Education – Page 2 – Found History

WordCamp Ed

Let me join the choruses celebrating WordCamp Ed, which makes its debut in Fairfax on November 22, 2008. Organized by CHNM and the Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship at Georgetown (but mainly by our own Dave Lester), WordCamp Ed will bring together teachers of all stripes to talk about educational uses for the WordPress blogging platform. Building on the success of last spring’s THATCamp, the one-day event will feature a morning of pre-planned speakers and a barcamp-style afternoon of smaller discussion sessions. Registration is free at the WordCamp Ed blog. We only have space for about 100, so get your name in early.

[Image credit: Tom Woodward]

Briefly Noted for April 11, 2008

A few quick notes from the National Council on Public History annual meeting in Louisville, KY.

Bill Turkel has a terrific post on the nonlinear character of many academic careers, comparing planning our professional trajectories to solving nonlinear optimization problems in mathematics. “Nonlinear” definitely describes my own career path, and Bill provides his own poignant nonlinear story. Students, especially those interested in careers in digital history and humanities, should hear more of these stories.

The Powerhouse Museum joins the Library of Congress in Flickr Commons. Though not officially part of the Commons, the Boston Public Library also added its own photostream to the online image sharing site. Maybe this Flickr thing has legs. 😉

Jeremy Boggs is starting a much needed new series on the nuts and bolts of doing digital humanities work. I am first to plead guilty when I say that too much of the digital humanities blogosphere is taken up with reflections on the discipline, project announcements and press releases, and wishful speculations that will never bear fruit. Jeremy is boldly taking us down the path of real work, by explaining the basic methods, processes, and tools necessary to produce quality digital history and humanities projects.

Wikis in the Classroom

Mills Kelly has a nice post about PBwiki‘s new Educators’ Wiki, its tips for student wiki etiquette, and his thoughts about using wikis in the classroom. Along with Wetpaint, Wikidot, and Zoho Wiki, PBwiki is one of several free web services that allow users to very quickly and easily set up custom wikis on any topic. I have always preferred Wetpaint (which my colleague Ken Thompson has used to some success in our own linked History 100: History of Western Civilization/English 201: Reading and Writing about Texts course on science and society), but PBwiki recently announced the imminent release of PBwiki 2.0, which should put it ahead of the pack.