Podcasting as a tool

Podcast:

Links to websites mentioned in my podcast:

TED

Academic Earth

LSE Public Lectures

Election on Twitter

Much focus has been placed on the importance of television in the UK General Election (as for the first time there have been three live TV debates between the leaders of the main political parties) - This however has occurred at a time when the internet has played a major role in the election.

The "digital election" has been well reported, from interesting (though at times silly) blogs, more series articles on the phenomenon, as well as the websites and social media accounts of candidates.

One example of Web2.0 at work in the election is this attempt by the Guardian for readers to assess the campaigning in their constituency. Readers simply enter their post code, the party campaigning and a rating from 1-5 of how "active" that political party has been. The map is formed by users tweeting the data to them:

Tweet your score, postcode and the party abbreviation with the hashtag #ukvote - eg N1 LAB 3 #ukvote or CV32 CON 4 #ukvote -

What does this have to do with digital history? Isn't this simply election journalism in the internet age? Well I thought about this for a while, is this really something of historical value?

I think that this is of historical value as it potentially shows us where political parties are focusing on, it provides a lot of data albeit in a rather simplistic way. In twenty years time if we were to assess the 2010 UK General Election it might be of use to look at a collaborative effort such as this to see where campaigns were highly fought.

Twitter in Elections:

The screen shot above is from my Twitter account, while I was using a Google Chrome extension for Twitter. The image is annotated to show the differing tweets from those involved in the General Election.

Tweeting History

Previously I looked at the role of Twitter, today I wanted to go back to one of the underlying themes running though my blog, the issue of recording history, looking at how Twitter presents challenges and opportunities for historians.

In background reading on the importance of Twitter I came across many articles articulating the value of Twitter for historical research. Shown best by the decision of the US Library of Congress to archive "the collected works of Twitter" stating that "tweets are becoming part of history.”

As mentioned in my previous blog on Twitter most tweets are rather banal, relate to only few individuals and probably have little or no use to any historian.

As a student of diplomatic history I am all to aware that I often ignore the importance of historical resources simply because they do not relate to my notion of a valuable sources. Historical studies which look a the wider society, role of popular culture etc. will potentially see huge benefit in the recording of tweets.

Why are tweets of historical value?

Future studies looking at attitudes towards Sarah Palin during the 2008 US Presidential election may find some benefit in looking through tweets made during her vice-presidential debate with Joe Biden, by then perhaps more efficient methods of analysing huge quantities of data will have emerged allowing for trends to be spotted.

Because tweets are short (a maximum of 140 characters), time stamped and made by so many individuals they are perfect for meta data analysis (if that is not already a term it ought to be...) which is so useful to many historians.

The rise of Twitter

David Cameron once joked that he refrained from using Twitter because "too many tweets make a..." Anyway, at the start of this year there were as many as 55 million tweets being made daily, so while Cameron may be avoiding the social networking website, not everyone else is!

Twitter is being described as the "new Facebook", the extraordinary growth of Facebook in 2008 was being matched in percentage terms by Twitter in 2009.

What is Twitter?

• A micro-blogging website.
• You have your own account like other social networking websites.
• Posts are limited to 140 characters.
• You can "follow" and be "followed" by other users.
• The # key is a tag.
• Tagging allows users to see other "tweets" on similar topics.

Twitter's potential

Until the Summer of 2009 Twitter was seen as yet another internet craze but within a few days it became discussed in the media and being reported on news programmes (such as Newsnight on BBC2). This was because of the role Twitter played in the post-election period in Iran.

In 2009, people in Iran and Moldova created their own searchable tags on Twitter to organize protests against their governments and share information with each other and the world. In April, Moldovans used the network to rally more than 10,000 young people against their country's Communist leadership. And in June, Iranian opposition supporters angry over presidential election results used Twitter and other forms of new media to share news on rallies, police crackdowns on protesters, and analysis.

Twitter became such a vital source of information in Iran at a time when text messaging and mobiles phones were being blocked by authorities. This was shown by the fact that the US State Department even requested the company delay a planned shut down of the site for maintenance, showing the site had become crucial in the coordination of anti-government protests.

As well as being a force against authoritarian governments, Twitter is becoming a vital tool in other ways. The head of the NATO mission in Afghanistan, Stanley McChrystal stated that the website was a tool in mass communication to troops. In the UK during the General Election campaign tweets related to the election are being posted using a variety of tags (including #ge2010 or #ukelection) allowing for everything from the latest opinion polls to spoof posters to be shared.

The success of Twitter is down to the fact that posts are limited to 140 characters, thus you get a short and brief message - like TED, you get a big idea in a few minutes!

#

No the # was not a typo! Tagging is central to understanding twitter. By tagging your posts (using the # and then a word connected to the topic) it allows for debate and collaboration to occur through the site.

Education & Business using Twitter

If Mike Cosgrave had his way, he would "be well past discussion forums and making them use Twitter" by getting students to use the tag connected to their course (ie. #Hi2007) Twitter as a tool in education is a separate issue, but it shows other areas Twitter can be of use in.

Businesses have been entering the social networking arena in recent years with varied success, Twitter is no exception, as print media advertising becomes less popular (and is increasingly reaching an older demographic) the Twitters of this world are becoming a popular tool to reach people otherwise not accessible to companies. It does have dangers for businesses, as furniture shop Habitat discovered when they tried to piggyback on the popularity of Iranian election tags.

Conclusion

David Cameron might be right to avoid using Twitter based on the number of politicians red faced after making inappropriate comments on the site, or worse sharing the banality of their lives. Twitter is however being used by huge numbers of people and for a huge variety of purposes, which is helping it maintain its success. It is easy however to see it as a place for people to share with their friends what is in the contents of today's sandwich or what they thought of that penalty decision in the final minutes of a match - however it would ignore a huge amount of what Twitter is about and why people use the site.

The Wikipedia Model

I was having debate with one of my Digital History classmates, Gearóid Fitzgerald about Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that if you haven't heard of you must have just come out of a coma. It started with Gearóid discussing the limitations of the encyclopedia and me singing its praises, and we decided to try and write articles giving counter-arguments to our natural point of view. Thus, this blog today is a response to his blog on the benefits of Wikipedia.

A response to Gearóid

Gearóid started his blog stating that the use of the online encyclopedia really dawned on him when he had an undergraduate assignment, which based on the prevailing view of UCC academics is a fairly bold admission (just as well he has his degree safely vaulted away!) Having the same assignment as three hundred or more undergraduates inevitably results in the university library clearly out of any even partially useful books, or else being left with the 1964 edition of a book which has been updated a dozen times since!

The problem with Gearóid's argument is that if his intention was to access academic sources for an assignment - Wikiepdia was no replacement!

In the rest of the blog Gearóid makes his point that Wikipedia is a good resource because:

• Of its speed.
• Ability to search through the text.
• It's constantly updated.
• Related articles are linked.
• It's digital.
• Pages can be saved and accessed on the go.
• And of course it is free.

It's hard to disagree with the above observations as Wikipedia is truly an excellent resource for many reasons, and we all use it for different things.

What is interesting however from Gearóid's blog is that he praises the format of Wikipedia - it's great because it is online, free, easy to use, up-to-date and so forth. He doesn't mention the philosophy behind it, the core doctrine of collaboration and the benefits of anyone editing an article on the site (though his Kerry footballer friend shows the pitfalls of it!)

Nor did he suggest that Wikipedia is strengthening democracy and is the pioneer of Web 2.0.

The blog I think it good as it looks simply at the end result - what is the benefit to me the user, the student etc. Rather than looking at it overall and it's effect on society, which would be a massive task.

In my critique of Wikipedia I have two seperate issues, one is to look at the model (collaboration, freedom to edit articles etc) and then to look at the format (up-to-date, free, easy to use etc.) I have issues with the core model of Wikipedia (though I still see it as a fantastic source) while I think the format of the site is excellent and can be replicated across different mediums.

Replicating the "Wikipedia model"

The Wikipedia format - up-to-date, fast, digital, free etc. is something that can be replicated, which would allow academic material to be delivered in a Wikipedia style but without the compromse on quality.

Looking back at the original problem Gearóid stated - no books in the university library - Wikipedia is not the "only solution" to this issue, rather there are examples of libraries being digitalised, the idea of there only being one copy of a book thus becomes an alien concept, and doesn't require our student to give up and head to Wikipedia.

Wikipedia is free, and that is something which digitialised libraries will find a difficult model to compete with, can work which has taken years of research be offered for the same cost (no cost) as material uploaded to Wikipedia?

Cameron Murdoch (of BSkyB) in November 2009 argued about the dangers of subsidiesed news material (namely the BBC) which makes other media models unsustainable. There is no tax to pay for Wikipedia so the issue is significantly different, however Murdoch does make a serious point; that paying for a product is the only way to guarntee its sustainability and quality. Debates around this issues are bound to continue.

How can we alter the fact that while Wikipedia offers "up-to-date" information - a book in a library is antiquated, indeed once books have left the publisher they are often in some measure already "out of date".

Inventions such as e-book readers (or the much hyped iPad) have the potential to revolutionise text books and other academic material which is currently published on paper. Rather than printing a text book (which becomes irrelevent all too quickly) having a text book published in digital format, which can be sold as an e-book and accessed on e-book readers could be updated more frequently and at much lower costs for publishers (or eliminate the need for publishers at all!)

Aside from e-books, there are online models which can deliver the same product. Websites such as Google Books, Google Scholar or online journals provide quality scholarly material which can be accessed online, is searchable, and mostly free to use.

Following an e-book model (in tandem with the digital library model) allows traditional adacemic material to be accessed with the benefits that Gearóid outlined the Wikipedia model held:

Benefits of digital academic material: (Matching beneifts of Wikipedia)

• Easy to use - you could access your academic material on your computer or e-book reader.
• Up to date - because the information would be digital it would be easier and cheaper for the author to update the work and for the user to download an updated edition of a text.
• Universal access - digitalising books prevents the problem Gearóid outlined when required books are no longer available in the library.
• Storage issues - e-book readers have capacity to store thousands of books.
• Search ability - unlike print material, digital sources can be searched through in a similar way to Wikipedia.

Conclusion

Wikipedia offers many benefits to students as outlined by Gearóid. It however is a source which can be used in tandem with academic material, though ought not to be seen as a replacement of the traditional sources of information.

Wikipedia is a good place to start research as it gives basic information on the topic which are often universal facts (dates, numbers, individuals etc), and often outlines differing schools of thought on an issue. Most usefully Wikipedia does reference, and usually provides a list of authors on a topic, key books or journals and often provide links to them in the article.

Wikipedia thus is often a signpost to authorative academic material.

Wikiepida (and its model) creates a challenge to academia for reasons stated, however as e-books and digital libraries show us there are ways of changing the way material is delivered - without altering the material itself (or compromising on quality etc.)

Digital Media = Brevity?

Emily Bell in the Opinion page in The Guardian's Media Suppliment (11th Jan 2010) made fascinating point about a previosuly unknown (unknown to me at least) benefit of digital media.

Unlike her traditional print media article for the paper which has to fill a certain amount of space, digital media allows for a reappraisal of "what is enough in terms of good reporting, or commentary". Unlike the print media, digital media has no minimum or maximum word limit.

Bell points out that the format media is being presented on is changing rapidly as the technology revolution is altering the way we access media. Just as users are questioning the need for music albums as a format (if music is being downloaded why have a dozen tracks when I only like two or three of the songs) or the need for TV channels now that their favourite programmes are available online; we are now questiong the way our news is delivered.

She argues that "content, journalism, programmes and visual communication" will have to become comfortable moving onto the "smaller screen" as we start accessing them on mobile technology.

Despite the need to be versitile (ability to be accessed on the smaller screen) this doesn't translate directly into an increased apitite for brevity.

Despite the success of Twitter (which limits posts to a mere 140 characters) there is evidence according to Bell that "well differentiated long form content is as eagerly consumed as the quick soundbite". She points to statistics on The Guardian website which showed that a feature piece in the G2 suppliment (on Victorian sewers of all things) was the most viewed article of that specific month, which challeneges preconvied ideas of the results of the switch to digital media.

In addition Bell even questions the need for quotes in the new media as journalists can now link to other articles, statements or blogs.

As academic work, research and articles will be increasingly posted and debated online there is a tendancy to assume that for it to compete in the Twitter age the authors will need to be both brief and exciting - however this is an assumption which isn't supported by evidence.

Creativity in (digital) Education

Following on from my blog on TED, I'm today going to look at how TED can be used as a tool for digital historians or indeed any academic. I'm going to look at the example of the most watched TED talk, given by Sir Ken Robinson on the subject of education, which has been watched over fifteen million times.

Robinson

Robinson is an "educational expert" according to his TED biography (whatever that might be) and has been involved in the creative arts most of his adult life. His talk keeps to the 18 minute limit that I mentioned when blogging about TED, and he is one of the best speakers I have ever listened to. He has a simple message, reform eduction to recognise creativity and innovation, his delivery is excellent and at times very funny. After watching his speech I read his wikipedia entry and eventually bought his book "The Element" which I read on a few days of commuting last summer.

His book is now in the top 1,000 on the Amazon best seller list (it has been out for over a year), so I am not alone in making the transition from watching his video to buying his book. TED seemingly has had a major role in promoting him, his views and his work; so how is TED able to do this, and how can historians use TED and the like to promote an idea or some research?

Why use the likes of TED?

Firstly it must be stated that not anyone can take part in TED! The point of this blog is not to look at TED as the only option, but to look at TED as a type of website, a formula that an inidivual, university or organisation could easily recreate for themselves.

TED is a great platform for academics because of the reputation the website has for quality talks and speakers (therefore is UCC or an organisation were to develop a copycat version of TED it would have to use strict quality controls.

The TED format makes it popular with viewers though is a challenge for academics to meet; yet a successful talk has so many benefits. It firstly will be watched by many on the website, then perhaps shared online through social networking websites such as Facebook and blogged about, providing a huge increase in its influence. Secondly, presuming the topic is interesting the 18 minute talk will serve to whet the apetite of the viewer and they will want to read more on the topic, thus giving an academic a receptive audience.

Authors promote their books on radio and television freqeuntly, TED is in one sense just another method. Some academics have created accompaning television series when they are launching their work. A six-part television series requires viewers to sit down for six hours, a TED talk allows them to be introduced to the idea in less than twenty minutes! In a world where people are and will continue in large numbers to access digital media "on the go" the TED format is far more versatile.

The success of YouTube has perhaps shown us that people have short attention spans and want to be introduced to something quickly.

Practical uses of the TED format

Imagine if lecturers created short TED style talks to introduce their modules? I remember just over a year ago sitting down with with classmates making our choices about classes, the first few module choices were easy to make, they were almost instinctive reactions when we read the title of the class. However I remember almost all of us were stuck with five credits left to allocate, a bad choice would bring misery and suffering on us for several months! Having a TED talk on subject choices or module choices not only helps people see what the class will be like, but also gives some insight into what the lecturer will be like. But in addition to all that it will force to lecturer to give a reason as to why this topic is important and will provide some overview as to what the whole course is about.

Evernote: Only useful for some.

Evernote is a software/service which allows users to compile notes, photos, graphs etc. into one program. I explained it to my Mother as being a tool which allowed you to digitalise everything (which was a slight exaggeration). I gave the example of recording family history (which is something that interests her so I knew she would continue to listen...) currently genealogy software is rather versatile, you can do more than just input names and dates, you can upload photographs and Birth Certificates for example.

Evernote is somewhat similar I argued (but easier to use and useful for more than just genealogy). You can set up your iPhone or Blackberry onto the Evernote website and could take a picture of a piece of text (I gave the example of a wedding invite - genealogy remember...) and have that stored onto your Evernote account. The wedding invitation is of little use to you once you have been to the wedding, however if you are some obsessed family historian it is easy to see that the document could be of some significance (it gives the date and location of the wedding). However you don't want to have the document taking up physical space (multiply the invitation by thousands of other small relatively insignificant documents that a family historian might want to record) also the invitation is likely to be misplaced unless stored in a very organised way. This wedding invitation could then be tagged which is where the great benefit of Evernote comes in - by tagging the image perhaps under a heading of "Jill & John's Wedding" all documents, notes and images related the the wedding are able to be found under the one tag. Imagine several years later being able to click on the tag and being provided the great corpus of sources connected to the wedding.

My Mother argued that it seemed quite time consuming to catalogue the documents and callous to then dispose of documents deemed previous important enough to record! Though the potential of it was seen.




To summarise, Evernote has several benefits:

* Versatile - you can digitally store everything (documents, images, notes etc.)
* Tagging - it allows you to group a collection of items.
* It's online - you can access it anywhere.
* Easy to use - you will have a better bibliography as you will record everything you use!

Though for me it has some downsides:

* Can be time consuming - is it not easier to have a physical folder?
* Antiquated? - How long will it be until Google create a better version of Evernote?
* Needs an iPhone or equivalent to be of maximum use.


I can't see myself using it for my thesis because I don't think it suits my area of study. As my period is the 1990s where almost all of my resources are either embargoed or online (some difference) I can use other programs to bookmark newspaper articles or journals for me. If I was able to access an archive and see primary material, and if I was able to use a camera phone my use for Evernote would increase.