New: grades expressed as points on WebCT

I know that my system of weighted averages doesn't get communicated very easily with the WebCT grade book. To make this more transparent, I've translated the percentages into points. I increased the weight of the 6 book essays by 5% so we could keep the 100 point scale i've been using for those assignments. Participation and the Set-up Assignment yielded those extra points.
I've updated the WebCT gradebook to reflect this new system. We're reading 8 books and you're only writing on 6 of them, as you know. But I was too lazy to write a formula that would drop the two lowest paper grades, so the "cumulative" point total says there are "1,200" available points. That isn't correct; the total possible points is still 1,000. If you want to write on all 8 books [or do a Google Earth project] we can just drop the lowest grades by hand.
Let me know if you have questions!

Participation; assessed 3 times @ 40 points each	12%	120
“Set-up” assignment	8%	80
6 book essays worth 100 points each	60%	600
Final essay	20%	200
TOTAL	100%	1000

Chartle.net discussion next week

Last night we didn't have a chance to look at the attractive Chartle images many of you cooked up for us [see below, where I've posted them].

Once we got in class I thought our time would be better spent trying to contextualize the Inikori book. But NEXT WEEK, I'd like to ask the 6 Chartle people to be ready to explain how they think their charts illustrate Inikori's tables.

If you'd like to tinker with the chart and put up a new one, just send me the embed code! For example, you might want to constrain the width of the graphic to about 400 so it will fit in this column. Or you might want to redesign some aspect so the main idea comes out better. Anyone can click on the chart as posted below in this blog and have access to the data and graphics tools.

Class improvements? Summary of 9-28-09 discussion

Here is a summary of my notes and thoughts on the "how is the class working for you" survey. I really appreciated your honest thoughts about the colloquium. I'm putting down my notes here so we can come back in late October and see if anything is "working" better along these lines:

People noted concerns about these issues: [and I'm putting my thoughts about each point in brackets]
a. "Websites," which seemed to be mostly about Zotero.

• it isn't entirely clear why we are using this software [I didn't think to say this last night, but I'd like you to use it to pull together all your citations and your bibliography for the final paper; my goal is to give you command of a tool you could use in many other classes and projects]
  
• we need to use it, or demonstrate its use, more in class [agreed; I'll try to do 2 or 3 more 15-minute demonstrations like the one last night]
  
• some people are having problems getting the software to function [if we sit down together, just the two of us, we can probably figure things out. A couple of folks have already helped me learn more about Zotero by asking me for help]
• [we didn't talk about Diigo or the blog, but I think we could get more out of both these tools if more people were using them. Still, I don't want to overload you with 'tech'.]
  

b. "Class discussion" issues

• vague reading targets for the 'setup day' [We agreed that 50% of the chapters will be 'due' for the 'set-up' day; I'll try to remember to announce this before each new book]
  
• the need to get more people involved in discussion [This was better for Pestana day #2 but then not as good last night, which was Inikori day #1. Inikori is challenging and discussion may flow better after you've written the paper. We'll keep doing the mix of break-out groups with specific tasks and larger discussions. It sounds like "Dr G. calls on people" should be part of the mix as well.]
  

c. papers

• a feeling that the size limit on the paper is constraining. [Easy! If you need to add another page-or-so, do it! Just be sure you edit so the writing is reasonably concise and to-the-point.]
• confusion about the grades because of the way the WebCT is set up. [I have to go in and rationalize the grade book. Coming up ....]

Chartle.net illustrations of Inikori's tables

Here are some of the charts done by our colleagues!
Christopher Woodall

Appendix 9.3




Karen Beasley
Appendix 9.6:
Commodity Composition of Foreign Products exported from England to Americas 1699-1856





Karen Beasley
Combo: Appendices 9.6 and 9.7
Comparative Data of Exports to both Americas and Southern Europe





Matt Winslett



[Matt's chart modified by Dr. G. on Chartle for a width of 410 to fit the blog width a little better]


Jessica Brown


Mylynka Kilgore
Appendix 6.9




Karl Wallace

Three Google Earth Tutorials

Here are three of the screen-cast tutorials I made for GoogleEarth for a previous class. I post them here in case you're considering doing a GoogleEarth presentation on one of our books instead of the usual paper. This will give you some ideas about what the program can do.

TechnoScholar sessions at the UTA library

I encourage you take advantage of the UTA library's workshops on technology. Here are two upcoming sessions and there's a longer list -- that includes a Firefox session in November

Research Newswire: Keeping Current in Your Field using RSS

Tuesday: Sep 22, 2-3:30 pm, Central Library, Rm. B-20

Traditionally, e-mail lists, a handful of publications, and your colleagues have kept you current with what's happening in your field. Now, there are tools that will help you hear about the latest developments. These tools bring you blog entries from academic researchers, news from your field's associations, newly published research articles and more. This session will get you started using RSS for research purposes.

Information on what will be covered: http://libguides.uta.edu/content.php?pid=22684&sid=343932

Search Smarter: Re/searching on the Web

Wednesday: Sep 23, 12-1 pm, Central Library, Rm. B-20

When you use Google are you searching the whole web? Learn how to go beyond the surface and focus on what is relevant to you. We will cover searching the social web, the deep/invisible web and the archived web.

Information on what will be covered: http://libguides.uta.edu/content.php?pid=22684&sid=525569

for next week (Inikori activities)

Just wanted to post the link to Chartle.net for those who didn't get it in class.


And if you can't remember what you put your name down for, for next week, here's the sign-up sheet:
5-minute summary of chapter
Chapter 1.: Brad
Chapter 2: Matt D.
Chapter 6: Kevin
Chapter 7. Ty
Chapter 8. Stephen

Setup: Intellectual biography Stephanie
Historiography: Nate K.

Chartle (email me the 'embed' code)
Christopher
Mylnka
Karen
Jessica
Nate G.
Matthew W.
Karl Wallace

Bring your questions on Pestana tonight -- but bring L&R too

Tonight we'll learn about Pestana and start to talk about this book. But bring your notes on Linebaugh and Rediker's book too -- it will be useful for us to finish up our earlier discussion on the Hydra as we compare the two books.

Don't forget to check out [and join] our Zotero class group!

On-line resources for news of the history profession

If you're interested in working as a history professor in a university, it wouldn't be a bad idea to start keeping up with events in this arena. Here are two useful resources.
InsideHigherEd is a high quality on-line publication that compares well with the esteemed [and expensive] Chronicle of Higher Education. You can get the Chronicle on campus through the UTA databases. But I think Inside is worth subscribing to via a blog reader. For example, they're running an article today on the way that the economy has affected university history departments.

Here's an editorial from last week on the plight of adjunct instructors.

InsideHigherEd got its information on historians from the American Historical Association. If you don't know it, the AHA is the major professional organization for all kinds of historians, and it puts out a monthly magazine, Perspectives on History, as well as the venerable American Historical Review, which you can get through JSTOR.
Perspectives often has good articles on graduate school, job hunting, teaching, history salaries, technology and it is available on-line. It's a good idea to get in the habit of looking at it -- and I'd encourage you to think about joining the AHA in the future.

Class schedule with sign-up names

Date and Topic
9-14 Setup for Pestana
Intellectual bio: Mylynka K.
Important literature in this subfield: Karen B.
Source materials: Matt D.
Everyone else -- bring one sheet of discussion questions, and a copy for me.
9-21 Discuss Pestana

9-28 Setup for Inikori
Intellectual bio: Stephanie M.
Important literature in this subfield: Nate K.
Source Materials: __???_____________
Everyone else -- bring one sheet of discussion questions, and a copy for me.
10-5 Discuss Inikori
Visualizing Inikori’s data using www.Chartle.net

10-12 Columbus Day Setup for Brown
Intellectual bio: Christopher W.
Important literature in this subfield: Stephen R.
Source Materials: Matthew W.
Everyone else -- bring one sheet of discussion questions, and a copy for me.
10-19 Discuss Brown

10-26 Setup for Dubois
Intellectual bio: Brad B.
Important literature in this subfield: Karl W.
Source Materials: Jessica B.
Everyone else -- bring one sheet of discussion questions, and a copy for me.
11-2 Discuss Dubois and alternative readings

11-9 Setup for Lynch
Intellectual bio: Ty Smith
Important literature in this subfield: Kevin S.
Source Materials: Nate G.
Everyone else -- bring one sheet of discussion questions, and a copy for me.
11-16 Discuss Lynch

11-23 Discuss Sidbury
11-30 Discuss Reis
12-7 Final exam period – final paper due on 12-7

Anonymity ....

I forgot to tell you -- in a world where papers are submitted electronically (even under your own log-in) -- it's a good idea to put your last name in the name of your file. After doing this for 10 years it still seems weird to me to name a file on MY computer "Garrigus_Linebaugh.doc" But when I send it to someone else, it makes a lot of sense on his or her computer.

Thanks to everyone from 6337 last fall who remembered!
It's also a good idea to get out of the habit of putting blanks in a file name. On the web those blanks turn into "%20" as in "Garrigus%20Linebaugh". Confusing!

So let's use this easy file-naming protocol for papers from here on out: "YourLastName_LastNameOfAuthor". Example: "Brown_Linebaugh.doc" That'll help me keep track of your work. WebCT puts each of your papers in a separate directory named with your initials, and then zips the whole thing for me to download. You'll save me a few minutes if you can name your files this way!

Using Zotero in our grad class

Those of you who are on our Diigo list have already seen this, but on his blog EdWired T. Mills Kelly of George Mason explains why he is having his graduate class post all their thoughts and bibliographies and notes to Zotero [sound familiar?']
You can access the blog post, entitled "Irony of Ironies", here.