Google Street View as time travel

June 19, 2013 By 3 Comments

I admit it–I’ve used Google Street View to revisit places I used to live, and it’s fun to see our cars still parked in the driveway or on the street.  The views will be updated eventually, of course, but I enjoy the feeling of being transported into the past when it’s presented by Google as if it’s the present.

Even more fun is when I happen onto a seam in the space-time fabric.  On Harrison Boulevard in Boise, for example, there’s a moment when the seasons suddenly change if you shift your view to the other side of the street:


 Screen shot 2013-06-19 at 9.34.32 AM

Screen shot 2013-06-19 at 9.34.54 AM

And at the corner of University and Capitol in Boise, taking one virtual step to the right jumps you back in time a few years, but it seems like a decade or more:

Screen shot 2013-06-19 at 9.36.10 AM

Screen shot 2013-06-19 at 9.36.19 AM

Even better would be if Google made it possible to dive down through the different “layers” of its Street View drive-bys when they’re updated, instead of just overwriting the virtual landscape with the new images.  Google Earth already does have this capacity for some places, and third-party services like WhatWasThere and HistoryPin allow users to “pin” historical photos to specific locations on Google Maps.

What spatiotemporal quirks have you found in Street View?

Filed Under: Grist for the cultural studies mill, Putting the "Public" in Public History, Technobabble

“Big tent” technology

June 18, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Let’s begin with a few U.S. maps published recently.

Here’s one, built at the National Day of Civic Hacking, of every public library branch (and a few bookmobiles) in the contiguous U.S.:

Screen shot 2013-06-09 at 11.05.49 AM

And here’s a similar map of every museum in the lower 48:

Screen shot 2013-06-09 at 11.04.24 AM

Note the dearth of such cultural institutions in large swaths of the western U.S.  Yes, some of that cultural hole can be attributed to less dense population patterns in the West, but it’s not as if there’s no one living in, working in, or visiting those areas.  Perhaps it’s not surprising that less dense, conservative states might not allocate sufficient funding to sustain cultural institutions. Indeed, even where museums do exist in the relatively sparsely populated Intermountain West and Great Basin, they are, with a few notable exceptions, not exactly distinguished institutions.

Even more significant is the giant western hole in the map of cities participating in the National Day of Civic Hacking:

Screen shot 2013-06-09 at 11.01.13 AM

Now that I’ve spent three years in that region and have become familiar with its technological deficit—in terms of professional development but also of basic connectivity (in parts of Idaho, bears can take down the internet, and as recently as 2011, Idaho had the slowest internet speed in the nation)—I’m not surprised to see a complete lack of participation in the day of civic hacking.  Rather than advocating for public investment in educational and technological infrastructure—which might both make Idaho’s workforce more attractive to high tech companies and inspire individual Idahoans to launch start-ups and tech businesses—political “leaders” in Idaho are focusing on abolishing minimum wage laws and other government regulations that allegedly inhibit the growth of low-paying industries.

Let’s look beyond my current region, however. Imagine overlaying that civic hacking participation onto a map of the results of the last presidential election returns, especially one that represents results by county:

Screen shot 2013-06-09 at 11.29.06 AM

It’s no wonder the Obama campaign was able to mobilize social media, big data, and related technologies so well in 2008 and 2012.  Republicans have taken notice, and cultural observers like Markos Moulitsas are pointing out that the Republican failure to take advantage of technology and data is less about “a lack of organization” than it is about “a lack of talent.”  Worse, as Moulitsas uses several examples to illustrate, when conservatives do engage with technology, they may be more likely to use it to close down access to information rather than open it up.

Big tent technology

As someone on the left side of the political spectrum, it would be easy for me to sit back, smirk, and enjoy watching conservatives’ lack of technological skill help to drive the Republican party into oblivion. Alas, this technological divide between red states and blue states has repercussions beyond who holds political office.  Of particular concern to me as a professor and a parent are career opportunities, particularly since my current state of residence appears to be putting more stock in attracting arms manufacturers and call centers than in cultivating a generation of civic-minded, technologically savvy workers.

I’ve said it here before, and I’m sure I’ll say it again: being a progressive means “big tent” thinking.  It means seeking justice and fairness and uplift for all people—even those who have political views I find repugnant. And so I’m saying those of us who have any tech savvy at all who live in red states need to help conservatives (and others) get their technological house in order.

Over the past 30 years, conservatives have ridden a wave of fundamentalist Christian indignation over demographic shifts and changing social mores. Accordingly, conservative political operatives have—at least in the public eye—invested more time and energy in developing rhetorical flourishes that manipulate feeling than they have in collecting, analyzing, and interpreting data. I’m not the first progressive to observe that conservatives are not interested in reliable evidence or carefully interpreting data. Both conservatives and liberals participate in social and mainstream media echo chambers that amplify and reinforce our beliefs, but in my experience, liberals are more likely to read widely, learning from a broad spectrum of voices in the humanities, social sciences, sciences, and arts.  That learning, I’ve observed, often includes a depth and breadth of knowledge about technology.

People from all over the political spectrum ought to be interested in hearing all voices, in having more conversations, in increasing the quality and quantity of civic discourse.  In the 21st century, that discourse involves a good deal of digital, networked technology.  We connect and communicate with it, and we wade into its ever-flowing streams of data, news, and information.  Again, in my experience (and as suggested by the maps above), those who identify with the political left are more likely to swim boldly into and try to make sense of—or even shape—these currents.

(It was at this point in my discussing this idea with her that a good friend pointed out I’m setting up a positivist narrative, one in which technological enlightenment leads to intellectual and political enlightenment of a group of people who can cling stubbornly to outdated ideals and dangerous cultural and economic practices. I don’t believe in technology as redemptive in and of itself, but I think in the case of Idaho and other conservative regions, a good dose of training in technological tools and languages–in the digital humanities–couldn’t hurt.)

In local practice

Let’s look at an example of this thinking in action.  Already my minor infusion of digital humanities practice into my classroom has revolutionized many students’ relationships with technology.  They write in their end-of-course reflections about how they had seen themselves as technophobic or technologically inept, and now they’re curious about digital tools and willing to experiment.  Of course, learning to use most apps doesn’t involve manipulating and visualizing data or writing code that can change the functionality of an app or website.  But my students’ growing confidence in their technical savvy has led them to  imagine developing apps–and in one assignment I had them write grant proposals to do so.  For some students, this app development plan took the form of investigating software development firms, but other students researched the ways they might build apps themselves.

And yes, at least half of my students from this past year consider themselves to be conservative, many of them profoundly.

How can we grow this kind of energy and curiosity, and teach these kind of tech skills more broadly?  Digital storytelling is a natural fit.  But I think we need to take the next step, too, and engage people who inhabit the vast unhacked spaces on the map in civic hacking, in the languages—rhetorical and computational—of the digital era.

If you have ideas on how to make this happen, especially face-to-face, and how to fund it, leave them in the comments.

(This post was inspired by a session I attended at AdaCamp San Francisco on resources for women new to coding.)

Filed Under: Grist for the cultural studies mill, Putting the "Public" in Public History, Technobabble, What passes for science around here, Whining Exhortation and Angst

Quick updates

May 21, 2013 By Leave a Comment

I’m sick again, and on antibiotics again, and once again they don’t seem to be making a dent. (I had so much to accomplish between submitting grades and Lucas getting out of school for the summer. sigh.)

But I do have a couple things to share:

My Blue Review post on universities innovating with technology from within was picked up by the London School of Economics.  Fun!  Ever better–Jim Groom wrote a nice follow-up to/elaboration of that piece.

I also have another post at The Blue Review: Rethinking Digital Badges.

Filed Under: Technobabble, Whining Exhortation and Angst

A troubling constellation

April 8, 2013 By 2 Comments

Anyone who has read The Clutter Museum for a while knows I’m not a Luddite.  I like to play with technology, and I encourage my students to be curious about digital media, and particularly about how they might use it to build thoughtful public history projects and programs.

However, there’s a constellation of higher ed “innovations” that has me worried. A couple of these innovations, taken alone, might not be cause for concern, but because they’re emerging at the same moment, they’re troubling.

First, there’s the university’s adoption of minimum viable product development strategies, and all the tech-marketing rhetoric and thinking such strategies seem to require.

Second, there are MOOCs, the massively open online courses being peddled by universities and start-ups alike. (If you’re unfamiliar with the phenomenon, Jonathan Rees consistently writes the hardest-hitting posts about both the academic labor implications of MOOCs and their (utter lack of) impact on student learning.)

Third, there are badges, alternative forms of assessment that circumvent traditional academic accreditation.

Fourth, we have the New University of California, where there are no classes—only high-stakes exams.

Fifth, we have companies that students can hire to take tests, write assignments, or even complete entire classes on their behalf.  Students don’t have to take the courses for which they’re “earning” credit.

Finally, we have automated essay-grading software from EdX.  Faculty no longer need to grade the “work” of the “students” “enrolled” in their “classes.”

Anyone want to call the tech-induced time of death on faculty governance and authentic student learning?

 

[Update: Jonathan Rees has already called it, and he points out faculty autonomy and student learning aren't the only casualties.]

Filed Under: Grist for the cultural studies mill, Technobabble, Whining Exhortation and Angst

The University as Minimum Viable Product

April 3, 2013 By Leave a Comment

I have a couple new pieces up at The Blue Review blog.  The first is on impostor syndrome in academia.  The second, meatier piece draws on my observation that universities are drawing on software development principles–and not necessarily the best ones–in creating and refining programs.  Here’s the beginning of it:

In this age of slashed higher ed budgets that demand new efficiencies, it’s not surprising that universities seek technological solutions to their challenges. However, university leaders aren’t looking to tech entrepreneurs solely for course management systems or MOOC platforms; they’re also adopting the rhetoric and thinking of Silicon Valley.

In keeping with this tech fetishism, universities are developing new offerings in ways that mirror software launches more than they do traditional higher ed marketing. One popular approach to software development calls on programmers to create a “minimum viable product,” or MVP, which Eric Ries defines as:

That product which has just those features (and no more) that allows you to ship a product that resonates with early adopters, some of whom will pay you money or give you feedback.

What, then, constitutes a university’s minimum viable product?

It depends, I suppose, on whom the university sees as its customer.

I’d love to see a discussion about this in the comments of that post (and elsewhere, of course). Read more at The Blue Review blog.

Filed Under: Grist for the cultural studies mill, Technobabble, Whining Exhortation and Angst

Venturing

March 19, 2013 By 3 Comments

It’s not every day I learn from a local TV station’s website that my university has launched a new college:

Boise State University announced Monday that it is building a “business garden” in the form of a new college in the capital city in hopes of “growing” a better business community in Idaho.

President Bob Kustra made the announcement of BSU’s new Venture College Monday afternoon in front of business leaders and students who are hoping to be accepted.

The idea is to allow students an opportunity to compete for start-up funds for their business idea, and then have local business executives help them get that idea off that ground and into the market.

The goal is to launch a new business from a non-traditional college model.

You’d think the university administration might have mentioned this development to, you know, faculty.  And yet I spoke with a passel of humanities and social sciences faculty today, and no one had heard of it prior to this morning.

The website for the new “college” offers a little more information:

Venture College prepares students to launch businesses. This new, non-credit program is open to all full-time students in any major. Students who successfully complete the program receive the Boise State University Venture College Badge. [...]

Is Venture College for you?  Led by business executives, Venture College offers students a customized education plan, individual coaching by experts, internships and invaluable experience to launch their own businesses or nonprofits. Be a part of like-minded, focused group of friends making a difference!

What will you receive? You will be eligible to compete for limited start-up funding.  You will get real world experience. Some students will actually launch their businesses while still students.  All will gain skills valuable to employers.

What’s the commitment? Venture College is a two-semester program. It’s flexible and self-paced, but you must be able to participate in a colloquium each Friday from noon to 2 p.m. Students should plan on about spending 10-15 hours a week on Venture College pursuits.

The leadership of Venture College—an entrepreneur, a former CEO, and a former venture capitalist—will, we are told, report to the VP of Research and Economic Development, who reports directly to the university’s president.  The college “has the highest level of university commitment.” Venture College is free to students enrolled full-time at Boise State.

I might not have the exact same objections to this new, erm, venture that some of my readers have. Indeed, I find parts of the “Why Venture College?” page quite persuasive, its use of buzzwords aside.  (I was surprised not to see “strategic dynamism” appear on that page.)

Other parts are not so persuasive, in part because much of the “why” page is vague, or it outright contradicts other efforts of the university:

  • “Boise State is. . .challenging traditional educational strategies and piloting new methods for superior, relevant education.” Then why is the college offering lecture capture and Blackboard to the rest of the university?
  • “Venture College will provide self-paced, on demand access to knowledge, intensive mentoring and an opportunity to compete for resources needed to start a business.”  Self-paced and on demand suggest the program will be largely online, aside from two-hour colloquia on Friday afternoons.  Who is developing and delivering the online content?  (I also am concerned that students who are working to put themselves through school or who have family to care for won’t be able to commit to 10-15 extracurricular hours each week for two semesters.  This seems like an opportunity only relatively young, unburdened, privileged students might be able to pursue.)
  • A badge is not, to put it mildly, a college.

I appreciate that the university is trying new models and is acknowledging, albeit indirectly, that there aren’t jobs in Idaho for many of our graduates—at least not well-paying ones, as Idaho has the highest percentage of minimum-wage workers of any state. (Three-quarters of the jobs created in Idaho last year were service-sector jobs, which are more likely than most to pay the minimum wage.)  Students do indeed need to develop what the university terms the “4 Cs” of 21st-century skills: communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity.

My question is this: Doesn’t a liberal arts education promote the development of exactly these characteristics? I know I emphasize all four of these in my humanities classroom.  And I’m not just emphasizing these in an abstract way.  In fact, the assignment I handed out to my Master of Applied Historical Research (public history) students last night asks students to demonstrate they possess all these skills.  I’m asking students to write a proposal for the development of a mobile app that would be of use to public history professionals.  (You can download the assignment if you’re curious.)  Following this assignment, students will draft a grant application or—perhaps, I haven’t decided—create a slide-deck and pitch for venture capitalists or a foundation to fund the development of the app.

Undoubtedly this assignment will horrify some of you.  And it’s a far cry from the advice I heard at my first NCPH conference a few years ago that the introductory graduate course in public history should cover the basics of museum exhibition development, archival management, and historic preservation practice.  Museum stuff is close to my heart, so I do introduce current issues in the field, and I also provide students with an overview of challenges in historic preservation, but from there, my curriculum deviates sharply from the traditional seminar. If you view the syllabus for the course, you’ll see I have recommended Grantwriting for Dummies and I require students to read The $100 Startup because, regardless of whether they want to start their own consulting firms (and some students do indeed have that goal), students need to think creatively, resourcefully, and entrepreneurially, even if they’re employed by state agency or a nonprofit.

Why has my teaching and mentoring taken this turn? There aren’t many good jobs for public historians in Idaho; the best places to work are already populated by young, bright people who plan to stick around for a while, and many of the state’s museums and historical organizations are atrophying rather than moving forward; my first-year students already have figured out they don’t want to work for them.  My students want to be freelance grantwriters, historical consultants, documentary filmmakers, and museum technologists, and it’s my job to help them along on their individual journeys. Hence my interest in introducing them to MVPs rather than the MRM5.

Frankly, I also am not certain for how long I can tolerate living on a faculty salary that is lower than average, and I’m increasingly aware my spouse labors in a dying industry. Some might argue that traditional higher ed and tenure-line jobs are also going the way of hoop skirt makers. So I’ve spent the past several years studying entrepreneurship, keeping abreast of advances in technology, staying informed about developments in a couple of industries that interest me and in which I suspect I could consult successfully, and generally trying to be ready to “innovate” myself into an entirely new venture on very short notice. (Do I love my job and do I want tenure? Yes. Do I think my current career track is sustainable for the 25-30 years until my retirement? Nope!)

My main objection to Venture College, then, is that my university’s leadership doesn’t acknowledge, and perhaps doesn’t even realize, that faculty are already innovating, already teaching students to be innovative, creative, collaborative, and entrepreneurial—and not just through very “real-world” projects like the one I assigned, but through a carefully crafted combination of readings, viewings, discussions, activities, writing assignments, and presentations.  You know: a liberal arts education with an eye toward 21st-century ways of engaging with the world.

Filed Under: Grist for the cultural studies mill, Putting the "Public" in Public History, Sometimes I teach, Tall tales and true, Technobabble, Wait. . . I moved to where?, Whining Exhortation and Angst

Elsewhere

March 14, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Just wanted to highlight a couple of things that have been keeping me busy.

First, there’s a post for the Western Museums Association blog on developing museum professionals in the Intermountain West.

Second, I’m soft-launching the Boise Wiki next week by giving a talk about it. I’ll post more about the wiki once I’ve figured out what I’m going to say at the presentation.  :)

 

Filed Under: Grist for the cultural studies mill, Putting the "Public" in Public History, Technobabble

Hey, look over there

February 26, 2013 By Leave a Comment

I have a piece up at The Blue Review on Wikipedia, Ancestry.com, and the gendering of digital public history.  Here’s an excerpt:

Engendering Online History

Wikipedia vs. Ancestry.com: Historianship at a crossroads

Businessweek reports that “genealogy ranks second only to porn as the most searched topic online.” It’s no wonder, then, that Ancestry.com, which for a monthly fee lets anyone search and browse its more than 10 million digitized records of births, marriages, censuses, ships’ passenger lists and more has become a destination for anyone interested in trying her hand at historical research.  I say “her” intentionally, as the majority of users—typically around 65 percent—of genealogical sites are women. Ancestry.com is the world’s most-trafficked genealogical site.

Wikipedia, the highly popular online encyclopedia, on the other hand, has a paltry percentage of women actively editing articles—just 8.5 percent by one measure. The sites allow for two different, and sometimes competing, versions of historical practice to emerge. In particular, Wikipedia’s community ethos, although it embraces collaboration and consensus, may actually discourage participation, especially by women—reflecting a problem that also exists in the historical profession.

Read more at The Blue Review.

Filed Under: Grist for the cultural studies mill, Putting the "Public" in Public History, Technobabble

Busy busy

February 21, 2013 By 2 Comments

Intellectual and vocational theme of the semester: Charismatic megafauna, literal and metaphorical 

I haven’t been writing much here, but I’ve been writing elsewhere, and I hope to soon have a few links to share to pieces in a couple of bloggish venues, as well as to a journal article.

So. . . how about an update on my work life instead? Despite my light teaching load this semester, I’m keeping occupied

  • resubmitting a large grant;
  • revising a traditional journal article on the woman who ran the San Diego Zoo for the second quarter of the twentieth century;
  • writing another journal article that’s in danger of becoming a manifesto on human rights museology;
  • thinking about maybe prepping for a local talk I’m giving next month on the Boise Wiki, a project built largely by students in a couple of my classes, but which I’ll launch into the public wilds soon;
  • overseeing a graduate student pulling together sources for Stories of Idaho, a new digital project that I’m supposed to launch in beta by June 1;
  • trying to make sense of those sources and create coherent content for the first Stories of Idaho module, about the history of wolf management in Idaho;
  • working with a WordPress developer on a plugin that lends a new(ish) kind of interactivity to Stories of Idaho;
  • collaborating with other faculty on a new digital humanities initiative;
  • trying to shepherd grad students through their first year, or through their Master’s projects;
  • reviewing applications from prospective grad students;
  • spending (yet also accruing, I think) some political capital on a university-wide issue of importance to me (compensating grad students);
  • and a bunch of other stuff–these bullets are just what’s keeping me active right now.

Burying the lede

There is a bit of good news, however—I’ve been granted a spring 2014 semester free of teaching and service responsibilities; I’ll be Boise State’s inaugural Digital Arts and Humanities Fellow.  I’ll be trying to make sense of the extensive but understudied medical/healthcare collections and share my findings in part through a section of Stories of Idaho.
Filed Under: Putting the "Public" in Public History, Sometimes I teach, Technobabble

First thoughts: Wikipedia and Ancestry.com

January 7, 2013 By 16 Comments

Since I had to take Lucas to school anyway this morning, I decided to stop by the office for some focused time, pneumonia be damned.  Unfortunately, 90 minutes into my productive e-mail session, Fang texted to warn me about the newly falling snow and to suggest I get on the roads sooner rather than later.

Fang clears snow from the car

 Every once in a while, I feel really bad for dragging Fang to Boise.  To be honest, this was not one of those moments.

The result was another day on the couch with the laptop, TV playing in the background.  Despite the distracted recuperation, I made some progress on a piece I promised to write.  It’s another reflection on how the public does history, in line with the chapter I wrote last year, only this time I’m looking at how the historical sausage gets made at Wikipedia and Ancestry.com. As you might imagine, I’m observing that each site’s process and product is inflected by gender. My research into women’s contributions to Wikipedia has uncovered a trove of misogynistic comments about how more extensive participation by women would ruin Wikipedia.  As much as they unsettle me, such sources also warm the cockles of my dark academic heart.

Mostly, I’m interested in how Wikipedians and Ancestry users (Ancestryans?) collaborate or come to consensus, how they perceive and use primary and secondary sources, and how they view and establish expertise within their respective digital communities.

Have you ever contributed to Wikipedia or Ancestry?  If so, I’d love to hear your thoughts on your experience.  If not, I’m curious as to why you haven’t participated on these sites, as they are incredibly popular in the U.S.  (Businessweek reports that “genealogy ranks second only to porn as the most searched topic online.”)

Filed Under: Grist for the cultural studies mill, Putting the "Public" in Public History, Technobabble
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Header image credits

origami beetle by Emre Ayaroglu, mounted butterflies by Black Country Museums, First Lady Sarah Polk's dress and the Jefferson Bible source book by the National Museum of American History, and lionfish by Martyn Steiner, all used under Creative Commons licenses.

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