International Conversations History professor Dr. Linda Johnson is writing a chapter on Japanese women for a new reference book on international women's history because she responded to a query on the Internet. Johnson monitors an international discussion group specializing in Asian and women's history, and after she provided a researcher with some helpful information, she was invited to become a contributor herself.
Technology makes history much more tangible.
Using the wealth of information stored on CD-ROMs, Johnson recently found it took her only 25 minutes to research and print out references on a subject that previously took her a day and a half of laboriously paging through huge volumes by hand. I found things I had missed by hand. Using CD-ROMs gives us access to better research materials. Johnson believes technology has a role to play in education. For example, her history students keep current on Asian affairs by watching tapes of the daily news broadcast on Japanese television.