Defining Digital History

I have very little digital expertise. I would say that I have a beginner level or average level of digital expertise. When it comes to computers and doing research on them, I am not very good at finding information. I prefer to use books and reading the material in a fashion that I am much more familiar with. Also, I can trust that information and not have to question whether it is factual or not from Internet sources without doing a background check on the author. But I do approve of the use of online journals which is so easy to use and locate older editions in a journal's archives collections.

I can do very basic functions on a computer and I am always learning about new websites and what their purposes are. I have learned about a few new websites from going to school, especially when I took Integrating Technology Across the Curriculum but I still do not see what the purposes of using some of those websites are in the classroom. I personally like using technology in the classroom but since I am not a tech savvy person I feel I can not use more complex types of technology beyond power point and doing web searches or quests which get boring for students and teachers alike after a while.

Out of this course, I want to get a better understanding of what digital history is, besides a simple definition, and what the many facets of it are. I would also like to understand more about what the debate of digital history is and why it is so important for some scholars to discuss. I honestly do not understand the hype about digital history besides the fact that much of history is being stored on the internet and books are becoming obsolete, which I find sad. There is nothing like picking up a good book and physically reading it versus reading it on a computer screen, especially when it is about historical events, people, places, etc. during history.

I think it is important for me to understand not just the basics of digital history, but what I can get out of it. I would like to be more convinced that technology is important to use in the classroom and why there is such a need for digital history. I am much more of a traditionalist and I would like to have students to get back into doing research the old fashioned way through going to the library or media center and picking up a book they found using the card catalogue system. I do think the Internet is a great quick source for an answer to a question but for doing extensive research, it can be used as a secondary or tertiary source but not as a primary source, especially if it a large project or research paper.

I also think that from this course I can get an understanding of how to do digital history. I want to know how to create digital history by completing the culminating project and have a better idea of how I can do digital history on my own, especially to benefit students in my future classroom. Maybe I will be able to incorporate digital history into my classroom when I am student teaching in the fall too.