Websites Review

With different abilities, comes different ways of learning. Some people can easily learn by reading a lot books (in a significantly short amount of time). However, others just like myself, rely on sound tracks,(recorded audios), documentaries and movies. Especially with the influence of the New Media, more and more people are learning from a TV screen or Computer monitor more than ever. Just to throw some statistics out there; according to CNN, the average American television viewer is watching more than 151 hours of television per month -- an "all-time". (http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/TV/02/24/us.video.nielsen/ ) and if we wanna find out the number of hour that the average American spends online; I don't think the number will even close to be accurate.

Nevertheless, here below I will present you a personal review of two historical websites. The opinion expressed in those reviews, are solely personal and are not in any way intended to harm nor to promote the reputation of those websites.

First, as a documentaries fanatic thought that the Public Broadcasting Service web site (www.pbs.org/), was a great historical source for materials such as Primary documents of documentaries, interviews, classical music as well as movies, timeline of events, and a glossary of photos, maps...And its interface is very stimulating in term of pushing the visitor to go further in learning the content of the website. The down side that I have noticed about this web site is the when it comes to books, newspaper articles...The amount of results were very limited or none at all.

Second and finally, I have also visited this historical website called: archive.org/. When it comes to the content, this website is that it has over 150 Billion web pages, close to 2 Million historical text documents, and over a million audio and Video files in its archives. However, in term of functionality, the for every search, you get a load of videos, books, articles, pictures which is good by the way. Only If the programmer could keep them separate or ask the user what kind of document he/she is looking for , that would be better. . In addition to that, while searching into the archives, the user will need to know exactly what he/she is looking for, other wise, the result will not show up. Its interface looks really simple and some how as an archive website ought to be.

Sinclair Allen

Racial Construction

A few minutes ago, In my sociology class of Race, Gender, Class and Ethnicity; We have talked about this concept of Racial Construction. Most importantly, we watched the California Newsreel's Documentary made possible by PBS titled: Race-The Power of an Illusion.

First let me admit that this video was a slap in the face to me. I always thought that the construction of race was entirely biological, that our similarities as well as differences are entirely genetically based. To learn that geography justifies racial construction more than biology which by the way has nothing to do with racial construction was quite a moment in my life. Although, I would admit that I knew about this economical, social and political manipulations of race ideologies in order for some racial groups to gain social, economic and politic power over other racial groups.

I have also found out that the notion of “White race as normative”, also came from the Nazi's SS idea of being the elites. The pure blood. Those born to rule. The race of the future. That is why up until after the fall of Germany and Hitler by the late 1945, many immigrants who came from Northwestern Europe to the US where still considering themselves superior to all other racial groups.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRg_jD7XNws

At the end of the class, a question came up on the screen; “Considering the readings, do you think it 's possible to move beyond racial division?” Here is my personal opinion on the matter and feel free to disagree. It took over 300 years to build this psychological concept of Eugenic and to erase this concept of one racial group being superior to other racial groups in people's minds it is going to take far more than 300 years to reach that point. Here's an example, I did not know the Benedict XVIth and I happen to meet him on the streets and rob his expensive Egyptian cotton hand made gown. When the cops come, even him as a pope will refer me to the cops as Black male first. Reversely, if he happens to be the one who robs my whatever I have, I will refer him to the cops as a white male first. My point is, race is the first thing we notice about people and it is going to be there. Nevertheless, in order to move beyond racial division, we just need to eliminate all the prejudices. We need to consider people's action as individually based and not representing characteristics of a particular racial group.

Please watch this video...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVhE3Muh3co

Websites Analysis

Just googling the word history gave me over 1,120,000,000 results. when I did the same search a yahoo.com, I got over 4,770,000,000 results. However, it was just a decade and half ago that Morris Pierce (history Ph.D.) created one of the first departmental websites for the University of Rochester. Since then, the number of private, departmental, corporate, and governmental historical web site have blossomed on the web. Every single one of these web sites is different from other in terms structure, content, targeted audience and purpose. In this blog, I will state my personal opinion about three historical web sites which will classified each one of them as: The Good, The Bad or The Ugly.

The Good

Most historical web sites are often limited or just focused on a country, region of the planet, a period of time in history...But I have discovered this web sites which some how impressed me by its global historical content. HyperHistory Online website, has content of primary and secondary documents, and any historical topic, ranging from science, culture, religion, politics, and text books can be found. Moreover, there are subtitles which also range from people, maps, events and history to refine the search. Its also has over 2000 files covering over 3000 years of the world history.

http://www.hyperhistory.com/online_n2/History_n2/a.html

The Bad

Maybe using the label “The Bad” is quite harsh but I would still go to this web site a collect very valuable and credible historical information on any topic related to the United States of America. The Library of Congress web site is very impressive when it comes to the density of it American history content. I was able to find contains of primary and secondary documents, exhibits, map collections, prints and photographs, sound recordings and motion pictures. However, the bad thing about the Library of Congress web site is that for some topics, you cannot get access to the content immediately. Some documents can be e-mailed to you later, after having provided some personal information of course. Nevertheless, the worst aspect about the Library of Congress is that some searches are just restricted or they give you as little information as possible about the subject of your search.

http://www.loc.gov/index.html

The Ugly

To say: “The Ugly” for an historical web site can be quite harsh as well. Nonetheless, there are really unreliable and uninformative web sites on the web and It takes some knowledge in the field in order to mak e that distinction and to reject the contents of those web sites. One historical web site that most scholars do not give credits to is Wikipedia. Wikipedia is a historical web site in which anyone can post their entries, regardless of his/her knowledge or of the veracity of their entries. Most false information in wikipedia can be found in dates, occurrence of events, and biased facts (which are often the result of the person's belief, religion, culture or person convictions).

www.wikipedia.org/

Sinclair Allen

Sunday, January 25, 2010

Scavenger Hunt

Most people, even highly educated ones believe that an article, a picture, a video or anything can be found just by typing it in the search box of one of the major web search engine. This is not entirely true, for the simple fact that a web search depends first; on the type of the search engine that particular website uses. There are two types of search engines. In one hand, there are the individual search engines which compile their own searchable databases on the web. On the other hand, there are the metasearchers, which do not compile databases. Metasearchers search engines do not crawl the web. search the databases of multiple sets of individual search engines simultaneously. Second, a web search depends also on the rarity of the word, picture, videos, person...For example, finding a Nancy Pelosi's letter can be much harder to find on the web than a Barack Obama letter. Third and most importantly, the techniques that the person uses to do the search. In order to locate and retrieve a piece of information on the web, a strategy is often needed. For instance, knowing the website to go to in order to get the information, the specificity of the query, sign, mark or symbol.

Here are some examples of Web-searches and the methods used to find them.

1. Find a website that Host the photographs of Eleanor Roosevelt, George Pompidou, Adi Amin Dada, and Gamal Abdel Nasser.

Method of search: Go to google main page, then click on image and then image advanced search. And just type all the names in the search box. The picture was found in the website hereby www.titoville.com/voditelji.html

2. Find a poem about the first world war that contains the line: The Kestrel hovering by day.

Method of search: First go to google main page and then just type The Kestrel hovering by day into quotes. The line will be found in this website: http://www.bartleby.com/266/82.html

3. Find an image of a banner of from the abolitionist movement in Massachusetts that reads: “Shall a Republic which Could not Bear the Bonds of a king, Cradle a Bondage Which a King Abolished.”

Method of search: Just the type the entire quoted query. The best result will show in the Massachusetts Historical Society Website. http://www.masshist.org/database/onview.cfm?display=print&queryID=1730

4. A letter from George Washington to Timothy Pikering in which Washington complains about “certain forged letters” intended to wound his character and “deceive the people.”

Method of search: Google main page, then type George Washington correspondences in the search box. Finally search by key word within the website by typing Timothy Pickering and certain forged letters.

Scavenger Hunt

Sinclair Allen

History 493/Digital History

Dr. Jon B. Olsen