Digital history methods and historical thinking skills

Such a great book – Guiliano’s book opened up the world of digital history to me. Hard to put down. There is no question that we should be teaching critical thinking skills – historical thinking concepts – rather than making our students suffer through the intolerable transmission of cold unrelated facts. The question however is not should we be doing this, but how can we do this. As an…

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Lost, how have you managed to keep your sanity while being in the aot fandom? I'm almost going insane because of all the vitriol, especially on Twitter. I know Twitter isn't the ideal place for fandom experience, but I spend a lot of time there for the fanarts, and I can't seem to avoid the toxic side of it as the algorithm keeps suggesting reposts of people with similar interests (mostly Erwin or Levi or Eruri) about some toxic takes antis have. And, of course, I find myself engaging and making it worse for myself. Should I just block everyone and everything and keep myself sane? 😭

Learning to set boundaries in fandom, or indeed any area of your life, is never easy and it's made all the more difficult by fucked up social media algorithms. I always recommend blocking and muting people who bring drama onto your timeline, but that will only get you so far. You also have to learn how to disengage, to take active steps not to consume content that you know will upset or enrage you. It's very easy to get sucked down the rabbit hole of negativity and outrage, and I'm certainly not immune. Whenever I find myself doing this I try to consciously think "do I really want to spend my precious time reading this bullshit?" The answer is usually no, so I look at the pretty fan art instead. Figuring out what your own boundaries are and learning how to maintain them is critical to navigating not just fandom, but the world at large, and it's a constant practice that requires attention and determination.

I came across a really interesting paper last year in the Association for Psychological Science journal called Critical Ignoring as a Core Competence for Digital Citizens, by Anastasia Kozyreva, Sam Wineburg, Stephan Lewandowsky, and Ralph Hertwig. The abstract alone makes salutary reading:

Low-quality and misleading information online can hijack people’s attention, often by evoking curiosity, outrage, or anger. Resisting certain types of information and actors online requires people to adopt new mental habits that help them avoid being tempted by attention-grabbing and potentially harmful content. We argue that digital information literacy must include the competence of critical ignoring—choosing what to ignore and where to invest one’s limited attentional capacities. We review three types of cognitive strategies for implementing critical ignoring: self-nudging, in which one ignores temptations by removing them from one’s digital environments; lateral reading, in which one vets information by leaving the source and verifying its credibility elsewhere online; and the do-not-feed-the-trolls heuristic, which advises one to not reward malicious actors with attention. We argue that these strategies implementing critical ignoring should be part of school curricula on digital information literacy. Teaching the competence of critical ignoring requires a paradigm shift in educators’ thinking, from a sole focus on the power and promise of paying close attention to an additional emphasis on the power of ignoring. Encouraging students and other online users to embrace critical ignoring can empower them to shield themselves from the excesses, traps, and information disorders of today’s attention economy.

I don't know if that helps Anon, but I hope you find a way to continue enjoying fandom while avoiding the worst of its excesses.

To give a little explanation for my poll answer ("I feel least connected with the past when studying history"), history was ALWAYS presented as a story of people who we've surpassed in every way.

Elementary school was about the pilgrims who laid the basic foundation for our complex society (which is wrong, obv, but mostly wrong because the pilgrims are an endlessly fascinating bunch that didn't just materialise for the sole purpose of founding the US)

Middle school is about all those idiots who couldn't stop warring over some dumb king or bigotry (rather than, you know, explaining why an intelligent person would choose to kill and die for the monarch)

High school was about the people of the last century that we are much better than, and how bigotry looks exactly like X and by not doing X we are not bigoted

College? You guessed it! A nuanced look into the benighted, miserable lives of peasants and how they eventually discovered democracy and science.

AND THEN I started reading books by historians after college, and learning that people back then had fully functioning brains, complex societies, 24 hours in a day to fill, and ample love for their family and friends. And it makes me wonder why it took that long!

thank you for sharing this answer! it was really insightful.

you’re definitely not alone—progressist narratives (that is, the idea that humanity is always and inexorably improving) are really common. if you’re interested in hearing about some of the ways we’re trying to change the way we teach history in school, can i recommend sam wineburg’s why learn history when it’s already on your phone?

No, you’re not that good at detecting fake videos − 2 misinformation experts explain why and how you can develop the power to resist these deceptions

Are you sure you know what that emotionally jarring video clip really shows? F.J. Jimenez/Moment via Getty Images by Sam Wineburg, Stanford University and Michael Caulfield, University of Washington Someone tracking the conflict raging in the Middle East could have seen the following two videos on social media. The first shows a little boy hovering over his father’s dead body, whimpering in…

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August/September Reads

Nonfiction

Why Learn History by Sam Wineburg-3/5

The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787 by Gordon Wood-4/5

Fiction

Emma by Jane Austen-5/5

The Forever War by Joe Haldeman-3/5

The Maze Runner by James Dashner-2/5

The Tale of the Unknown Island by Jose Saramago-2/5

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead-2/5

Arsenic and Old Lace by Joseph Kesselring-4/5

King Henry IV, Part 1 by William Shakespeare-5/5

The Wrath and the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh-2/5

Comics

Detective Comics (1937) #561-567

Batman (1940) #395-399

Crisis of Infinite Earths (1985) #1-10

"Forest Gump, Robert Zemeckis, 1994. (Critical Resources).

Nicole Daniels

There are many varying opinions about Forest Gump, most finding it a substantial and wonderful layout of historical events through the eyes of a “simple man.” Although Forest’s involvement in the timeline of events is fictional, it is a wonderful way to make simple huge issues, making the average viewer potentially understand the gravity of these events in a more subtle way. However, scholarly article authors of Gale Academy Onefile have a different, more adverse opinion of the film. Gale academy states that, “...the notion that all these sources form a coherent whole mocks the complexity of social life. Historical consciousness does not emanate like neat concentric circles from the individual to the family to the nation and to the world.” Regarding the simplicity as a “mockery” of the complexity of the historical issues. I disagree, but understand the point being made. My feeling is that Forest is a marker for every person, the idea that all were affected by these events, and I found it a fantastic way to paint this picture.  

A monumental sporting scandal happening the year of the release of “Forest Gump was, (as the people of history homepage remembers,) “Tonya Harding [won] the national Figure Skating championship title but [was] stripped of her title following an attack on her rival Nancy Kerrigan.” This was a major event of the time and if viewed through the eyes of one person, (Forest Gump,) as the other historical events in this film were I can see how it may seem a reduced or watered-down version of what happened to Nancy Kerrigan. In this sense I can understand the previous view stated above from Gale of Onefile. There was a film made about this event called “I, Tanya,” which looked at this event through the eyes of the historical antagonist, (Tanya Harding,) which was an interesting approach. Below is the People of history article.  

¿Son capaces los estudiantes de hoy de discernir la información de calidad de la falsa en Internet? Casi el 96% no supo identificar la vinculación de un sitio web con un partido tendencioso

Breakstone, Joel, Mark Smith, Sam Wineburg, Amie Rapaport, Jill Carle, Marshall Garland, y Anna Saavedra. «Students’ Civic Online Reasoning: A National Portrait». Educational Researcher 50, n.o 8 (1 de noviembre de 2021): 505-15.

¿Son capaces los estudiantes de hoy de discernir la información de calidad de la falsa en Internet? Casi el 96% no supo identificar la vinculación de un sitio web con un partido tendencioso

Breakstone, Joel, Mark Smith, Sam Wineburg, Amie Rapaport, Jill Carle, Marshall Garland, y Anna Saavedra. «Students’ Civic Online Reasoning: A National Portrait». Educational Researcher 50, n.o 8 (1 de noviembre de 2021): 505-15. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X211017495. ¿Son capaces los estudiantes de hoy de discernir la información de calidad de la falsa en Internet? En la mayor investigación…

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When critical thinking isn’t enough: to beat information overload, we need to learn ‘critical ignoring’

As the philosopher and psychologist William James astutely observed at the beginning of the 20th century: “The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to ignore.” #FutureOfWork

Ralph Hertwig, Max Planck Institute for Human Development; Anastasia Kozyreva, Max Planck Institute for Human Development; Sam Wineburg, Stanford University, and Stephan Lewandowsky, University of Bristol The web is an informational paradise and a hellscape at the same time. A boundless wealth of high-quality information is available at our fingertips right next to a ceaseless torrent of…

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Google examines how different generations handle misinformation

Fundamentally, the analyze concludes that young men and women are extra most likely to believe they may perhaps have unintentionally shared false or deceptive information—often pushed by the strain to share emotional content rapidly. Even so, they are also a lot more adept at using innovative reality-examining methods. 

 1-3rd of Gen Z respondents mentioned they apply lateral looking at constantly or most of the time when verifying information—more than double the proportion of boomers. About a third of youthful people today also mentioned they run lookups on many lookup engines to examine final results, and go previous the very first web page of research benefits. 

 Portions of the survey present an intriguing snapshot of how folks of distinct ages, and in different places, knowledge misinformation and think about their individual purpose in stopping or spreading it: 62% of all respondents believe they see misinformation online every single week, for instance. Gen Z, millennial, and Gen X audience are far more confident in their potential to location misinformation and far more worried that their near relatives and buddies could imagine a little something misleading on line. 

 Even so, the review depends on contributors to precisely report their own beliefs and patterns. And the optimistic figures about Gen Z’s genuine behaviors distinction very starkly with other findings on how folks verify facts on the web. 

 Sam Wineburg, a Stanford College professor who experiments fact-examining practices, thinks he is aware of why that may well be: when you are making an attempt to comprehend how folks truly behave on the online, “self-report,” he suggests, “is bullshit.”

https://socialwicked.com/google-examines-how-different-generations-handle-misinformation/

A diminishing respect for the truth

A diminishing respect for the truth

Have we become nostalgic for a time when it was simpler to discern what information possesses credibility? Yes, I think so, but at the same time with so many different forms of information out there it has become more of a challenge to judge what represents a trustworthy source. There is no rulebook here. No one is going to guide you through the miasma of fake news. These trends along with…

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"The study of history should be a mind-altering encounter that leaves one forever unable to consider the social world without asking questions about where a claim comes from, who’s making it, and how time and place shape human behavior."

- "Why Study History" by Sam Wineburg

How I Read in 2 ways: Ignorance is Bliss and Research is Key

I read in two distinctly different ways in this digital age. When I purchase a book for myself -- usually fiction, but really anything -- truly for myself to read, to be nourished by: I don’t want to know anything about it. About the author, about the volume. It is something I did for me, this book, and I purchased it for no better reason than to open my own mind in some way. 

When I look up stuff on the Internet, on the other hand, I want to know every little bit of backstory. I want to know who wrote what I am reading, and who hired that person to write it. I want to know what other people say about that person, and about that publisher/vessel/format. I want to go down all sorts of mental alleys of what it would be like to write for that publisher, and what else they publish, and I want to read the books that other people writing about that author recommend. I want context, context, context. Even for a non work-related guilty-pleasure read. 

Has the Internet destroyed my sense of belief in prose? Or is this a new reading pleasure in an of itself? Is the sleuthing, or what the Standford Education Research Group calls “Lateral Reading” the latest pleasure in reading -- albeit an ascetic one.

Example A -- the book I bought for myself today, and about which (the author, etc) I prefer NOT to research at all for now. Damn, it reads like a house afire after only the first chapter:

Example B, a screenshot of the video by Stanford:

The studies Stanford conducted are pretty scary. Read about them, or read the document itself.

Wineburg, Sam and McGrew, Sarah and Breakstone, Joel and Ortega, Teresa. (2016). Evaluating Information: The Cornerstone of Civic Online Reasoning. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at: http://purl.stanford.edu/fv751yt5934

¿Qué son las FAKE NEWS?

Se trata de noticias que se crean deliberadamente aun sabiendo que que no son ciertas, normalmente son creadas con la finalidad de perjudicar a otras personas, y en muchas ocasiones hay detrás intereses lucrativos o políticos.

Según Sam Wineburg, (profesor de historia en la Universidad de Stanford) siempre han existido y van a existir las noticias falsas, pero la mayor diferencia es que "en el pasado eran reproducidas en periódicos o en papeles que circulaban de mano en mano" y "hoy día, una noticia falsa se puede viralizar en un instante. Las redes sociales permiten un alcance enorme. Además, hay más productores de información".

Why Google can’t save us

How the Internet can contribute to thoughtful citizenship rather than lead to its demise

Bloomsburg University, in collaboration with VIA Public Media, will host “Conversations for the Common Good” on Thursday, March 5, at 6 p.m. in Carver Hall, Gross Auditorium. 

The subject of the lecture and interactive conversation will be “Why Google Can’t Save Us: How the internet can contribute to thoughtful citizenship rather than to its demise,” by Sam Wineburg, the Margaret Jacks Professor of Education at Stanford University. The event is free and open to the public.

Wineburg will consider civic responsibility and the internet: how to use it responsibly, and how to judge between legitimate and irresponsible sources of information found there. He will propose antidotes to the impulsive thinking and premature judgment that too frequently characterizes contemporary American public discourse.

Wineburg was educated at Brown and Berkeley and holds a doctorate in psychological studies in education from Stanford and an honorary doctorate from Sweden's Umeå University. Wineburg heads the Stanford History Education Group, whose curriculum and assessments have been downloaded seven million times, making it one of the largest providers of free curriculum in the world. Wineburg's scholarship sits at the crossroads of three fields: the psychology of teaching and learning, history, and education, and his articles have appeared in such diverse outlets as Cognitive Science, Journal of American History, Smithsonian Magazine, Washington Post, USA Today and the Los Angeles Times.

“Conversations for the Common Good” is an interdisciplinary, university and community-wide movement linking Bloomsburg University students, staff, faculty, and administrators, plus community partners and the general public in a single goal: to invest time, talent, and resources to promote dialogue that unites, and bridges seemingly vast divides, within the community it serves.

history resource pack: historical theory and method (or history books about history)

so what is historical theory and historical method?

historical theory refers to the exploration of the nature of history and evidence. specifically it concerns issues around objectivity, accuracy, and questions of bias.

historical method is the practice of history including techniques and guidelines by which historians use evidence to research and write about the past. historiography is the study of how historians have studied a specific topic using particular sources, techniques, and theoretical approaches.

list of books about historical theory and method:

Evans, Richard J. In Defense of History. W.W. Norton, 2000.

This book is about how history is read, written, and researched in the postmodern age. Evans covers a wide range of topics from questioning whether there is such thing as objective fact to causation, sources, and morality. I definitely recommend this book!

Turabian, K. L. A manual for writers of research papers, theses and dissertations, 7th edn. Chicago, 2007.

This book is an absolute essential! This book not only covers the technical aspects of citations, but also includes an additional section from other editions that provides step-by-step help for people who might be new to doing historical research. It is a little lacking on writing style, but is great for providing technical information about structure, citations, and the process of writing.

The Chicago manual of style, 16th edn (Chicago, 2010).

Chicago is the citation style used by historians and understanding it is very very important! You’ll likely get to the point where you’ve memorized the basic structure of books and articles, but for the more complicated sources (cartoons? advertisements?) it is really helpful to flip through the guide and figure out what to do and it is definitely more reliable than just googling it.

Green, A. and K. Troup (eds), The houses of history: a critical reader in twentieth-century history and theory. Manchester, 1999.

I haven’t personally read this book (yet… I’ll be reading it for a class next semester), but it is the required book for my college’s Historical Methods course which is a required research course of history majors. It focuses on different schools of thought which have had the greatest influence on the study of history.

Tosh, J. The pursuit of history: aims, methods and new directions in the study of modern history, 5th edn. Harlow, 2010.

This book is a great introduction to the historical discipline! It is especially good on addressing biases in history and how best to approach historical sources. I really recommend it for college history students.

Loewen, James W. Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong. Touchstone, 2007.

This book is slightly different from the rest, but I included it because I’m super interested in the way history is taught in school and why it’s taught the way it is. This book compares multiple American history textbooks assigned in public schools in the US (including the book I used for American history in high school) and analyzes the way history is taught. Definitely less focused on academia, but still an interesting read and he does go into some depth on the historiography of the periods he covers.

Wineburg, Sam. Why Learn History (When It’s Already on Your Phone). University of Chicago Press, 2018. 

This brand-spankin’ new book is next on my to read list! Again, it’s more focused on the teaching of history in the modern era and the issues in the way history is taught in public schools. It seems to be less of a historiographic approach than Loewen’s book, but personally I think that how history is taught is a huge issue right now (especially in the United States) and I’m super excited for what this book has to offer.

If you all know any more essential books about historical theory, method, or about how history is taught, let me know! These are just books I’ve read (or will be reading soon) in my college career so far and are good starting points for studying historical theories and methods 😊