lost and found

So I managed to make a pretty good stab at it after my post earlier today. I'm now back into the nitty-gritty (currently reading Wikipedia's policies on creating biographies of living persons.) My eyes are starting to zone out, but here is some of the stuff I have so far:

by way of introduction:
Dr. Alatis's life is important to me because of his profound influence on the field of foreign language education. He discovered a love of language at Greek school in West Virginia as a child, and throughout his life has worked with teachers, scholars, administrators, and students to foster a love of language and find ways to make language education successful. He gave out grant monies from the National Defense Education Act, and he was instrumental in professionalizing of the field of teaching English as a second language by serving as Executive Director of TESOL for over twenty years. Most of these facts, however, can be learned through a quick Google search. Oral history allows me to delve deeper, to ask questions, to hear the story from the individual and those surrounding him, and ultimately to create a new archive of knowledge from an accomplished man. My belief is that Dr. Alatis's story will not only serve to remind the foreign language community of the battles fought over the past 50 years, but as a model for oral historians of how we can use digital tools to breathe new life into an ancient method of collecting history. In this article, I discuss practical, how-to aspects of technologies I have used in this project and their implications for what Michael Frisch calls a return of aurality to oral history as well as ethical considerations of digital tools.

by way of talking about technology:

I also turned to the popular site Wikipedia. Despite the attention that Middlebury College received when their history department limited the use of Wikipedia as a primary source1. Brock Read, “Middlebury College History Department Limits Use of Wikipedia,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, Vol. 53 Issue 24, February 16, 2007. , other scholars find Wikipedia to be a good first source that can often lead researchers in new directions2. Cathy Davidson, "We Can't Ignore the Influence of Digital Technologies," The Chronicle of Higher Education, Vol. 53, Issue 29, March 23, 2007; . The collaborative capability of Wikipedia allowed Ann Kirschner to create an article on Ala Gertner and use the research she had done for her book, Sala's Gift, culled from a trove of letters her mother had kept from her time in Nazi work camps3. Kirschner, Ann, "Adventures in the Land of Wikipedia," The Chronicle of Higher Education, Vol. 53, Issue 13, November 11, 2006. . Wikipedia is often a way for those with similar interests to collaborate in the creation of knowledge, and the creation of knowledge by the crowd has been the subject of debate. I discuss the real-time and collaborative creation of knowledge through technology later in the article.

Voila.