Blogging
Some Guidelines
The Internet offers massive amounts of data and a variety of
digital tools to study and practice history. Access to new digital collections
and the widening in what historians consider ‘documents’ and ‘archives’
presents at once opportunity and peril. Indeed, the discipline has responded,
evidenced by the increasing number and popularity of public history and digital
history jobs and programs. Yet, a good number of professional historians are
well beyond this “technology turn.” I include myself in this characterization.
Nevertheless, we will endeavor to practice digital history this semester as we learn about the complicated history of relations between Latin America and the U.S.
There will be two digital components to this course, namely your research digital project and blogging. For blogging purposes, begin by reading the short posts below:
1. Matthew G. Kirschenbaum, Mark Sample, and Daniel J. Cohen, “Voices: Blogging” in Hacking the Academy
2. Adam Dachis, “Which Blogging Platform Should I Use?” www.Lifehacker.com
3. Jon Russell, “The 15 best blogging and publishing platforms on the Internet today. Which one is for you?” www.TheNextWeb.com
Nevertheless, we will endeavor to practice digital history this semester as we learn about the complicated history of relations between Latin America and the U.S.
There will be two digital components to this course, namely your research digital project and blogging. For blogging purposes, begin by reading the short posts below:
1. Matthew G. Kirschenbaum, Mark Sample, and Daniel J. Cohen, “Voices: Blogging” in Hacking the Academy
2. Adam Dachis, “Which Blogging Platform Should I Use?” www.Lifehacker.com
3. Jon Russell, “The 15 best blogging and publishing platforms on the Internet today. Which one is for you?” www.TheNextWeb.com
StartingSign up for a WordPress (WP) account and email the URL
of your blogging site. If you are already in the blogosphere, you may use that
account if you like. Your call.
For your first post, please introduce yourself with multimedia (an image, video clip, audio clip, or some combination therein), giving some comments/thoughts on this Christian Science Monitor article your course-related interests, such as democracy, development, popular politics, drugs trafficking, cultural imperialism, etc. |
Once Up and Running
You will be responsible for roughly two weekly posts. The first type of post will be on current events. The second type of post will be thoughts/responses to class readings and subsequent class discussions. Both require you to be thoughtful and dig to better understand the deeper issues under discussion. Click the links for specific directions on Current Events posts and Weekly Reading posts.
Be advised: links to your blogs will be posted on this website, which is open to the broader public. In addition, there will be a general class blog that will publish your posts. |
Parting Advice
Blogging is like a gym membership. You can have a blog, but simply not do anything with it. I am living proof of that. My blog dates back to 2005, and I have been, ummm, inconsistent. Yes, let’s say inconsistent. Thus, we will set weekly deadlines to help establish a rhythm of publication and thus save you from my bad habits.
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