seems that we’re mostly publishing items on the Internet that are also published in print (in some form or another). I agree that the Web is a new format and should explore new presentation methods, but as pointed out on Piggin.Net, there are certain visual cues that presentation provides, and to stray too far from traditional presentation methods could risk comprehension of your final product, whatever it may be.

For Part 2, creating a portfolio, I spent quite a bit of time redesigning my site this week, and I wanted the portfolio to fit into my overall design. So, I created a new page in WordPress and added some special styling (see the commented section about a third to halfway down called “Clio2 Portfolio Styles”) to the main content of the page. As time goes on, each box will have a thumbnail image (as the first does) as well as a brief description of that assignment.

I also decided to add back in an image for the site logo.