Luddite

As I've been doing the readings for class this week, I can't help but smirk at the fact that it seems they've been written just for me. I'll admit, it has taken me much longer to get through the online readings than it would have if they were on good ol' fashioned paper. I'm having a hard time processing that my academic resources are entirely online and find myself in a place where I need to do a total overhaul of my reading and studying habits, which is freaking me out a little. Gone is my trusty pen or highlighter, which I have faithfully used to underline important points in readings and write my thoughts and comments in the margins. I'm so thrown off, in fact, that I'm not sure if I should be taking notes at all or if, like the usual material I read online, I'm just supposed to come away from it with whatever my mind chose to retain.

I am a true believer in the points made in the readings about historians needing to interpret new technology and be the connector between the past and the present audience. I also think it's hugely important for the survival of our discipline because the world won't stop becoming increasingly digitized, so if we fail to hop on that train, our knowledge could be confined to a minority of people, when it has the potential to reach mass audiences. That is exactly why I chose this program and why I think it has an edge over the rest. That said, I like books and I miss them.

It's challenging enough coming back to school after four years in the working world and away from this routine. It's even harder to arrive and find that all my previous student skills and experience seem to be in need of a serious update for which I received no auto-notification on my computer screen! I'm just learning that I can't be a history student the way I used to be. Things have changed that much and that fast. Difficult as the initial adjustment period might be, I think this only further illuminates the importance, or perhaps more accurately, the necessity for learning about digital history and what new media has to offer us as historians.