Conversations 1 Assignments 2101: East Asia
How can we use social media to understand the past?
Learning goals. Students will be able to:
- Successfully create a pinterest page so that they may search pinterest.com.
- Locate three separate credible websites on pinterest.com, twitter.com and wordpress.com that address the period 1200-1400 C.E.
- Summarize the content on those three sites in one to two sentences.
- Correctly link to three sites using Markdown syntax.
- Explain why you found your three websites to be credible in two to three sentences.
Background
Our module “Conversations” will focus on the period from 1920-1976 CE China The conversation part will be addressing how social media shapes our understanding of the history of this period. Our first week we’ll work on understanding this period by using social media and our second week we’ll use social media to help others understand this period.
So, why are we focusing on social media when studying history? Well, for one, social media allows us to practice what we call public history. History written by historians for other historians is very small in scope and in audience. Museums, plaques at public parks, blogs about minor subjects that just happen to fascinate people; these are all public history. A historian’s book published by a university press will get maybe 200 copies printed. A good history blog will get at least 200 hits a day, and a good twitter feed can have a 1 million followers. If we think history matters (and I do) we have to be attentive to where it will have the biggest impact. For example, John Green, who is an author and video blogger, has 4.7 million followers on his twitter feed. In many ways public history matters far more than any professional history.
So, to begin, you need to get comfortable operating in three social media platforms: pinterest.com, wordpress.com, and twitter.com. Pinterest requires an account to search, but wordpress and twitter don’t.
Wordpress.com is a web log hosting website. WordPress is also blogging software that anyone can use to publish their own site. Lots of historians and history-minded people post their research, analysis, and an odd-assortment of material on blogs. For example, consider the wordpress site History Behind Game of Throne. Or consider this blog that recounts when a pope wrote a mongol khan about possible converting to Christianity (the khan declined.)
Pinterest is a web log that focuses on images, which the site calls “pins.”
Twitter is a mico-blogging site. It allows users to post blogs in 140 characters, with a limited number of pictures. A “feed” is all the tweets from a particular user.
Assignment
- Find a pinterest page, twitter feed, and wordpress blog that are a) credible based on the PISA test and b) address a Chinese history subject between 1920 and 1976 CE. Each media type may focus on a specific country or a particular group. For example, Mansa Musa left a variety of records about his famous hajj.
- Post your three links in a markdown document, along with your summary credibility analysis, and upload the the Conversations 1 assignment submission box.
Tips:
- To limit a google search to a particular domain type :.domain name. For example, if I wanted to search for “Cultural Revolution” only in wordpress blogs, I’d type “Cultural Revolution:.wordpress.com”
- Twitter uses a particular grammar that takes a while to get used to. Topics are “tagged” with a # . For example searching for #Mongols will get all the most recent tweets about that topic. People or institutions who are writing on twitter “tweeting” are tagged with @. So, I’m @historyjack.
- To find good historical material on twitter, say on the Mongols, you may need to find good historians of the that subject.
- Pinterest is the shallowest (has the least historical) content of these three media types. It has hoards of non-credible sites, which pinterest call “boards.” Be prepared for lots of images that are not attributed (cited). No-citations = not credible.
- If you want to know who owns a website, use the website easywhois.com. To know what software created a website, plug the URL into builtwith.com. To know what websites link to a website, type in “link:yourwebsite” . Knowing who owns a website, how it was built, and who is linking to a website can help you evaluate the credibility of websites. WordPress.com, twitter.com, and pinterest.com won’t tell you much, but if you find a self-hosted wordpress site, these tools may be useful.
Grading criteria
Student:
1. Located three separate credible websites on pinterest.com, twitter.com and wordpress.com that address China during the period 1920-1976.
2. Summarized the content on those three sites.
3. Correctly linked to three sites using the Markdown syntax.
4. Explained why you found your three websites to be credible.
5. Demonstrated knowledge of the PISA test for historical credibility.
