For this blog post I decided to use a text analysis tool to compare what politicians say when dealing with Irish sovereignty. I decided to look at all the Dail debates on the treaty as well as a selection of Dail excerpts from leading politicians from November 2010.

The reason I have chosen November is I believe it is a very dark month in our history where calamity and confusion are the order of the day. The Fine Fail led coalition government have led this country to a collapse where our fought Independence has been sold out.

I am first going to analyze the three Dail debates and see what common words are used. I will then compare this to what modern day politicians are saying in relation to the crisis that is currently occurring,

From the Dail debate from

14 December



19 December;



7 January




Looking at the three debates together one can get a picture of what issues are being raised. "Irish People and the Republic are the most common themes being argued in the debates.

Now we turn our attention to the modern era and see how people are commenting on the current economic crisis.

The first account is from a speech made by An Taoiseach Brian Cowen regarding financial stability.




The next item is taken from the a blog post entitled ' Irelands last day of independence'





As is clear when looking at the different examples the majority of the speeches are dominated by 'ireland' republic. people. It is fair comment for the modern day journalist to see this handing over of out fiscal independence to the IMF as a handing over of our total independence.

A Historians tool.

A great line depicting the state of mass media. 'see mass media as reflecting not a world out there, but the practices of those having the power to determine the experience of others'.

Newspapers are a vital tool for the historian. As this article discusses how reliable are they? Bias and commercialization all have a role in the words we read on the page, The argument that what we read is simply the editors view on an issue can be strongly supported but hard facts cannot be disputed.

Using the newspaper as a source can be a gamble but as this article continuos to say is that a broad examination of newspapers in needed to look at a specific event. Thus eliminating the viewpoint of one specific editor and incorporating the ideals of others to formulate a hypothesis of the event being reported.

In order to support the validity of the report it would require a study of other sources on the event such as police reports government reports and stats.

This is a very informative article detailing extremely well the method used when taking newspapers as a source. The problems that are encountered such as what papers to select and what issues to be looked at to method used in collating the data all are easily picked up.

One issue I have in reading the article is that it is a very long winded and tries to back up the arguments immensely. Don't get me wrong it is a very informative piece and very useful but a simple bit of editing and it would work wonders.

I found the article online and here it is for anyone out there wanting to know how to properly use newspapers as a historical source

The Press as a source of socio-historical data.

Photo editing

Right its time to start editing pictures. Im gonna try and use two different tools out of curiosity and just to see which one is user friendly. I opened Sumo paint and worked around with all the various colour changes. I found it very easy to use but I was going in blind and just playing around with the colour of the picture.

The first picture I used was of a photo of the old Bandon Railway station. I took it on a very wet and dark day so the picture is cold( reflecting the feeling that day) I tried to warm the picture up but only the red brick came out and the tarmac remained cold. I then tried to clear the picture but it just did not work out for me.

Here is the original photo

And here is my attempt at warming it up

The Photo editor automatically cut the picture as you see above. I left it as it because I did not want the sky to be seen.

The next photo I took was from a book detailing the history of Patrick Street in Cork. It is of the Fr Mathew stature taken early in the 1900s.

My aim for this photo is to be able to get more clarity from the photo. I also took a picture of the statue as it is today just for the sake of viewing what is still the same from the same angle.

It took a while for the Adobe photoshop trial to download. So as I waited I looked around to see what all the fus was with photoshop. Pretty interesting stuff. I used Final Cut Pro last year for a project we had in college. I editing a 30 second ad and found messing around with the buttons to be great just as long as i saved the previous material. With FCP as with ant editing software it takes time to get to grips with what the software can do. A lot of experimenting is needed

I tried using photoshop but will need more time than I can afford in order to understand what it can do.

Clashnafree 1911 Census

A very interesting but time consuming task. Trying to get all the details in the right cell with the right people was a tack. All these different lines had my eyes going hazy. But I eventually got the information in. Now the next task was to calculate the data.......Clicking here there and everywhere. Break, cup of tea back again and same luck.

I got one column calculated but every time I went to the next to calculate it came up as error. Another attempt and again the same story.

Then I went to look at the difference between the 1901 and 1911 census. There are interesting changes such as new members to the street and deaths of family members. What is more interesting though is there are fewer numbers living on the street and information on house given in the 1901 census is not found in the 1911.  Reasons for this can only be guessed but death in some cases are very strong as the occupants were of old age.

The majority of the people employed on the street continue to be laborers and some a minority have private servants.

The literacy rate of the street is some what alarming. In two families children under 12 cannot read and some have no literacy at all. Considering that children received free primary education under the British government.

All in all this task was a challenging one. It was very time consuming and for a first time user of excel took a bit of getting used to.

Zotero 'a handy ol tool'

My God why haven't I heard of these kinds of technologies before now. The simplicity is the key to Zotero . Previously I was searching through the internet looking at items of interest for my thesis and just downloading them and saving them. Now with one click they are all organized into one complete area where I choose where it is saved and what name it is under.

I really like the fact that all the different items can be saved in individual folders. What makes it worthwhile for me though is that there is no need for external memory key or printing it off as it is all saved online.

The one downfall to Zotero is it is only available on Firefox. I mostly work off a Mac and safari is my choice of browser but I could look at safari as my playground and Firefox as my classroom. I need some discipline.

Now that I have been introduced to Zotero I shall be using it indefinitely when researching. Any item of interest can be saved and read through ally at a later date while I continue on my quest to gather as much information as possible.

Web Logs and Online Discussions as Tools to Promote Reflective Practice

The myth that a teacher is simply put in the room to dictate to students who reel off what was said not taught in an exam situation is not a myth at all. It is fact.

The above picture highlights how the internet has taken over our lives. But why is this a bad thing? The article that I have read concentrates on how we are using the internet and blogging as a tool for teaching. Making the material more accessible and creating an easier forum for student to contact teachers and vice a versa.

I agree with the suggestion that the blogs would aid the student more. Whatever the student writes and posts online in an open forum they are writing for an audience thus encouraging them more to learn more and produce a clear and informative post. Im doing it right now

Threads Vs Blogs is one of the debates being put forward. I can honestly say that having taken part in both forms I feel that blogs are easier for the student and teacher. At a simple level the lay out is far more readable and commenting on the one blogs post is simple. As opposed to threads we had a class of 35 and all were expecting to write on the thread. Some were new to the technology and posted new threads and reposted and it ended up being a very messy affair. Both systems did achieve its goal  the students were corresponding with each other. But , I feel, the blog is a far easier method of achieving this aim

It is only a matter of time before the use of technology becomes central to education. The use of blogging and threads posted on the internet as a public or private information will occur more frequently and over a broad range of subjects. In universities it will be easier to implement but the real challenge will come in secondary schools where the teachers are tied by objectives of the curriculum. A new approach has to be adopted by the government in order to stay one step ahead and give the children of this country a better quality of education.

The Amateur in the Operating Room: History and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

Advancements in the field of teaching has only come about in the early 90s when groups realized the need for a systemic approach to teaching rather then a hap hazard teaching style where no clear direction was understood and teachers were left alone. These teachers oblivious to the other teaching styles that were occurring in the room ext door were left to teach the only way they knew how.

The idea of proposing questionaries to first year students in semester one of college on their idea of history is a fantastic tool that would help faculty determine how bad the student body is and what steps to take to change this. No doubt popular culture history will dominate the results but these results would be invaluable in designing a course that would maximize the understanding between teacher and student. A class simply on how to read primary and secondary texts would be a huge help to the incoming student. I did not receive this help until my 4th and final year in college.

The gulf that exists between the teacher and student is evident with how reading of texts occurs. For students to understand primary documents they have to abandon all they know of the modern world and read blind. For many student they are taught what the primary document read and never how to read it for themselves

The argument that the history text in schools are becoming just a learning item rather then a book where the student can take information, interpret it and come up with his/her own opinion on the issue. I agree completely with this point as having completed history for Leaving Cert the texts we used were simple books of information that we learned off. Going from line to line highlighting dates and names and coloring all other information around it.

For my first year in university history this method was still being used by me as it was the only method i knew.

There simply has to be a complete turnaround in the method of teaching history if we are to really get the full value of student interpretations of information of the past. History in the primary and secondary level of education is crying out for proper investigation. Students should not have to rely on their teacher to give them information rather the teacher should be a guide on how to obtain the information.

Introduction

Hello hello,

Is mise Conail and welcome to my blog.

A bit about me. From Innishannon co Cork completed my BA in History and Media in Mary I in Limerick. Yep they have an Arts course not just for teachers. My undergrad thesis was on education and the role religion played. It was an oral history project fun doing the interviews not the transcribing. What got me interested in the whole area of religion was basically the massive influence the catholic church had on every aspect of life in the 1950s and the breaking of these chains in some areas in the 1960s.

To look at the effect that the catholic church had on people have a look at this.


Archbishop McQuaid


If one man can ignite such anger in another there has to be a lot to investigate.



On another note I set up a facebook page for MA students in History. Help us keep in contact such as finding someone who might have that book and class parties.

Heres the link: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=117483978307812