Thursday 6 December 2012

Googling my way through world archaeology

I am faced with a dilemma stemming from some teaching opportunities early next year that need preparing already in December if I want to get through everything. However, different educational providers require a certain number of learners to enrol onto the courses so I am well accustomed to a plethora of cancellations. After all, the times harsh and economy stretched. However, this time around there is a fair possibility that one or two courses actually will happen and thus I have to prepare the most obvious one or the one that has most ‘recycling potential’. Naturally, this all is on top of any other duties, such as finishing different articles having deadlines early next year, checking any proofs landing on my way and trying to make progress in long-term publication projects.

Luckily, drafting the skeletons of lectures is quicker than ever before. I still have a pile of paper prints and slides I took in the late 1980s and early 1990s before the dominance of digital photography with the idea that they may be useful when preparing lectures. During those times you arranged slides from your collection to the carousel or similar and used an overhead projector in order to present the bullet points of your presentation. Some of my collection has been scanned but every now and then I have to return to those slides. Nevertheless, now one can collect photographs with the aid of Google from different sources and museum collections have wonderful archives as well. Many museums have a lot of information on many core subjects and academia.edu is full of the latest articles from different scholars. If one have an idea, it is easy to check part of the facts and collect photos for one’s presentation.

Some resources are better than others:

And for a quick check of the fact before consulting our home library or a proper library, Encyclopedia Britannica is reliable, unlike Wikipedia.

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