The Spring 2015 faculty seminar on digital humanities and literacies in the liberal arts meets weekly. Readings, research, and written assignments are due in advance of the meeting. It’s fairly easy to “read” the schedule by keeping this structure in mind. For each meeting, we’ll find a “topic”; the “For Next Class” section within the meeting date outlines what is due in time for the next session.
January 14 – Introductions
- Share Digital Literacy Proposal Ideas, Hopes, & Fears
- Discuss course schedule
- For Next Class
- Read The Digital Humanities Manifesto 2.0
- Read three of columnist Patricia Cohen’s articles in The New York Times 2010 Humanities 2.0 series (note: link opens in new window)
- “Geographic Information Systems Help Scholars See History”
- “For Bentham and Others, Scholars Enlist Public to Transcribe Papers”
- “Giving Literature Virtual Life”
- Complete first two blog reflections: What do you take from the DH Manifesto 2.0? Which elements of the manifesto resonate with you? Which elements trouble you? What do we take from these articles, and how might the described projects fit in undergraduate courses?
January 21 – No Class (MLA, Jr. Remembrance)
- No Class (MLK, Jr.)
- For Next Class
- Read The Digital Humanities Manifesto 2.0 (note: link opens in new window)
- Read three of columnist Patricia Cohen’s articles in The New York Times 2010 Humanities 2.0 series (note: link opens in new window)
- “Geographic Information Systems Help Scholars See History”
- “For Bentham and Others, Scholars Enlist Public to Transcribe Papers”
- “Giving Literature Virtual Life”
- Complete first blog reflection: What do we take from these articles and how might the described projects fit in undergraduate courses?
January 28 – DH 2.0 & Assorted Projects
- Discussing the Digital Humanities Manifesto 2.0
- Discussing The Times Articles: Data Visualization, Crowdsourcing, & Digital Literacies
- For Next Class
- Read John Unsworth, “Scholarly Primitives: What Methods Do Humanities Researchers Have in Common, and How Might Our Tools Reflect This?”
- Read Patrik Svensson, “The Landscape of the Digital Humanities”
- Complete blog reflection on Unsworth and Svensson: How might these texts inform your conception of scholarly work in the digital? Where do you imagine your planned digital project engaging the primitives and fitting into the landscape?
February 4 – DH & Traditional Scholarly Work
- Discuss Unsworth’s Primitives, Svennson’s Landscape, and Our Project Ideas
- For Next Class
- Read Kirschenbaum, “What is Digital Humanities and What’s it Doing in English Departments?”
- Read one of the following articles:
- Bennett, Wells, & Rank, “Young Citizens and Civic Learning.” Citizenship Studies, 13(2).
- Raymond, “Missing the Trees for the Forest?” Journal of Political Science Education, 8(1).
- Maloy, Poirier, Smith, & Edwards, “The Making of a History Standards Wiki.” The History Teacher, 44(1).
- Mark, “Refining Uranium.” Environmental Humanities, 4. (Be sure to consider the included videos.”
- Find and read one other scholarly article on teaching with digital tools within your discipline.
- Complete blog reflection that draws together Kirschenbaum and the two articles within your discipline: How is digital work an extension of the intellectual and creative work that form elements of the more traditional approaches to your discipline?
February 11 – Digital Projects in Disciplines
- What’s Up with Digital in the Disciplines? Digital Learning and Literacies
- For Next Class
- Read Arola, “The Design of Web 2.0: The Rise of the Template, The Fall of Design,” Computers and Composition, 27.
- Spend some time with the “Five Resources Model of Critical Digital Literacy“
- Take 30-60 minutes to “know” your WordPress blog dashboard and customize its design: Make at least four design changes that better present your personality and your blog’s purpose; create two content “pages” to give your blog a website-like element. (Use Google Search to find online tutorials to help you figure out how to navigate and use your WordPress dashboard.
- Complete blog reflection on Arola’s text, the five resources model, and your experience. Questions to consider: In what ways do you now “control” your blog’s visual elements to shape the reader’s experience? What did you want to do, but couldn’t? What does this suggest about digital literacies in a CMS? Where does this kind of work fit into the five resources model? Where do you imagine your planned project fitting within that model? (Put differently, in which ways will your students’ digital projects contribute to critical digital literacy?)
February 18 – The CMS – Blogs, Websites, & Digital Literacies
- Working with and against the Content Management System: Reducing barriers to entry, but at what cost?
- For Next Class
- Read Campbell, “A Personal Cyberinfrastructure”
- Read selections from Lessig, Remix (on reserve)
- Visit the DS 106 Website, select an assignment type from the Assignment Bank, and pull out an assignment that could be relevant for teaching in your area.
- Complete blog reflection on Campbell, Lessig, and your chosen DS 106 assignment: How would the assignment and both Lessig’s and Campbell’s ideas challenge you? What could it do for students and learning? How might remix fit into your course plan? Be sure to explain the DS 106 assignment you selected.
February 25 – Presence, Identity, Technology
- Discuss Campbell, DS 106, and Digital Work
- For Next Class
- Read Palmer, “Thematic Research Collections”
- Visit Omeka.net and spend 30-45 minutes with one Omeka Showcase Exhibit
- Visit the Women Writer’s Project Collection & consider it as a thematic research collection.
- Complete blog reflection that engages Palmer, sketches and evaluates your selected Omeka showcase exhibit, and pulls out one element of the WWP that might be relevant for undergraduates.
March 4 – Digital Collections
- Discussing collections and exhibits as DH projects
- For Next Class
- Read Booker, “Visualizing San Francisco Bay’s Forgotten Past” (Journal of Digital Humanities, 1)
- Select two of the following data visualization tools to explore and report about:
- Infogram – Information Graphics Tool
- Visualizing.org – Cloud-based Data Visualization Tool
- My Histro – Timeline & Mapping Tool
- Many Eyes – IBM’s Data Visualization Tool and Resource
- Woices – Geolocating Audio (voice) Files (auditory, not visual)
- Piktochart – Information Graphics Tool
- Stat Planet – Interactive Map Making Tool
- Wordle – Word Cloud Generator
- Complete blog reflection on the potential for data visualizations in undergraduate courses you teach (or might teach). Be sure to engage the two tools you explored in your reflection.
March 11 – Data Visualization
- Discussing the visual in analysis, interpretation, presentation of information/data
- For Next Class
- Status Reports on Project Work
- Read Chapter 5 in Bean, “Engaging Ideas”
- Draft the “assignments” for your planned project
- Complete blog reflection on Bean and your project: How does Bean’s chapter inform your thinking about elements of your planned project? On what resources are you drawing as you work on your project?
March 17 – No Class (Spring Break!)
March 25 – Formal Writing & The Digital – Status Reports
- What happens to formal writing in digital projects?
- Workshop assignment drafts.
- Status reports
- For Next Class
- Read Bean, Chapter 6
- Revise assignment drafts
- Complete blog reflection on chapter 6: How are you using Bean’s chapter to break down your planned project into pieces?
April 1 – Scaffolding & Staging Digital Projects I
- Discuss Bean, project work, and assignments
- For Next Class
- Read Bean, Chapter 7
- Sketch structure of planned project elements, including both minor assignments and major project milestones
- Complete blog reflection on planned project’s “fit” within your course: How confident are you that the project’s elements are in place? Which elements still worry you?
April 8 – Scaffolding & Staging Digital Projects II
- Opportunities and Challenges – Sharing the highs and lows
- Roundtable on assignments
- For Next Class
- Assessing major and minor project elements
- Reading(s) TBA
- Begin “mock-up” of planned project – try project work to troubleshoot and prepare final demonstration
- Complete blog reflection on effort to connect assignments and assessment: What is going well? Where do you anticipate uncertainty, confusion, or problems?
April 15 – Assessing Digital Projects I
- Workshop assessment plans alongside assignments
- For Next Class
- Revise plan for assessing projects, develop a rubric or criteria
- Reading(s) TBA
- Continue planned project “mock-up”
- Complete blog reflection on your rubric/criteria and its potential to serve as a guide for the project: How do the elements support a focus on the central intellectual and technological features of your planned project? What, if anything, might be “lost” in a move to the digital?
April 22 – Assessing Digital Projects II
- Final workshop on assessment plans
- Complete project “mock-ups”
- For Next Class
- Demonstrations of Digital Projects
- Complete final blog reflection on planned project and potential for expanding project beyond targeted course: Might your project fit into other courses you teach? Might other digital elements we examined fit into other courses? Be specific.
April 29 – Sharing & Modeling Project Assignments
- Digital Project Demonstrations