Mike Dixon Teaches Through the Power of the Internet
Delmarva Chronicle, Feb. 1, 2016, Salisbury, MD.
Cecil County, MD — You would be hard-pressed to find anyone more prolific with teaching regional history through the power of the internet than Mike Dixon.
The award winning historian, public speaker and author casts a wide net with his interests in history, learning as much as teaching. But it is his willingness to share in a variety of ways that gives him special distinction.
Dixon focuses “on making the past accessible to a broad range of audiences in order to encourage the preservation of our heritage and connect communities and families to their roots.” He is, using his excellent term, a scholar-practitioner. He does this through a variety of means. But in recent years he has made use of the internet by creating several themed blogs and Facebook pages.
A resident of Cecil County, Maryland, Dixon’s research features mid-Atlantic’s regional and local history. He travels widely for research and to conduct lectures encouraging public interest and participation in the preservation of the area’s past. He stresses an importance of understanding the relationship between the past and the present.
He has appeared on the Today Show, Maryland Public Television and TV news programs as well as in National Geographic, Southern Living, and Chesapeake Life. His published works have appeared in Chesapeake Life, Delmarva Quarterly, Maryland Life, and a number of other magazines, newspapers, and historical society journals.
Dixo has been an adjunct professor, with his graduate degrees in history and the behavioral sciences, teaching courses at a number of area universities and colleges. He is a visiting scholar for a number of humanities councils and other organizations.
But online is where Dixon can impact the most people. In addition, his generosity has extended to helping others start their own websites.
He took to the internet early on, beginning with his work with the Historical Society of Cecil County.
“In the spring of 1996, when the Internet was new and less a critical part of everyday life, I was trying to figure out new opportunities to leverage the Historical Society of Cecil County’s strengths and continue the heritage group’s growth,” said Dixon. There had been successes with increasing their membership, expanding their research library, making good use of their newsletters and program development. “But,” according to Dixon, “it seemed that there were broader opportunities as more distant patrons searched back through family lines and eventually ended up in Cecil County.” They felt they could grow their outreach with this new revolution of communications, and it worked.
In that year he launched one of the early county historical society sites in the region. “There weren’t too many county societies with homepages as I recall. With that first generation site, we took our initial step to serve virtual visitors. It wasn’t much, but for the time they were able to read articles from our newsletter, post family history inquires, and submit emails to our research staff. I remember our own little version of a bulletin board got a lot of traffic in those days. I remember how exciting it was to get our first couple of emailed family history inquires.”
It took time and hard work, “but for 1996, it was a fun and great start.”
With time, technology improved dramatically, and in 2007 they launched their first blog, reducing reliance on print and allowing them to offer as much material online as they could produce.
“From a personal standpoint, I soon took note of ways to share much more of my work,” and Dixon began creating his own blogs, several of them for different purposes.
Eventually, he gave Facebook a try after being convinced he could reach even more people. Said Dixon, “it’s a wonderful time from the heritage perspective. We are able to share so much more, open up the history vaults, and collaborate through crowd sourcing.”
“I’m often amazed at how much I learn from others,” and how he has benefited from unexpected exchanges of information thanks to the internet.
And his proliferation with the internet continues.
For an understanding of the amount of information he has researched and shared, check out his “Delmarva History” Facebook page and the “Shore Social” page of that site which lists all his other internet sites. Each has a different purpose, but all are available for others to view.
As the digital content expands, with more and more historical documents being scanned and made available online, he has been vigilant in watching for new content being added to the internet. For Dixon, this use of the internet has served as a repository for his collection of historical information, a way to organize his material.
And if all this isn’t enough, now he’s thinking of expanding his use of the internet through the use of video, encouraged by that form of internet such as used by local author Mindie Burgyone. He says he has always watched and learned from people all over the Peninsula who have been making use of the internet in such beneficial ways.
Reflecting on all this internet work and historical research and relating the experience, Dixon explained, “It’s fascinating, Linda, the reach of these things,” of how rewarding it feels when total strangers introduce themselves at events because they’ve seen his websites.
Dixon described a stranger he’d recently met, a young man who has a love of history, particularly of railroading, and shares that interest on social media. Says Dixon of this young man and his use of Facebook, “he creates a nice virtual community for all of us, giving us a way to share the things we are curious about and allowing others to learn and appreciate the subjects too or join in on the virtual discussion.”
That description applies to Mike Dixon as well.
For he is part of a large group of people throughout the area with interests in history and learning from each other. Dixon continues to expand his own virtual community, teaching and sharing history in brand new ways.
The award winning historian, public speaker and author casts a wide net with his interests in history, learning as much as teaching. But it is his willingness to share in a variety of ways that gives him special distinction.
Dixon focuses “on making the past accessible to a broad range of audiences in order to encourage the preservation of our heritage and connect communities and families to their roots.” He is, using his excellent term, a scholar-practitioner. He does this through a variety of means. But in recent years he has made use of the internet by creating several themed blogs and Facebook pages.
A resident of Cecil County, Maryland, Dixon’s research features mid-Atlantic’s regional and local history. He travels widely for research and to conduct lectures encouraging public interest and participation in the preservation of the area’s past. He stresses an importance of understanding the relationship between the past and the present.
He has appeared on the Today Show, Maryland Public Television and TV news programs as well as in National Geographic, Southern Living, and Chesapeake Life. His published works have appeared in Chesapeake Life, Delmarva Quarterly, Maryland Life, and a number of other magazines, newspapers, and historical society journals.
Dixo has been an adjunct professor, with his graduate degrees in history and the behavioral sciences, teaching courses at a number of area universities and colleges. He is a visiting scholar for a number of humanities councils and other organizations.
But online is where Dixon can impact the most people. In addition, his generosity has extended to helping others start their own websites.
He took to the internet early on, beginning with his work with the Historical Society of Cecil County.
“In the spring of 1996, when the Internet was new and less a critical part of everyday life, I was trying to figure out new opportunities to leverage the Historical Society of Cecil County’s strengths and continue the heritage group’s growth,” said Dixon. There had been successes with increasing their membership, expanding their research library, making good use of their newsletters and program development. “But,” according to Dixon, “it seemed that there were broader opportunities as more distant patrons searched back through family lines and eventually ended up in Cecil County.” They felt they could grow their outreach with this new revolution of communications, and it worked.
In that year he launched one of the early county historical society sites in the region. “There weren’t too many county societies with homepages as I recall. With that first generation site, we took our initial step to serve virtual visitors. It wasn’t much, but for the time they were able to read articles from our newsletter, post family history inquires, and submit emails to our research staff. I remember our own little version of a bulletin board got a lot of traffic in those days. I remember how exciting it was to get our first couple of emailed family history inquires.”
It took time and hard work, “but for 1996, it was a fun and great start.”
With time, technology improved dramatically, and in 2007 they launched their first blog, reducing reliance on print and allowing them to offer as much material online as they could produce.
“From a personal standpoint, I soon took note of ways to share much more of my work,” and Dixon began creating his own blogs, several of them for different purposes.
Eventually, he gave Facebook a try after being convinced he could reach even more people. Said Dixon, “it’s a wonderful time from the heritage perspective. We are able to share so much more, open up the history vaults, and collaborate through crowd sourcing.”
“I’m often amazed at how much I learn from others,” and how he has benefited from unexpected exchanges of information thanks to the internet.
And his proliferation with the internet continues.
For an understanding of the amount of information he has researched and shared, check out his “Delmarva History” Facebook page and the “Shore Social” page of that site which lists all his other internet sites. Each has a different purpose, but all are available for others to view.
As the digital content expands, with more and more historical documents being scanned and made available online, he has been vigilant in watching for new content being added to the internet. For Dixon, this use of the internet has served as a repository for his collection of historical information, a way to organize his material.
And if all this isn’t enough, now he’s thinking of expanding his use of the internet through the use of video, encouraged by that form of internet such as used by local author Mindie Burgyone. He says he has always watched and learned from people all over the Peninsula who have been making use of the internet in such beneficial ways.
Reflecting on all this internet work and historical research and relating the experience, Dixon explained, “It’s fascinating, Linda, the reach of these things,” of how rewarding it feels when total strangers introduce themselves at events because they’ve seen his websites.
Dixon described a stranger he’d recently met, a young man who has a love of history, particularly of railroading, and shares that interest on social media. Says Dixon of this young man and his use of Facebook, “he creates a nice virtual community for all of us, giving us a way to share the things we are curious about and allowing others to learn and appreciate the subjects too or join in on the virtual discussion.”
That description applies to Mike Dixon as well.
For he is part of a large group of people throughout the area with interests in history and learning from each other. Dixon continues to expand his own virtual community, teaching and sharing history in brand new ways.