Not That This is a Hint or Anything, George
In honor of Presidents' Day, it's worth noting that the State of Maryland has acquired Washington's resignation speech, a famous example of traditional oratory in which the man who would eventually become our first Chief Executive acknowledged the importance of a limiting his power and the value of civilian rule. The State Archives worked hard to get the draft of the document out of private hands, so I hope that they will exhibit the speech online after the official unveiling ceremony tonight.
In visiting Maryland's sites in cyberspace that represent their identity as a virtual state, I was surprised to see how little they used the multimedia, social media, and metadata features that characterize websites in more tech savvy states like California. Maryland's official website was a remarkably barebones affair, although its right navigation seemed to at least anticipate the basic needs of the electorate for information. Its official kids' page was one of the worst I had ever seen: bare folders, many of which led to dead links, would not be nearly as helpful for children doing assigned reports as a sequence of electronic documents more obviously aimed at improving their information literacy as citizens and skills of interpretation as amateur historians.
In visiting Maryland's sites in cyberspace that represent their identity as a virtual state, I was surprised to see how little they used the multimedia, social media, and metadata features that characterize websites in more tech savvy states like California. Maryland's official website was a remarkably barebones affair, although its right navigation seemed to at least anticipate the basic needs of the electorate for information. Its official kids' page was one of the worst I had ever seen: bare folders, many of which led to dead links, would not be nearly as helpful for children doing assigned reports as a sequence of electronic documents more obviously aimed at improving their information literacy as citizens and skills of interpretation as amateur historians.
Labels: government websites
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