Prepare Week 1

Prepare: Week 1

Please answer the following questions with complete sentences and post them to your Assignment file with the lable "Prepare 1."

Part I

  1. With what regions or countries do you have formal or informal knowledge?
  2. With what languages do you have experience? What is your experience with your languages?
  3. What communications tools are you a strong user of and with whom do you use thes tools?
  4. History is the study of the past through evidence, theory, and tools. What intellectual strengths do you bring to studying history?

Part 2

Login to you Hypothes.is account and go to our Syllabus . Annotate on the Syllabus any questions you have, any resources you have used you found useful that are mentioned in the syllabus, or any tips or "hacks" you have found important to succeeding in college. Responding to others is equally valuable to posting original comments.

Example or Model of Questions

  1. With what regions or countries do you have formal or informal knowledge?

    • I’ve studied in the Irish Republic and done research in Spain while living there for a year. My family comes from Northern Ireland originally, so I’ve payed a bit more attention to that regions’ history. I developed a decent understanding of regions that I’ve taught in past classes, including S. America, Mexico, Somalia, SE Asia, China, Japan, and Mali. My knowledge of N. America is shaped by the conferences that I’ve been to, but I have not travelled to many non-urban spaces in N. America.

  2. With what languages do you have experience?

    • I took Russian for one year in college and my lack of interest resulted in little knowledge. I developed Spanish language competency by taking classes while in my MA and PhD program. I also took a reading French class, so I recognize many French words but can not pronounce them. As a world historian I’ve read many languages, but am most comfortable with Arabic, Mandarin, and Germanic, and Romance languages. I pay attention to Dakota language names in MN.

  3. What communications tools are you a strong user of and with whom do you use thes tools?

    • I use email, SMS, phone calls, and twitter most often to communicate. Email I use the most for my job, and I use SMS and phone calls most with my family. Twitter I use just for professional purposes. I’m familiar with many social communication sites, such as instagram, facebook, and nextdoor though I have limited to no engagement with these sites.

  4. History is the study of the past through evidence, theory, and tools. What intellectual strengths do you bring to studying history?

    • I see failure as data. So, if I don’t understand something, I see that as an opportunity to explore a historical subject more. As I’ve been doing history for almost 30 years, I can study most subjects, even those others find gruesome or disgusting. In the last 10 years I’ve trained myself in most digital humanities tools, which students will learn about this semester.