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Maps

  • Review what you’ve produced
  • Theorize additional possibilities

Reading

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Blog Work:

By 8 am Monday morning, create a map using Google My Maps or, if you’re ambitious, Google Fusion Tables. You should set aside at least two hours for doing this project.

Remember: no matter which tool you choose, you need data to plot on your map. Data includes photos or videos that you either create or compile from the web (make sure you cite your source), or restaurant reviews that you write yourself. Data also includes datasets like census statistics. You can use any data that you want, including public data you can find via this search and which can easily be integrated with a map using Google Fusion Tables.

Your map can be related to your group’s project, but it doesn’t have to be. You might do a map of voting locations in your borough. Or of votes by age in the election of 1960. Or restaurants in your neighborhood. Or of landmarks you pass on your commute to school. Or of international coffee production. Or of population numbers by county in New York State.

The goal of this project is to choose data, and then to visualize it on a map.

As you create your map, think about how the data you’re plotting might become part of a larger argument. Think about how the spatialization of data deepens your understanding of the data itself.

To use Google My Maps, log in to Google and go to http://maps.google.com.

Then, click on “My Places,” then click “Create Map.”

After doing so, you’ll see an interactive tutorial that will walk you through the process of creating a map.

Here’s a tutorial on using an earlier version of Google My Maps (the first few steps are different, but after that they’re similar)”

And, here’s a tutorial on building maps with Google Fusion Tables:

http://youtu.be/0HdQYl8EBW8

After you’ve created the map, embed it on our blog along with a 2-3 paragraph discussion of the potential value of mapping for your group’s project.  Here are instructions for embedding:

From Google Maps:
-Create map
-In Google Maps, click share icon (next to print icon in upper-left hand corner).  Copy the embed code (e.g., <iframe width …>).
-On our Blogs@Baruch WordPress site, start a new post.
-Choose “HTML” view in upper-right hand corner of post editor (tab next to “Visual”)
-Past embed code in post editor
-Preview or Publish post and you will see your map embedded

From Fusion Tables:
-Create Fusion Table
-Select Visualize/Map from the top menu
-Click “Get embeddable link” in upper-right hand corner of map (e.g., “<iframe width …>”)
-On our Blogs@Baruch WordPress site, start a new post.
-Choose “HTML” view in upper-right hand corner of post editor (tab next to “Visual”)
-Past embed code in post editor
-Preview or Publish post and you will see your map embedded

Reading: 

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Reading Review

William G. Thomas III and Edward L. Ayers, “The Differences Slavery Made: A Close Analysis of Two American Communities.”

  • Goals
    • Non-linear presentation of data
    • Driven by paradox seen in secondary literature: “The difference slavery made is widely recognized to be profound and yet study after study has shown that slavery did little to create differences between North and South in voting patterns, wealth distributions, occupation levels, and other measurable indices.”
  • Comparative Case Study
    • Why these two counties?
  • Mode of Presentation
  • Strengths/Weaknesses of Essay
    • Validity of question
    • Strength of evidence
    • Accuracy of interpretation and analysis of evidence
  • Technologies (GIS, XML, SPSS)
  • Data sets

Group Work

  • Historicizing your topic
  • Establish a plan for digesting the secondary sources you’ve identified as background reading on your topic by next Wednesday (and any others you’ll need to add).
  • Make sure you have a communication system in place and a process for documenting all communication

Examples of Maps

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By September 17th, 9pm

Explore http://ds106.us/.  Write a post of less than 500 words exploring the approach members of the ds106 community take to questions of intellectual property, fair use, and network ethics. How does this community understand the “Commons”?

As part of this assignment, you are encouraged to ask a question on Twitter of some central members of the ds106 community:

  • Ask @jimgroom questions you have about the philosophy behind ds106.
  • Ask @cogdog questions about community-forming and modes of interaction.
  • Ask @mburtis questions about the assignment bank and building the architecture of ds106.
  • Ask @mbransons questions about the (re)use of media in the course.

To ask them on Twitter, just include their twitter handle (for example, @jimgroom) in your tweet. And be sure to tag your question with the #baruchdh hashtag!

By September 19th, 8am 

Leave a comment on at least two posts by your classmates.

By September 19th, 5:50pm

Complete reading:

[entry-title]

Tool Reviews, continued

Key Ideas from Monday
  • public domain, fair use, The Commons

Reading Review

  • Reconstruct the project
    • technologies used: the archive, WordPress, Wikipedia, YouTube, the network, Reddit
    • Ethical implications of the project
  • Was this a prank or a hoax?
  • 2008 v 20012

Prep for Next Week

  • Beginning discussion of contours of projects
  • DS106.US

 

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Read (and follow the links within these pieces):

Watch:

If you’ve not begun to explore the tools we reviewed in class on Monday, DO SO!

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  • Note on reading and assignments: DO THEM.
  • Citation and plagiarism
  • Notes on formatting blog posts

THE BLOCK QUOTE: Banksy in polaroid est pour-over letterpress. Put a bird on it blog vegan reprehenderit. Fanny pack marfa leggings locavore next level +1. Craft beer typewriter twee messenger bag duis. Mixtape odd future ex farm-to-table pork belly, sriracha nostrud lomo flexitarian 3 wolf moon american apparel. Direct trade labore lo-fi fingerstache, umami sartorial vinyl fap chambray tempor pop-up master cleanse aute placeat cred. Qui high life mlkshk odd future cupidatat, artisan kogi seitan typewriter magna jean shorts.

    • Titles!
  • LEXICON:
    • Review of edits to the document, historicize these ideas
    • Assess process of joining group, creating lexicon doc
  • Tools review
    • Logistical questions?
    • Twitter: look at #baruchdh
    • Delicious: look at #baruchdh
    • Reader: discuss?
[entry-title]

This space houses the work of HIS 3460: Digital History, a course co-taught by Thomas Harbison and Luke Waltzer at Baruch College during the Fall 2012 semester.

Here’s a description of the course:

This course will explore current methods in the field, and also imagine future possibilities. You will study a range of theories of new media and employ them as you collect, analyze, and produce historical scholarship. Throughout the course we will assess how and why the creation, archiving, and interpretation of historical data are changing in the face of new forms of digital communication. We will also examine how these tools impact the primary goal of the historian: producing narratives that explain historical change. You will learn about and work with emerging tools in the areas of data mining, graphic information systems, image and audio production, and social media. With classmates, you will produce a digital project using data and artifacts that historicize the 2012 presidential election.

Much of this course will be open to the public, and outside commenting is welcome and encouraged.

See our syllabus for additional detail.

Looking forward to a great semester!