Owens HIST 390

In class today, we set up our Omeka accounts, which we will use to create our soldier’s website. This service is not only free but will be essential in collecting and constructing a visually appropriate representation of our soldier’s life. On this website we will create a timeline of information of our soldier’s wartime efforts and also the life he had lived after he was discharged from the army. We created two more Google doc spreadsheets for this purpose of organizing information on our soldier’s life during and after the army. In addition, we were instructed as to how we can add items to our Omeka account to include an image of the document and necessary and descriptive texts with it.

After class we were asked to add two additional items to our Omeka websites. I choose to add a Physician’s Adjunct and one of the several Muster Rolls that my soldier, Amos Phillips was recorded on. The Physician’s record accounted some of my soldier’s medical trouble and extensive history during and prior to joining the army. This specific document of information was used in Amos Phillip’s pension application. I used Google Docs transcript function to better read my document and found out that the signing physician had been caring for Amos for thirty plus years. This adds credibility to the knowledge he holds of my soldier’s medical history. I also choose to add the first record of Amos Phillips on a Muster Roll for the 44^th infantry because it is the first in a long line of Muster Roll records. Therefore, I will know where to start from and when he was first accounted for and in attendance. My soldier seemed to be absent during several muster roll calls because of medical issues. Now that I have this account set up on Omeka I can start to create my project visually starting from the beginning of Amos Phillip’s service.

This week in class we all took our midterm evaluation. The exam was challenging but I felt satisfied with my responses to the short answer questions. After class we worked on creating a new Google Doc for our civil war soldier research. The research includes important information on our soldiers such as their historical ties to specific dates and events. For the Google Doc we were asked to create columns for the date, place, what was he doing there, and source for every piece of information.

These pieces of information will be key in constructing a more accurate image of our soldiers. These soldiers are more than just the basic information we have been collecting lately such as height, weight, hair color, etc. And not to take away from that information because it is important to best create a physical image of each person. However, I measure the worth of a person in the choices he or she makes and their subsequent actions. In addition, our soldiers have done some remarkable things for our country during this pivotal time of the Civil War. For instance, I recall that someone in my group that also has a soldier from the 44^th Infantry who was responsible for being a drummer boy for the infantry. The image of him and my specific soldier, Amos Phillips, marching through battles and fighting for the unity of our country is amazing. I hope to continue to best create and represent Amos Phillips to a respectable representation.

Today in class, we learned the importance of online security. The content that will all collect and create online is both grand and often sensitive information. We discussed whether or not we each personally archive or back up information from our online matter and devices. We asked about email, contacts, and social media content. Personally, I do not archive emails because I try to keep my inbox as clear as possible so that I can focus on what is time sensitive and important. I didn’t even know that you could archive many of the things we discussed like social media. I guess since I was aware of the ability to do so that that social media is one thing that I don’t archive. Now, in regards to backing up and saving our online information I believe that I save the important things. For example, I am very careful to keep all of my personal and professional contacts of record and saved successfully. This is because once I lost all of my contacts and it is just a hassle to collect them all from each individual person.

Later, we discussed online security and passwords. We learned the importance of not using personal information not only for the actual password but also the security questions. For instance, nowadays it can be relatively easy to retrieve information like a person’s mother’s maiden name, with services and outlets like ancestory.com and Google. Personally, I have a few different passwords that are completely random words that I change with numbers and symbols. I never discuss or share them with anywhere and also they are not written anywhere accessible. However, in regards to the security questions I have answered them before but that is solely out of their necessity to successfully create a password for certain accounts. All in all, I learned a lot of important everyday information from this class meeting.