My Visuals
TrendsMap – US View Dec 1, 2010
World Usage – WikiLeaks (Dec 1st)
US Usage – Wikileaks Dec 1, 2010
Demographics of “wikileaks” on Dec 07, 2010 (from Lexicalist.com).
We have a family friend that made a bad decision on the internet one Saturday afternoon, and he is now in jail. He didn’t hurt anyone, and I don’t need to get into the details here, but now his life will never be the same. During his sentencing, the judge even asked his lawyer to find a loophole. But, the laws wouldn’t allow for a commonsense look at the situation.
We have several categories of laws like this in this country. Mandatory sentencing with removed possibility of common sense being applied to each case-by-case scenario. And, individual senators and other lawmakers can’t help affect change because they are too concerned about how it would look. How a decision will be spun in the media. Whether or not they will be reelected.
Reading through Lessig’s chapter and about Jack Valenti concerns me that copyright is going to be the next rabbit hole that our laws are going to fall into. When we have lobbyists that are pushing lawmakers into decisions based solely on financial interests, much like what has happened with Mickey Mouse and Disney, the only ones that lose are the people.
I firmly believe that there should be laws that protect creative property owners. But, I am more along the lines of what Lessig argues. I think that copyright protection should extend for a certain period of time, and then, that image, movie, song, etc should be fair game. This is particularly true when you consider who these laws are actually protecting. They aren’t protecting the sisters that wrote “Happy Birthday“; nope, they are protecting the company that owns the rights to the song – a completely different argument in my mind.
I think we are at an important moment in copyright law that we can still save ourselves from the ridiculous point-of-no-return, but it’s not far off. And, I think this debate is a part of a larger question in our society about how do we repeal laws that don’t work? What is the review process we are going to create in this country? I think it is time for another check point in our system.
Incidentally, this isn’t the first time I have interacted with Lessig’s viewpoint. If you haven’t seen it already, you should really check out RIP: A Remix Manifesto! I have done some really amazing projects with my students using this video to teach copyright.
I have an idea for my final project that stems from a larger topic I have wanted to work with for some time. It is one that considers the language of a family, or the “ecolect.” Before I explain further, I will tell you that ecolect is like genre for me; now that I have been introduced to the idea, I see the implications everywhere.
So, what is it? As I explained above, ecolect can be defined as the language of a family. And, in the past, it would have been just that. The language a family used to communicate in ways that were unique from the outside world. A modern day example of this would be what a family with a child calls a pacifier. At our house, it is the “plug,” a term I got from what my father used to call it. Think about it. Does your family have a word that you say to each other that no one from the outside would know what you were talking about?
Now, think about how many families you belong to. Because the way we live is changing, so are our family structures. And, I would argue that we are a part of more units that replicate the family environment than ever: groups of friends, people you work with, even the participants of a class. And, particularly in the US, we no longer live in one close-knit community our entire lives.
I think we can learn a lot about our language development by examining how our ecolects work and more specifically how they interact with one another. I will explain more about this interaction in another post, but for now, you will have to take my word for it that ecolect can be thought of as a vital step in the process of our language development and acquisition.
When I heard about our project, I was really excited about the possibilities for these data-mining tools with regards to tracking this type of language acquisition using things like twitter. I am at the point where I still need to do more research into the types of tools I could possibly use for our project here (and I would gladly take suggestions or feedback if anything comes to mind), but I also see the larger implications these tools could have on this type of study long-term. Is it appropriate to talk about these ideas and use one representation as an example of their applicability? Is this idea too in-depth for this type of project?
It might have become clear through my past project that I am a crafty kind of girl. I like to make stuff, and I have tried pretty much everything. One craft that I love in theory is scrapbooking. Not the traditional kind of scrapbooking, but more along the lines of what Ali Edwards does. She calls herself a life artist, and she talks a lot about being moved by the process of what she does. She wants to tell the story of her life.
She often illustrates the way she tells her stories for her readers on her blog. There is something about the aesthetic of what Ali does that makes it appealing to me. One yearly project she does is called the “Week In Your Life” project. It’s just what it sounds like. You document all the aspects of your life for a week. And, you keep track of the pieces that you want to remember. Sometimes it can be a breakdown hour by hour, and sometimes it can focus more on the pictures you take throughout your day. Last year, I used one day in my week to document what our house looked like at that moment in time because I knew it would change over the next year.
And, I got the sense that was what the Feltron reports do for Nick Felton. These reports allow him to tell the story of his life as a way to keep track of the information for the future. They seem to be his scrapbook. In order to understand a little more about the purpose of the reports, I looked for reviews, and I found this one. And, I was really glad I did. I had trouble getting onto Felton’s site at times, and this author pointed out the way the report for 2009 shifted from the previous years.
It was through this review that the connection between Felton and Edwards became clear to me. They are both interested in the process. And, I have to wonder what a scrapbook would look like if you asked other people to scrapbook your life, which is in essence what Felton did in 2009. What parts of the story would actually be recorded? What information could be wrong? How many people would participate? In Felton’s case, he only had a 31.8% percent participation rate from his encounters. So, what was missing? What information is wrong because the data was off?
I thought this was an interesting visualization of what we have been talking about throughout the course concerning what information is digitized and how that can skew results. I don’t think I would ever write an annual report about my life. But, I do think it would be a fun project to do with my students one semester about our course. What information would we track? What visuals could we create to represent what we learned throughout the semester? It could be a really cool project!
After class last week, I have something that has been bugging me. I know that I expressed my dislike for the type of scholarship that Moretti was doing, but I am not sure that I made myself clear in class when I explained my frustration with his book. Repeatedly, I said that I wanted him to explain why this type of scholarship should be done. And, I think people may have misunderstood my request.
I didn’t want Moretti to look forward and explain the usefulness of this type of research/scholarship for his field or anything that grandiose. I agree that the methods were new and making that type of proclamation wouldn’t have been helpful. However, I did expect a clearer explanation of his personal intention. Why did he do it for himself? Why was what he found out helpful to his own research? That is the part of his argument that I think would have been the most helpful for me personally. And, it would have also helped explain the usefulness of these methods of research. I think the work that Moretti was doing was hugely important and helpful in an abstract sense, as I said in my previous post, but I wanted to hear more about his personal application of the theory. And, I thought that was missing from what was presented.
Didn’t know if that part of my argument last week came through, so I thought that I would add some clarification what bothered me about the reading.
This week’s readings got me thinking about genre again. I told you I see it everywhere! So, I thought I would do a little comparison of the breakdown of these four sites.
Hypercities seems like more of a tool than an argument in itself. Pulling together all the maps provides a unique research opportunity that would take a great deal of effort to do on its own. I loved the fact that there were solid tutorials about how to get started using the site, and once I entered the maps area, I didn’t have a problem looking around. However, their History subheader under the About menu is under construction, so it was hard to fully understand their mission because the site opened to the blog/news feed for the site.
The Euclid Corridor Project was extremely minimalist in its interface. I really liked the graphics and site layout from an aesthetic point of view, but from the position of a reader, I was a little lost about the overall goal. I am not sure if this is the link for the core page for the project, but if so, there is some drastic work that needs to be done to orient the viewer. When I went back and tried to search about the name of the project, there were a ton of things that came up, including the actual bus line (I think that’s what this was). As I said above, I really liked the actual interface of the site, and I thought the history was really well presented.
I just needed the fluff around the content that told me what I was looking at. It actually seemed like it was a site only for the people in-the-know, like some kind of inside joke reference that everyone else is missing. [Granted, I may have missed something, but since I looked, I would still argue that it was too hard to find if it was out there!] That all said, the functionality of the site wasn’t difficult to figure out. And, they did provide a how-to page to explain their interface.
PhilaPlace seems to be aiming to gather the history of Philadelphia. The described goal is to provide an interactive place to blend traditional historical records with the snippets of history offered by its users. The site is easy to use from first glance, which is definitely something I look for with a site I regularly visit. I also really liked that their purpose was clearly outlined on their About page.
The Difference Slavery Made was where I spent most of my time because it was the site that was the most intriguing. And, what I have determined is that unlike the other sites, this one is trying to use the technology as part of the argument. Here we see a shift from tool to evidence. There is the choose-your-own-adventure model going on here, but there are also a couple of different arguments going on: 1) the authors take a stance on slavery and what this information is telling us about slavery, and 2) there is a call for the types of digital scholarship that should be going on. The historians in the class can better speak to the efficacy of the first argument, so I think I would like to say a few things about the second half.
I work as an assistant editor for a section of an online journal about digital scholarship in Rhetoric and Composition called Kairos. And, because the nature of my field is writing and I am working with the section about teaching specifically, we see a lot of articles talk about how to create digital scholarship/documents. And, most of those arguments are using technology, like Thomas and Ayers do, to provide evidence for their arguments. But, the argument is still in a roughly linear format. Thomas and Ayers seem to start off that way with their overview, but once the reader reaches the end of that section, there isn’t much in the way of direction beyond the general navigation provided. And, I, like everyone else, had a little trouble being sure that I caught everything, but I am wondering if that’s the point.
This week I am trying to turn the hating over to someone else, so I thought I would share just a little of what I think about digital scholarship from my limited personal experience. I think that scholars on all sides of the fence, digital and analog, are moving forward very tentatively with regards to what they define as digital scholarship and how that scholarship works within the larger realm of academia. Tenure committees are leading the way towards defining what counts and what doesn’t. And, this is a hard area to navigate when we want to ensure the credibility of the work created and still allow for innovation. [This has always been hard, but technology messes it all up even more.]
And, Thomas and Ayers seem to be right in that in-between spot. They are providing the format for the goals of the site, but they are letting the user search out the rest. For me, I needed more explanation about where to find what I was supposed to be looking at. Because it wasn’t a tool, like most of the projects above, I am not sure the technology was as necessary to “demonstrate,” but more explanation about the GIS used and how it was done might have helped. But where as last week, the shortcomings bothered me, this week I am willing to let it slide.
Digital scholarship is going to take some serious and minor missteps before we can come to an agreement about what counts and what doesn’t. And then, the genre will shift because someone will figure out something else to push the envelope and reshape our definitions. I think it is the scholars like Thomas and Ayers that are willing to take the chance that offer the most the field. So, maybe I should have been nicer to Moretti after all!
I may be the sole “hater” of Moretti’s book based on this week’s blog posts so far. I have to admit I was not a fan of this work. However, like I make my students do, I will start with the good.
THE GOOD:
- I thought the basic premise of the varied inventory of research techniques encouraged by Moretti was awesome. As historians and scholars, we all need to keep in mind the greatest number of possible research models up our sleeves. And, I thought overall, his techniques do have a lot of merit.
- I also really liked the fact that this wasn’t a 80 page book hiding between 300 pages. I appreciate the brevity he offered, even when I thought the clarity of his argument suffered.
- I really appreciated the subject matter. I like the idea of literary scholars looking at something other than a close reading of the text itself.
THE BAD:
Unfortunately, this list is a little longer for me (albeit most of my complaints are with the data itself, not the methods).
- I had a real problem with the way that Moretti is using the term genre. Once upon a time, I was a PhD student at a mid-western school that shall not be named. The program wasn’t the right fit for me, but I am grateful for the experience because there I took a Genre theory course with a prominent scholar in the field. This particular course changed the way I look at pretty much everything. I see genres everywhere now! And, I would venture a guess that my professor would take issue with Moretti’s use of genre too. From my understanding, genres are not helpful when considered containers that works, pieces of art, etc can just be poured into. They aren’t solely a checklist to define things. Instead, a genre is actually defined by its pieces, and as the pieces change, so does the genre. And, the graph that Moretti presents that includes all the starts and stops of generic models seems implausible to me. We can’t pour works into those categories anymore, so the genre is gone? How does that help the conversation. Instead, I think it is important to consider the impact those genres had on the next. And, what antecedent genres made way for those included on his list.
- I appreciate that this text wasn’t solely written in academic jargon that we have to wade through, but I found the stream of conscious that Moretti had going on even more obscure and harder to decipher. I am a simple girl, and I like nice simple straightforward texts. I don’t think things have to be difficult to be smart or valuable. That being said, I am not afraid of hard, but I don’t appreciate hard for hard’s sake.
- I also agree with my classmates about the fact that it doesn’t make much sense to complete analysis like this without a goal for that analysis. To suggest that research without a goal is a worthwhile step seems, for lack of a better term, irresponsible. I am not sure that is what Moretti is trying to do, but it was what it felt like. I really wanted a clearer explanation of the usefulness and the reasons for the creation of these images. Moretti seemed downright giddy about his discovery in Figure 14 that there was a circular narrative space within the Our Village tales he was mapping, but I guess I didn’t get it. What is the significance of this information on the stories themselves? What does it tell us about the intention of the author? Impact on society? Is this type of reading/exercise any more reliable a method of critical analysis than any other? On page 53, he explains the purpose of his maps: “these maps will be more than the sum of their parts; they will possess ‘emerging’ qualities, which were not visible at the lower level.” And, I guess I would ask, if we have to force patterns to emerge through our placement of data on graphs and charts, is that “emerging” quality really part of the text.
I am sorry if this sounds all bad. I really do see the usefulness of the research strategies that Moretti is discussing. I think I just would have appreciated them more in a different package. I wonder if that the other problem other scholars have had with this work as well? In fact, I wonder if that is part of the “issue” traditional analog scholars have with the digital movement overall.
Just thought that I would post about a new technology (really a Google tool) I found out about this morning. It is a search option within Google called Wonder Wheel. It is pretty cool. It is like an interactive mindmapping search tool.
I did a quick search for a paper in another class to illustrate what it can do.
So, did everyone already know about this function? This is the site I found that kinda explained how this worked for those that don’t already know. I think it would be cool if we could share some of these tricks with each other throughout the semester.
I will admit it. I am a bit of a wiki-champion! As I said in my last post, I am a big believer in the possibilities wikis have to offer – at least, in theory. Maybe kinda like socialism (wonder how many watch lists you end up on for a comment like that one)? However, like socialism, it is my belief in human nature that gets in the way. We aren’t always good at giving back to a community, and Wikipedia stands out to me as the one clear instance where the problems I always have with trying to get buy-in and participation for wikis have been overcome.
In fact, I get really annoyed when people bad mouth Wikipedia. I can’t help it. It makes me want to start pulling out all the wiki-stats I know. Many of the same types of stats that Roy Rosenzweig talked about in the article we read for this week. In fact, Rosenzweig really covered most of the points that I generally run down with regards to my defense of wikis as a whole including the acknowledgment of the fears behind wikis.
Less sophisticated readers may not know the difference. Roy Rosenzweig
It was with this statement in the article that I think Rosenzweig really summed up the fears of Wikipedia dissenters. What if someone goes to Wikipedia and gets the wrong information?
Other students routinely list it in term paper bibliographies. We should not view this prospect with undue alarm. Wikipedia for the most part gets its facts right. (The student of British culture reported that Wikipedia proved as accurate as the Encyclopedia Britannica and easier to use.) And the general panic about students’ use of Internet sources is overblown. You can find bad history in the library, and while much misinformation circulates on the Internet, it also helps to debunk myths and to correct misinformation. Roy Rosenzweig
But, Rosenzweig covered that. He says it best: “You can find bad history in the library…” In other words, anywhere. I have worked with a lot of the dissenters in the last ten years. Those instructors that forbid their students to look at Wikipedia, as if they could actually prevent it.
Teachers have little more to fear from students’ starting with Wikipedia than from their starting with most other basic reference sources. They have a lot to fear if students stop there. To state the obvious: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and encyclopedias have intrinsic limits. Most readers of this journal have not relied heavily on encyclopedias since junior high school days. And most readers of this journal do not want their students to rely heavily on encyclopedias–digital or print, free or subscription, professionally written or amateur and collaborative–for research papers. Roy Rosenzweig
What really shocks me is how little time these same teachers are actually spending talking about how to research.
Spend more time teaching about the limitations of all information sources, including Wikipedia, and emphasizing the skills of critical analysis of primary and secondary sources. Roy Rosenzweig
But, yet again, Rosenweig covered that too. Instead, teachers seem to set themselves up as the watchdogs emphasizing all the things their students can’t do. But, how can we honestly expect that our students will pass over the very first link that is often returned with their google search just because they were told they couldn’t look at it?
Instead of this route, I talk to my students about the difference between sources consulted and sources cited. I have an activity that I use to help them navigate Wikipedia and learn how to use it. We talk about how to critically look at the information presented and what to do with what we find. We talk about encyclopedias and why they aren’t generally wise sources to be using at this point in their academic careers. And, we talk about how to mine Wikipedia for the information that will make their searches in the appropriate databases more successful.
By the end of our discussions, I hope my students feel comfortable enough with Wikipedia to argue for its use in the right settings!
I still remember the first time I really learned what a wiki was. I was at the 2005 Computers in Writing conference at Stanford. I knew about and used Wikipedia at that point, but I didn’t really understand how it worked. I didn’t fully get that I could make changes to those pages. But, after sitting through a session about wikis, I realized the teaching potential immediately.
I have webspace that has a Fantastico package. A quick check of available software at that point and I knew that I could install a wiki on my site. So, that’s what I did. I used the rest of my summer to prepare my wiki for my students, and I had a site up and ready to go for the Fall 2005 semester. I remember being so excited because I could so clearly see the way that this site could work for us as a classroom repository of information. However, when I introduced it to my classes, I was quickly met with huge resistance.
I have used a wiki every semester with my students since (except this one because of my current teaching circumstance). And, I have found that this resistance to this particular technology didn’t go away. Students use Wikipedia regularly, despite the fact that most of them have no clue that it can be edited by its users (this realization may have changed slightly in the last year or so). But, trying to replicate the environment Wikipedia has going on with its users in a classroom is almost impossible.
Part of that is timing. Trying to get buy-in for any of these technologies in a semester is difficult – just look at our class’s response to our blogging assignments. I often found that students that were aware of or had used a wiki in another environment previously were much more open to the possibilities the technology offered in our courses. And so, that became my main purpose for using them in class – first exposure. Maybe exposure in my class will minimize the resistance students feel when confronted with this technology in the business world, which is how I explained it to them.
I still think this is one of the most potentially rich technologies I use with my students, but I do have to remember not to oversell it. Because the answer to my question above is generally, not willingly!
