Reflection... What an Iguana does best!

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel… Except Plaza Midwood doesn’t have a tunnel. (Maybe they could have used one under the railroad tracks on Central. That would have changed the area’s history!) The Plaza Midwood project draws to a close on Thursday with our final presentation of our online exhibit, From the Miracle Mile to Plaza Midwood. So how was the experience of researching and building an Omeka.net exhibit as a group? What did we learn about Plaza Midwood and its context within Charlotte?

...if her web writing had a diet, it would eat A LOT of steak!

Or maybe just not.  I am an iguana, after all.  No meat here!

Academic writing can be so staid and boring.  Especially if you don't really have a lot of interest in what you're reading. Some classmates and I were having a discussion about our theses the other night during a peer review session.  They mentioned that, despite the fact that they would never really care about my topic for their own research, they liked what I wrote.  Apparently, my enthusiasm about public transportation in Charlotte is fun to read.  One of them noted that they could hear my voice speaking the words as they read the paper. But is this an accurate portrayal?  These classmates know me, so familiarity would seemingly incline their opinion of my writing to be more favorable.

This makes me wonder--what is enjoyable reading?  Is it writing aimed at mass audiences on the web?  Or is it concisely-penned prose, regardless of its medium of publication?  I think we can all agree that clear, gramatically-correct writing is best.  However, what about style?

...the ease of digital access could make us dumber--or not.

I Wrote Them Down in My Diary

I think of this line from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade often.  Unlike the elephant, I forget.  My iguana mate teasingly calls me his "little goldfish," playing off that animal's 3-second memory span.  I am the worst at remembering the title and author of a book I just read.  The ability to quickly Google that information, however, allows my seeming incompetence to quickly be reversed.  I've become very good at looking up information because of this.

...that Twitter is a tool for education, but not the strongest.

Beyond Bieber: Twitter improves student learning (Michigan State news release)

Christine Greenhow, an assistant professor of education at Michigan State, thinks so.  In Twitteracy: Tweeting as a New Literary Practice, she determines that "college students who tweet as part of their instruction are more engaged with the course content and with the teacher and other students, and have higher grades."

...she didn't know Zotero has been around so long!

But this nice article by Daniel J. Cohen made me wonder, "Why didn't I know about this before?"

I blogged about my discovery a few weeks ago.  But Cohen presents other way that this useful tool may enhance historical scholarship.

...that she has a dirty little secret.

Writing has never been FUN for me.  I do it because I have to.  I needs be, I can sit and pound out a blog entry or research paper.  But I can honestly say that I have never sat down and wrote something because it was simply fun.

Now, that being said, everything in this blog by David Voekler is absolutely correct.

...the Wikipedia is okie dokie (sometimes)!

I am a rabid user of Wikipedia.  Want to find out some random factiod?  CTRL + T, en.wikipedia.org, type it in, and tada!  Knowledge!

But like any resource we use, it must be evaluated and parsed.  I find Wikipedia to be generally reliable.  The only issues I hear of completely erroneous information are usually pages of political figures or celebrities.