New Editors New Thoughts:
John F. Reynolds (jreynold@lonestar.utsa.edu) Fri, 19 Jan 1996 13:13:39 -0600
[Syllabus]" Previous message: J. Rotondo-McCord: "Moderator's apology"
The editorial duties of H-MMEDIA have changed hands once again. I am taking up the keyboard from Jonathan Rotondo-McCord and will probably stay at this post for the next couple of months.
To introduce myself to those of you new to the list, I teach history at the University of Texas at San Antonio. My areas of specialization are U.S. politics, especially during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. I have been working with computers for some 20 years now, and just in the last few years have begun work with multimedia. Last fall I converted 33 fifty minute introductory U.S. history lectures to multimedia form using Toolbook, so I now teach that course with the aid of a laptop (and a scanner, and a network, and an lcd panel, etc.)
As it was about one year that we first began to get HMMEDIA off the ground, I thought I would offer some random comments over the last year's progress. First I would like to express my appreciation to Jonathan and to Paula Petrik for the many hours they have contributed as editors over the last year. Alas, this is not the kind of work that makes one a ready candidate for promotion, but obviously the humanist community needs highly skilled persons like them to help us make appropriate use of the technology.
My one reaction to developments over the last year is how
quickly the technology is evolving. It was hardly more than a year
ago that I got a glimpse of my first web site, and now it seems
everyone is building one. A couple of months ago I figured I could
put off learning HTML for a time, now I feel like something of a
fraud by passing myself off as a multimedia type and not having the
experience of putting a web site together. Meanwhile the
technology advances on all fronts: new CD/ROMS with various
applications for the humanities; new software for multimedia
development; and the big players are now fighting over their piece
of the information highway they will install in our homes. Not
least of all, we are starting to see some serious discussion about
how this technology may entirely reshape how higher education does
business -- and even some experimental applications. And interest
in multimedia seems to have accelerated considerably in the last
year -- as evidenced by the attendance at some H-Net sessions at
the American Historical Association.
Of course H-Net and H-MMEDIA are further illustrations of
the rapid changes we are going through. H-Net is about 3 years
old, and has a subscription list stands at 36,000 for about 75
lists -- last time I looked. Perhaps one-third of those people are
multiple subscribers, and perhaps another goodly number have set
their subscription to no-mail. Still, if only half that number are
active subscribers that means the number of H-Net readers is
approaching the number of subscribers to the American Historical
Review -- the premier journal of the discipline in the United
States. A Couple of weeks ago H-Net unveiled Web sites for most of
its lists. In addition, H-Net has garnered generous financial
support running into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. HMMEDIA,
which did not yet exist a year ago, now has about 450
subscribers and Web site we have hardly had time to look at much
less develop.
One further matter that has struck me in the last is how
deep the inroads the technology is making among our students. Just
this last week I encountered my first student bringing her laptop
to class and taking notes. (Last semester I thought I was a way
cool dude in bringing my laptop to class to teach -- but now I see
the students are not far behind me). I am starting to get
unsolicited e-mail posts from students, some of whom want to know
if they can have copies of my multimedia lectures on diskette.
Another student wanted to know whether I would advise buying the
text on book form or as a CD/ROM. I have noticed that it seems to
take a lot to impress students on the internet or with our
multimedia presentations. Last night I met with my graduate
students for my course on quantitative methods in history. Of
course they all have computers and are almost all conversant with
windows. When later in the evening I instructed them in how to
enter some manuscript census data using "Access" I discovered they
needed little input from me after I handed out the instruction
sheet. (In the past I would go slowly and carefully through the
process for my anxious and bewildered students; but none of them
were in evidence last night). It turned out that one of the
students in the class teaches courses on ACCESS at his place of
employment.
I would like to think of myself as technologically sophisticated
for an historian, but I feel like all this is moving too fast for me. And
I wonder: What do my less computer inclined peers make of all this? Do
they notice it? Are they intrigued, concerned or simply oblivious? Most
of them are not on E-Mail and probably never seen a web site, and they
don't do much more than word processing. Is my institution or discipline
unusual in this respect? Will we have to wait for a new generation of
faculty to fill their shoes before we see the technology commonly employed
in the curriculum? Will those in the public and private sphere who are
eager to revamp education -- some of whom want to make a profit, some of
whom wish to make education cheaper, some of whom want to make it better
Jack Reynolds
jreynold@lonestar.jpl.utsa.edu
HistoryComputer Reveiw: Spring 1996 issue (TOC)
John F. Reynolds (jreynold@lonestar.utsa.edu) Thu, 22 Feb 1996 12:09:40 -0600
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The Spring 1996 issue has gone off to the printer. It should be shipping in two weeks or so. Here is the Table of Contents:
Articles
A Practical, and Lasting, Approach to Using Computers in the University History Classroom, by Robin McLachlan
Bright Ideas, Creative People, Teamwork, and Money: Developing Courseware for Teaching Scottish History, by R. K. Munro and P. L. M. Hillis
Net Survey
Navigating the Internet, by Kelly A. Woestman -- a huge collection of sites focused on the 1996 Presidential election, with brief descriptions of each site.
Reviews of books
_CD-ROM for Schools: A Directory and Practical Handbook for Media Specialists_, reviewed by Chris Davis
_Changing the Process of Teaching and Learning: Essays by Notre Dame Faculty_, reviewed by Sam Evans
Software reviews
African American History: Slavery to Civil Rights, by Steven Mintz
American Journey: The African-American Experience, by Brian Gratton and Jay M. Price
The Autobiography of Malcolm X CD-ROM, by Robin E. Baker
Colonization, by Tom Taylor
Cultural Reporter, by Peggy Ann Weyel
The Day After Trinity: J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Atomic Bomb, by Richard B. Latner
History and Culture of Spain, by John E. Weakland
The Holocaust, by Stanley S. Seidner
A House Divided: The Lincoln-Douglas Debates, by Floyd D. Barrows
J.F.K. Assassination: A Visual Investigation, by James G. Lewis
Kingmaker, by Pierre Corbeil
Library Master 3.0, by Claus K. Meyer
Metropolis CD-ROM, version 2.5, by Eric H. Monkkonen
The Oregon Trail II CD, by Leslie Gene Hunter
Pacific Rim Discovery Program, by Ian A. Andrews
Voices of the 30s, by Roy Rosenzweig
Wyatt Earp's Old West: A Multimedia Adventure in the Wild West, by Gary E. Olson
Plus a Literature Survey of computing, Mac, and PC publications compiled by David L. Dykstra and prepared by Jack W. Traylor, James F. Willis, Peter V. Meyers, Joseph C. Fitzharris, David L. Dykstra, Walter
As ever, we are interested in receiving article submissions, proposals for reviews of books and software, and other relevant communications.
--
Dr. James B. M. Schick - History Computer Review
Pittsburg State University - Pittsburg, Kansas 66762
jschick@pittstate.edu - fax: 316-232-7515 - phone: 316-235-4317
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