description

This offering is an applied course in digital history that explores the adaptation of history to a digital environment. Although the central goal of the course is development of an original, digital history project of professional quality, the course will also examine “best practices” in digital history, the problems and possibilities inherent in digital history, and issues in information, Download
HIST 697 Syllabus PDFtechnical, and aesthetic design. In end, the course will tackle look at what interactivity and games might bring to digital history. Be aware that this class is an applied course. In other words, we will begin by thinking (and writing) about good history and then proceed to learning the tools and techniques to bring history into digital form. Be also mindful that any digital work is a collaborative venture, so be prepared to both aid others and ask for help for yourself

books

The texts (of one kind or another) serve three purposes: 1) to provide you with the background in graphic design and usability; 2) to introduce you to some texts that are intended to promote some “left brain” thinking or provide inspiration; and 3) to furnish you with a modest technical, reference library. We will discuss some of the books briefly, some in depth, and some not at all, but they all should be read either in toto or in small bites. In addition, you are required to obtain a copy of the game, Myst: Revelation. Except Myst (which can be obtained at a reasonable cost from an on-line vendor or as a demo download), all the books are available at the campus bookstore.

blog

Blogs have become an important element on the web and something that you’ve already done in Clio Wired. Rather than have a group blog or design a blog from the ground up, you’ll be doing something a bit different. Because you’ll need a blog that has a photo album, I’ll recommend two options. (Why not one of the free services? Because I have experienced enormous problems with downtime, trolls, and spam in previous semesters.)

You can obtain a Plus-level subscription to Typepad, a blog. The cost is $8.95 per month or roughly $27.00 for the semester (the cost of a modest textbook). The best thing to do is sign up for a free trial; this will furnish you with a month’s free service. At the end of the semester, you can cancel your subscription. Or, you may discover that you like blogging so much that you retain your subscription. The advantages of TypePad are ease of use and the option to customize your design.

Alternatively, you can use Movable Type or WordPress software. Both are free, but the installation of the software can be challenging, and you will need to contact your ISP to ensure that the necessary software is in place. Movable Type will install the application for you for a $40.00 fee, but you will need to arrange to have CGI and MySQL in place. Be aware that most free web page areas do not support CGI or MySQL or charge extra. George Mason does have a site license for Movable Type, but the university’s policy on who can install MT and WordPress and what servers are eligible is unclear. I do not recommend either of these options unless you have some solid computer skills and access to a sophisticated ISP, but there may some in the class who can avail themselves of the MT or WordPress options.

browsers

Because this course will introduce you to standards-based, accessible design, you will need several browsers to test your web work. This, of course, brings me to the good news and the bad news. Standards-based design is, on the whole, much more tractable than its predecessor, convoluted table-based design. The XHTML code is much easier to write and cleaner. The bad news is that Internet browsers carry the baggage of the Browser Wars and, as result, interpret CSS, the web presentation language, in a number of different ways. What to do? You should download or obtain the several different browsers.

Mac people should acquire Safari (latest version), Explorer 5.2, and Firefox 1.5.x; Wintel folk should obtain a copy of IE 7.0, IE 6.0 and Firefox 1.5.x. Opera is also good and available for free. If you elect to use Firefox, there is a handy plugin, Web Developer Tools, that provides a means to look at your CSS in different ways. Mac users face a particular difficulty. Mr. Softie has discontinued IE for the Mac, so it will remain frozen at 5.2. But 85 percent of the world uses some flavor of IE for Windows. For Mac users there is BrowserCam ($), a friend’s PC, or an email to a classmate requesting a site check. If you have have an Intel Mac, If you have have an Intel Mac, you can install a Windows emulator that allows a Mac to run Windows.

Wintel people face a different problem: their dominant browser (IE 6.0) is not standards-compliant. (Note that IE 7.0 is much more standards-compliant, but only 20 percent of the Wintel systems are using IE 7.0 at this writing.) Should historians use IE exclusively, they will develop some poor habits. In the end, the best practice for Wintel historians is to design and preview on a standards-compliant browser and correct for the IE family. So, for our purposes, Wintel folk should use IE 7.0, Firefox or Opera as their primary browser, and Mac people should use Safari, Firefox, or Opera.

software

Class participants will also need an image editor or access to an image editor. For those who envision using new media as an ongoing part of their history graduate work, Adobe Photoshop CS2 is the de facto standard. For those who see their new media work as occasional, Adobe Photoshop Elements (5.0 for Wintel and 4.0 for Mac) is an extremely powerful (and inexpensive) program that, except for some advanced color capabilities, has the same features as Photoshop CS2.

Clio 2 students will also need an HTML editor. Adobe Dreamweaver has become the standard (and the one installed in the lab). Adobe products are available at Patriot Computer at an educational discount, but order early so that you will have software for the requisite class assignments. You may also wish to explore acquiring Adobe Creative Suite 2 Premieum; it contains both Photoshop CS2 and Dreamweaver as well as a host of other useful applications. The price tag matches these

Since we will be working extensively with CSS, you might also find a dedicated CSS editor handy. StyleMaster, a cross-platform product from WestCiv, is a good bet. CSSEdit for the Mac is also intuitive and easy to use. There are undoubtedly other CSS editors available for the Wintel platform.