Digital Narratives Shown in Class
December 10, 2009 at 3:41 PM | In Assignments, Multimedia | Leave a CommentTags: digital narrative
Here are the YouTube links for the digital narratives that we viewed in class today. There were many excellent options–it was hard to choose!–so see the post above for additional narratives that are available on YouTube.
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1. “The Kansas Indians” by Micah C.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jywARDtvCOI
2. “The Significance of the Battle of Black Jack” by Andy W.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZurnwLpvvs
3. “The Inception of KU” by Madeline J.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbt2BFiHnHk
4. “The Dalton Gang: Outlaws of the Great West” by Jason R.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNPnWvG3TV0
5. “Amelia Earhart” by Ashley H.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxG4Pflqmac
6. “Charlie Parker” by Janae B.
Announcements for 12/3
December 4, 2009 at 8:58 PM | In Announcements, Assignments, Helpful Tips, Multimedia | Leave a CommentTags: Announcements, Assignments, digital narrative, microphone
To help you keep track of what’s going on in HIST348, here are some announcements and further clarification about what we’ll be doing in this next week.
DIGITAL NARRATIVE
- All the text elements (cover page, script, bibliography, and slide list) must be uploaded to Blackboard’s SafeAssign box in one file BEFORE 4:00pm on Tuesday, December 8th. Go to “Assignments,” then hit “View/Complete” under “Final Digital Narrative.” Only send this through email if you absolutely cannot get Blackboard to cooperate.
- The text elements and CD must be submitted in a manila envelope that has your name clearly printed on the outside. If you do not do so, I am not responsible for lost materials.
- If you put your narrative on YouTube (which all of you should do unless you are using sources that are under copyright) include the URL on your script or cover page. Any images found online should be fair game, but if you did research at Spencer those images are not cleared for “publication” on YouTube.
- MAC USERS: The help menu in iMovie includes instructions for how to upload to YouTube and how to burn to DVD. Click on “Help,” then “iMovie Help,” then “Sharing your video project” to get detailed directions. This can take a while, so be prepared to wait.
- Burn your narrative to CD or DVD as well, since you will want to cover all your bases. Be sure to put your name on the actual disk, not just the CD case/envelope. The PC instructions for this are on the main page of the course webpage; Mac users, use the help feature in iMovie to help you do this.
- Leave yourself plenty of time to record your voiceover (at least an hour). The EGARC lab on the 4th floor of Wescoe has microphones and recording booths that are available to students (these all have Audacity installed). You’ll be reading your script exactly as it is written, minus the footnotes of course.
- It would be wise to save several takes so you don’t have to go back and re-record your narration if something isn’t quite right. I don’t expect these to be professional quality voiceovers, but there shouldn’t be a lot of background noise, coughing sounds/clearing throats, loud static, etc. I need to be able to understand what you are saying, so enunciate and don’t talk too quickly or too slowly.
- There will be a no-tolerance late policy for this final assignment. All late assignments (and that includes late Blackboard submissions too) will receive a 0. There are no exceptions; this ensures that students’ final grades can be posted promptly instead of me waiting around for late papers. Don’t upload your work at the last minute and risk having your project receive a 0 for being late!
GRADING UPDATE
- My goal is to return discussion questions, book reviews, and extra credit assignments on Tuesday. If that doesn’t happen, you will at least receive them by our last class period, on Thursday December 10th.
- Comments on the last round of blog posts will be distributed via email.
PC Instructions for Saving and Burning Your Narrative to CD
December 3, 2009 at 8:26 PM | In Assignments, Helpful Tips, Multimedia | Leave a CommentTags: Assignments, digital narrative
In Microsoft Movie Maker, you can save your project as a .mswmm file by going to “File” then “Save.” This saves it to your computer as a draft, but in order to send the movie through email or burn it to a CD, you must save it as a movie file (.wmv file). These directions are from the help feature in Windows Movie Maker (from a Windows XP machine). The help section also has a troubleshooting feature.
Saving Movie Maker file to CD:
Insert a blank CD into the disc drive. Open your digital narrative file (.mswmm). If for some reason those images have been altered, they may not appear; this can sometimes happen if you have an image saved in one folder and then move it to another folder (in cases like this the computer has trouble locating it).
Go to File –> Save Movie File –> Recordable CD
or
Tasks button –> Finish Movie –> Save to CD
A “Save Movie” wizard will pop up. Enter a file name for your movie (preferably the title of the narrative) and also a name for the CD (preferably your full name or last name). Hit “Next.” The box will then list the specifications for the burn; just follow the recommended settings. It will burn to the CD as a .wmv file. Hit “Next.” Be patient, because it may take a few minutes to complete the burn. On my computer, the disk pops out automatically once the burn is complete. To close the wizard, click “Finish.” Just to be sure that it burned properly, it would be wise to check it on a different computer before you submit your project.
Sending Movie Maker file via e-mail:
Open your project in Movie Maker (it will appear as a .mswmm file). Make sure that all the images are present. Then, follow these directions:
File –> Save Movie File –> Email
or
Tasks button –> Finish Movie –> Send in Email
Either of these will pop up a “Save Movie Wizard” which will automatically start saving your file as a .wmv file. Then, to send your movie as an attachment, click “Next.” If you have Outlook installed on your computer, it should automatically prompt you with a new email message. If your computer does not automatically prompt you, the movie file is still saved on your computer, and you can go to your regular email provider and attach the movie file just as you would normally attach a file. Movie files will be saved automatically in your My Documents –> My Videos folder. Some files will be too large to send via email.
Second Book Review due Thursday, November 12
November 11, 2009 at 8:35 AM | In Announcements, Assignments | Leave a CommentTags: Assignments, book reviews
Remember that if you are writing a book review over Pamela Riney-Kehrberg’s Rooted in Dust, the assignment is due by the beginning of class on Thursday in hard copy AND in the SafeAssign dropbox. It must be submitted both ways in order to ensure that you get full credit; it is in your best interest to upload it anyway, since that way there is incontrovertible proof that you did turn it in on time, in case I lose the hard copy or you forget to give it me.
Late papers (i.e. any papers turned in after class) will be docked one letter grade for each day they are late. So, a paper turned in between 4:01pm on Thursday and 4:00pm on Friday will lose one full letter grade.
If you have any questions, please email me. See one of the previous posts for some suggestions about how to write a history book review.
Announcements for 11/10
November 10, 2009 at 12:50 PM | In Announcements, Assignments | Leave a CommentTags: Announcements, Assignments, book reviews
1. Be sure to start reading Pamela Riney-Kehrberg’s Rooted in Dust. We will be discussing it in class on Thursday, when the book review is due. Pay particular attention to her argument, including the evidences he uses to support this argument and whether or not that evidence supports her interpretation.
2. If you haven’t yet written a book review, you will need to write one on Rooted in Dust. If you wrote a review over The End of Indian Kansas, you can skip this review as long as you’ll be writing a review on Sex in the Heartland. Remember, each student needs to write two book reviews total over the course of the semester.
Writing a Critical Book Review
November 9, 2009 at 5:17 PM | In Announcements, Assignments | Leave a CommentTags: Assignments, book reviews, Helpful Tips
The assignment description for the critical book review assignment is posted under the tab “Assignments.” Be sure to read it carefully and email me if you have any questions.
If you have never written a history book review before, there are a few things to remember. First, a history book review is not the same as a book report; meaning, you must do more than just summarize the book. Second, it is very important that you know what the author is arguing and whether or not they use adequate evidence to support that argument. For other suggestions and guidelines, here are a couple of useful websites:
How to Write a Critical Book Review (by a professor at Carleton College)
On Writing Book Reviews (by a history professor at CUNY)
The second one also has a link at the bottom of the page to a guide for using footnotes. For history papers, you will not be using parenthetical citations (the MLA style) or the APA style. Footnotes look very similar to bibliographic citations–since they include most of the same information–but there are some subtle differences that you should be aware of. They are really easy to use once you get the hang of it. There is a guide to footnotes under the “Class Handouts” tab, but here is an example of a footnote for a plain old, regular book:
1
Donald Worster, Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s, 25th anniv. ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 23.
The “23″ signifies which page I am quoting or paraphrasing (remember that paraphrases must include a citation as well). The rest is self explanatory.
To add a footnote using Microsoft Word, put your cursor at the end of the sentence and outside the quotation marks (if you are quoting). Go up to “Insert” –> “Reference” –> “Footnote.” A box will pop up, and all those fields should be automatically correct, so hit “OK.” Your cursor will then be bumped down to the bottom of the page, where you insert the citation as shown above. When you are ready to resume writing, just put your cursor back up in the text and go!
It sounds complicated, but it is much, MUCH easier to use this feature than to try and add footnotes manually. It is very important that you use the correct citations for your sources, and that you remember that I take plagiarism very seriously. Each quotation must have a footnote immediately following it (right after those quotation marks), and paraphrases must also be acknowledged with a citation (of course, those won’t have quotation marks). For a quick review of how to avoid plagiarism, see the “Straight Talk about Plagiarism” brochure under the “Class Handouts” tab.
Additional Advice for Digital Narrative
October 19, 2009 at 11:41 AM | In Assignments, Helpful Tips | Leave a CommentTags: Assignments, digital narrative, proofreading
Here are some additional clarifications for the digital narrative draft and bibliography that are due tomorrow. Don’t forget to upload them to Blackboard in ONE FILE; you can only upload one file for each assignment so you’ll need to copy and paste everything into one .doc file before you get onto Blackboard. As with other assignments, you’ll need to upload this to Blackboard unless you absolutely cannot get the website to work; then, you can email it to me as an attachment. Also, everyone needs to bring hard copies to class on Tuesday. Late assignments will be docked one full letter grade for each 24-hour period that they are late.
Bibliography: The citations must follow the Chicago style used in the humanities, which was explained on the handout from Texas A&M and also on the handout called “Citing Sources in Your Digital Narrative.” Both can be downloaded on this webpage under the “Class Handouts” tab. Your final bibliography should include at least four print sources (journal articles or books), but for the rough draft you could squeak by with only three. You can also use web resources in your bibliography–as long as those are from credible sites–but those don’t count toward your total of four print sources. Remember too that our “textbook” by Craig Miner can count as one of those print sources since he most likely discusses all of your topics.
Slide List: Your slide list may change between now and the final draft, but I want to see that each of you has thought about composition, how your slides will flow into each other, etc. You don’t need to worry about the actual slide visuals at this point. Your list should include the following information for each slide:
- Slide number (i.e. Slide #1, Slide #2, etc.)
- Title of slide that is descriptive (i.e. “Painting of Wagons on Oregon Trail”)
- Website where you found the slide (i.e. Kansas Memory)
- URL (i.e. http://www.kansasmemory.org/item/201876)
If you are planning on having a quotation as one of your slides, the format would be similar to the above, except that instead of a URL and the website name, you would provide a book/article citation with the exact page that contains that quotation. See the examples in the previous post.
Draft of Script: The draft needs to be at least 3 pages long, and it should be written in complete sentences and paragraphs. The formatting will look pretty much like a paper. You’ll need to include a header (with your name, date, etc.), the title of your narrative, an introduction, etc. Think about it like you would a basic summary paper, except that you’ll want to make sure that you use clear vocabulary since you’ll eventually be reading this aloud. Consider who your audience is: you are writing to me and your classmates–so you aren’t writing for a novice per se–but at the same time you want to be clear and make sure that every sentence in the script serves a purpose. Since the assignment is so short, avoid any filler sentences and don’t ramble or follow tangents.
Try to make this as complete as possible, but it certainly may change between now and the final project. Remember also that a draft does not mean you should turn in sloppy work; you’ll still need to make it look clean and professional, even if some of the content may be shifted around at a later date.
Sample Slide List Citations
October 19, 2009 at 10:41 AM | In Assignments, Helpful Tips | Leave a CommentTags: Assignments, citations, digital narrative
Slide with an image:
Slide #2–Tennessee Town Kindergarten Band
Kansas Memory (http://www.kansasmemory.org/item/2229/page/1)
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Slide with a quotation (this should follow the “footnote” format since you’ll be including the exact page number):
Slide #3–Quotation from William Lloyd Garrison’s The Liberator
Julie Roy Jeffrey, The Great Silent Army of Abolitionism: Ordinary Women in the Antislavery Movement (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998), 24.
Resources for Digital Narrative Assignment
August 22, 2009 at 2:11 PM | In Assignments, Helpful Tips, Websites of Interest | Leave a CommentAs you think about potential topics for your digital narrative, here are some resources to consider as you research:
Kansas History: A Journal of the Central Plains: This scholarly journal, published quarterly, has a number of secondary source articles available online and those not available in a digital format can be found in the library.
Territorial Kansas Online: This digital repository of primary sources includes correspondence, photographs, poetry, songs, speeches, diaries, reminiscences and many other documents relating to Kansas’ territorial period, 1854-1861. The site is searchable and includes a browse A-Z feature.
Kansas Memory: This website created by the Kansas State Historical Society includes primary sources from all periods of Kansas history. The sources are organized according to topical headings called “facets;” layer facets on top of each other to further refine your search. Particularly useful are the “thematic time period” facets. Other notable features are the search box, the bookbag to store sources, and links to the most recently added items.
Blue Skyways: A Service of the Kansas State Library: This website includes information about each town and county in Kansas, local historical societies and museums, transcriptions of published histories of Kansas, the Kansas GenWeb project, and databases for further research (among many others).
Kansas History Online: A website created in part by the Hall Center for the Humanities here at KU, Kansas History Online includes readable secondary sources relating to Kansas history. There are also several other interesting features including a Kansas timeline, bibliographies of suggested readings, Kansas quotes, and a “This Day in Kansas History” feature.
Spencer Research Library: Although the entire catalog for this library (which is located behind Strong Hall) is not available online, some sources can be found through the online catalog by setting search limits. Reference librarians are also happy to answer your questions.
Kansas Collection: The most useful part of this website is the secondary source material, which includes issues of the Kansas Historical Quarterly and a transcription of Cutler’s History of the State of Kansas.
KU History: This website includes short articles about key events, places, and personalities in the university’s past, as well as some photographs.
Examples of Student Blogs
August 21, 2009 at 4:42 PM | In Announcements, Assignments | Leave a CommentHere are a couple examples of student blogs from my Kansas History course in the summer 2008 session. That class only had 25 students, so unlike our course each student had their own individual blog. These should give you some insight into what your own posts should look like; of course, your posts will have to be 100% original so these are just guides to consider.
Alli’s: http://ajones4.wordpress.com/
Jake’s: http://bonzai96.wordpress.com/
Crystal’s: http://cleming.wordpress.com/
Jillian’s: http://jilldes.wordpress.com/
Examples of Digital Narratives
August 20, 2009 at 6:29 PM | In Assignments, Helpful Tips, Multimedia | Leave a CommentFor some examples of digital narratives, see these from my Summer 2008 class, all posted on YouTube.
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Brittani- Quantrill’s Raid on Lawrence
Jillian- Clarina Nichols: A Women’s Rights Activist in Kansas
Kara- Hardships on the Oregon Trail
Brandon- Charles Robinson: The Man Who Held It All Together
Renee- Burning Kansas: The University of Kansas in 1970
Whitney- Architect George P. Washburn
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