Rubric!

It is difficult for me to do this blog simply because so much of our rubric is specific to the assignment guidelines (e.g. is applicable to the class).

This is our rubric. I hope it shows up ok. I didn't know how else to get it in here. Anyways, the online site that I chose to take a look at is here: http://maam.culturasalta.gov.ar/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1&Itemid=2

It is the Museum of High Altitude Archaeology, and was created to display the Llullaillaco Children, the three of the child mummies discovered.

SO, here we go!

For Topic Choice I would have to give this page an excellent! I like the topic, and think that it is interesting, but this is one of the categories in our rubric that really relate to the class, so even if they hadn't done well here, it would not necessarily have been a reflection on the website.

For Overall Appearance, I would give the site a high satisfactory. While the site is visually pleasing, it isn't that creative. More could have been done to spice it up.

For Content I give the site an excellent. The material is good, and presented in a good way. There don't seem to be any errors in the information, and it is all relevant to the Llullaillco find. Also, I like that there is a virtual tour.

For Quality of Sources I give the site an excellent as well. While the sources may not be hugely varied, the information is coming directly from the archaeologists. It doesn't get much better than that.

For Mechanics, the site gets an excellent as well (I'm starting to sound like a broke record). The word choice is good, and I don't notice any major errors. There are no references done, so I can't really comment on those.

I am not going to assign a mark for group work, for obvious reasons. Overall, I think this was a great site! Rating a site is easier than rating a newspaper article, which I have already done in past posts. I hope that our case study gets such a glowing review!

Compassion

Well, it's been a while. I've been very busy, with family visits and homework from other courses. But I haven't forgotten about my blog! So here's another entry.
As part of a project in another class I came across this TED talk. It's about compassion. And I think it shows an important part of dieing that may not always be in archaeology: the living side of death.  

http://www.ted.com/talks/joan_halifax.html



In our talk about animals and human remains we have briefly talked a little bit about compassion, but I think that this is a little bit different. This talks about having compassion for those who are dieing in the present, which is a lot more difficult than having compassion for those who died in the past. I think so anyways.
Anyway, I love TED Talks and wanted to share one on this blog, but I hadn't found one which was really appropriate until now. Enjoy!

Otzi: The Iceman Commeth? Really?

So I was stumbling today, as you do, and came across this article. I was stumbling 'health' and I'm not really sure how this relates to health, but there you go. Anyways, it is about Otzi the Iceman, and I think it is a pretty good example of what I was talking about in my last entry. When articles are written about archaeological finds that contain very little information, and only a few flashy sentences, sometimes readers can get the wrong idea. I don't think that Mirror News intends to misinform their readers, but sometimes these things happen. Which is unfortunate. If anyone is interested, this is a link to the article:

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/27Ahve/www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/new-dna-profile-reveals-clues-746637/

As you can see, broad, sweeping statements are made about the find, without any sort of evidence mentioned or clarifications made. Oh well.

I think that it is also important to note that this happens with almost every field of research, not just archaeology. 'Psychology' is a subject that one can 'stumble' and I am a pysc major so occasionally I do. And while I find the articles I read there interesting, I know to take all of them with a grain of salt.

Journalists don't put the full story into articles because if they did there would be no point, they would just be rewriting academic papers. And while I respect that and still enjoy reading these articles, I think it is important to think critically about them. We are in university after all! Isn't that what were supposed to be learning to do?!

Anyways, just a quick example of what I was talking about last week. I hope midterms are treating everyone well!