Rio @ EDUCAUSE--Time, Space & History

Session presented by Edward L. Ayers, Dean of Grad School of Arts and Sciences, Univ. of Virginia and
William G. Thomas, II, Professor of Humanities, Dept. of History, Univ. of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Earnestine Harrison attended this session with me.

Rating: Excellent.
This session was superior to the opening Keynote—and could have been a Keynote that would have been very informative.

How can we show history? Here is one of the best representations according to many:

http://www.napoleonic-literature.com/1812/1812.htm

It may be like a weather map. Climate is what we expect--weather is what we get--Mark Twain
How do we show the weather?

History lets us use time to “retrodict” why things happened. Just like the scientific data after a hurricane, history can help explain other things. History helps us to map time. We can map space--but we have not been so good at mapping time. These are ideas, prototypes, wire-frames of how to map time and space.

History may be a shattered mirror of time. Can we put the mirror back together and understand individual, family, and community experiences?
The Emancipation Project and the Southern History Database (Southern Mosaic) Team Assignments are examples of these displays of data:

http://www.vcdh.virginia.edu/EP2/matrix.html
http://www.vcdh.virginia.edu/SHD/assignments.html

The goal is to add visuals and graphics to throw things off-balance--to create more creative tension--to mix things up.

How do we create a four dimensional historical atlas?
Railroads "annihilated space and time" in the 1800s--people moved faster than they could view or perceive--things moved faster.
We have a networked information system that has the potential of integrating representations—railroads can be related to migration of slaves, migration of the blues, movement of labor, purchase of slave labor by railroads, etc.
http://railroads.unl.edu/

Project Aurora—is a tool that is an attempt at an integrated, digital archive that connects views or digital representations across collections, etc.—that displays in four dimensions. The model is based on weather forecasting and drought prediction across the Great Plains. Those technologies can be applied to Railroad events that have been entered by students into a database that have accompanying historical documents that have are available in full-text. Drag the magnifying glass across the page to see the progression of railroads at this link: http://railroads.unl.edu/tools/eventsmap/

There has not been a concern for capturing time over the web. The web is two dimensional—but could be four dimensional. The tools are not perfect, but they are the best we have so far. The past can be seen in new ways.

Here is the answer to my question:

Students enter data into a pre-created database—each student goes to the special collections library and archives—to find, transcribe and then create 10 word documents, following a style sheet, and are entered and mediated into the database. That data is then used for the final papers—so students depend upon each others data collection and quality. Students develop a new set of skills—that they describe as the hardest thing they have ever done, but that they would recommend it to others. It creates a “productive anxiety” on the part of students.

These new data points make us look at history in a different light.
Rio Application/Brainstorming: