It has been a little while since I have shared my course progress and it now being reading week, I figured I would catch everybody up on what I have been up to. For our Interactive Exhibit Design Course, my fellow historians and I have become immersed in a world that is very foreign to us. Instead of trolling through musty archives and searching for that ever elusive long lost manuscript, my classmates and I have been exploring the world of Processing and becoming best friends with the little Arduino microcomputer. How might this technical knowledge aid us in the historical field?
For one, I am not sure if this technical information will ever be directly related to our work in the historical field. However I am positive that this course has forced all of us to think creatively, to try and understand information alien to our subject and in general made us stronger thinkers overall. One can never know what surprises (pleasant or not) lay ahead in our professional careers. The only positive assurance is that we will always need to adapt to our environment around us. For the 21st century, this means constantly keeping up with technology. Historians are always slow movers and shakers (it's our nature not to look forward after all!) but we cannot afford to be for any longer. Controlling a LED light on a breadboard using Arduino code will not transform me into the next Foucault. But my ability not only to adapt to changing environments, but to tackle unknown problems head on without reserve will serve me greatly in the world within and beyond academia. It provides my classmates and I with real world skills that cannot be developed in the archives. Troubleshooting, critical and creative thinking and the ability to try something new and different are what is being taught weekly in this course!
To check out some of the projects me and my classmates have worked on please refer to my Interactive Exhibit Design Website. There have been some pitfalls in learning new skills, new technology and its languages. Historians again are not the most tech savvy but with the help of our instructor Bill Turkel, we are getting much more comfortable with potentiometers, servos, arduinos and so much more. Tune into the next blog where I let you in on my idea for my exhibit. If there are any hockey fans, I suggest you play close attention because this is going to be great!
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