This fall semester I took a class in order to fulfill part of my credit. Not having many expectations, I just wanted to pass the class. However, that would change. Digital history, or HIST 390 at George Mason University was a fun interactive class that allows students to learn through fun assignments, like TimeineJS. We also had many interesting readings that helped us learn. Digital History
TimelineJS is an application that allows people to make interactive, clean timelines. It is also very to use for anyone. It is an application that all ages can use. You enter links through an excel sheet and a description and out comes a beautiful date of your timeline, that viewers can click through. Presenting historical information became fun to do. My timeline was about the history of basketball. I started out with in the creator in James Naismith, to where the NBA recently celebrated its 75th year university.
Over the semester, digital history was about using fun interactive tools to showcase a certain historical moment or period. TimelineJS was no different. It was the perfect assignment to summarize digital history. It showed me that history can be fun. Another history class would have us reading from textbooks and memorizing random historical dates. However, this class makes us the teacher and makes us present information. For me, learning through teaching was much more efficient than me scrolling through a textbook.
While we did have readings, the professor picked readings that were interesting and benefited us. Most classes have readings that usually long and do not help us with the materials in the class. Digital history is different. Like the reading, “The History of the Web.” Published by CERN. It is a very informative reading about the short history of the web. Starting with its creator in Tim Berners-Lee. It has eye drawing graphics that help keep the reader interested. This article is what digital history is. Fun and interactive that makes learning easy for students.
One of the assignments we had over the semester is the blogs. Blogs are interesting because they are not the typical conventional writing. Compared to other traditional long writings that professors assign students, blogs are unique. Blogs have their own style, different format, and different diction. It is much more personal and allows the writer to express themselves. One blog I liked was our first one. The prompt was to pick a historical piece of news. I picked an incident that happened in the NBA, where a massive brawl occurred.
I was able to write about my own personal connection to basketball and why it means so much to me. Also, about the injustice that occurred following this brawl. How the players were targets of slander from different news outlets. Writing the blogs were refreshing, they were a change from the usual 1000+ words papers. Overall digital history was an interactive class that helped me learn information better than most other classes. The professor was also very patient and always willing to help. She cared for her students. I would recommend it for future students.
