(1) = Midterm (2) = Final

Introduction

In this last leg of the semester I feel as though I have learned a lot about hands-on DH projects, tinkering, and working with others. I was nervous about tackling three books and then using Scalar for our final project, but looking back I feel good about the decisions I have made and I think I have pushed myself in the right ways with this class. It took a while for my group to figure about how to piece all of our texts together, but we figured it out and have a pretty good end product. This part of the semester was more collaborative than I thought it would have been, but I am honestly glad it was because work in a group was helpful and fun. I, again, did not do as much outside research/blogging as I wanted, but the things I did do I thought were insightful. Overall I have had a fun and informative semester and I got a lot of new knowledge and skills from taking this class.

Content
Composition
Collaboration
Presentation
Tinkering
Participation
Student-Chosen Outcomes

Content (20%)

Goal: I will develop a better sense of what digital humanities means not only to me but to others in the field as well.

(1) My definition of the digital humanities has evolved over the course of the semester not only from the projects in this class, but also with the other classes I am taking this semester. Between doing the TimelineJS  and Gephi assignments, I started to consider how the ways in which we present information and analysis affects our interpretations and it also shows how we can sort of bend technology to our will. This was especially true for Gephi, in that the program is not necessarily supposed to be used for spatial visualizations. Technology, like text is fluid and can be used and interpreted in many ways.

(2) In wrapping-up this semester I think my current definition for the Digital Humantities has a lot to do with collaboration and exploration. I have learned that working with others on DH stuff is way more productive, and fun, than doing it on your own. It is also interesting to hear everyone’s ideas on what should be done on a project. I was a bit apprehensive about working with others in the beginning, but my groupmates Hanna and Sarah ended up being awesome people to work with. As intersectionality being the theme of our final project, we had to consider how content relates to form and vice versa which is another big part of DH work. In using Scalar we were able to create pages that not only have intersectional content, but the form is also intersectional in its design.

Goal: I will keep the question of what the digital humanities are and what they mean in mind while doing class assignments. I will also try to look at relevant outside articles and discuss them on my blog if applicable.

(1) In this blog post I talking about what Annotation Studio means to digital humanists and in class discussion, such as when Daniel gave his presentation on the digital humanities, I discuss what the field means to me and its implications in the study of literature. I plan on making more digital humanities focused blog posts in the second half of the semester and in making those posts I will look up outside articles or even reference other student’s blog posts.

(2) I found this  DH project and make a blog about it because it was something that I thought related well to our final project topic. Not many people think about the history of lynching especially in this kind of spatial way, and it gave me some inspiration for the final project where I wanted the space of the project to inform interpretation of content. I think not only in that blog but also my collaboration blogs, I sort through meaning of text, platform, and idea sharing in relation to DH projects. Consideration of the digital space is most of the work I did this last half of the semester.

Composition (10%)

Goal: I will experiment with different writing styles and improve my synthesis skills.

(1) My TimelineJS post included a lot of synthesis and I think the way in which I incorporated historical events and their relationship to themes in Dracula demonstrated my ability to synthesize multiple sources.

(2) On the Iola Leroy and intersectionality pages in our Scalar project I did a lot of synthesis in my writing by combining different ideas from all the novels and making connections. The entire final project was a synthesis of text and images to make one interactive product. It was interesting, and frustrating, to make different pages of content and having to link them up in a specific way and figure out what works where and if there were things we needed to add or take away.

Goal: Keep notes and experimentations organized

(1) While I do not keep many physical notes for this class, I try to show the logical progression of my thoughts through my blogs posts about our projects. My Voyant blog is a perfect example of this. Here is show what my initial thoughts of the tool are and the things I did to answer my group’s research question. While these aren’t traditional notes, my blog posts are a reference point to my thinking processes throughout out various projects.

(2) In the second half of the semester my group and I kept a GoogleDoc with all our plans, ideas, presentation notes, and notes to each other if we missed a day. This was super helpful because it kept all of our thoughts organized and we could watch our thoughts progress as our project developed. We also laid out what we wanted out Scalar site to look like on paper so we could get a better idea of where we wanted to go. We wanted all of the pages to connect and the reader to be able to go to any page they wanted first so they can explore the content in a way that makes sense to them. Have the content in this kind of unstructered format also makes for different interpretations of the project. Someone beginning on the Intersectionalitypage might look at the individual novel’s pages differently than if they started with Herland.

Goal: Make blog posts feel interactive with pictures and links.

(1) All of my blog posts have some form of media inserted into them, but there could be more. One of my goals for the second half of the semester will be to incorporate more media into my posts. I am specifically proud of my TimelineJS post because of the inserted timeline and the link to the Victorian Web that I inserted.

(2) I did not include a lot of media in my blogs for this half of the semester, but we did put out Google Slides up successfully which is pretty neat. In working so intensely on the final project, making my blogs any more than they needed to be seemed to be a bit much for me. What I lack in blogging awesomeness I make up for in a good final project.

Collaboration (5%)

Goal: I will be helpful to classmates and will not take over group projects.

(1) When doing workshops in class I try to give helpful suggestions to my classmates. On blog posts I ask questions in my comments that give room for further consideration of the project. In my group projects for Voyant and TimelineJS I only did what I was assigned and helped my partners if I could.

(2) Like I mentioned before, I did a lot more collaboration than I thought I would this semester, I mean a lot more. In our final project I think Hanna, Sarah and I divided the work pretty evenly and though I feel like I took control over a lot of creative aspects of the project, they did their fair share, and more, of work. We all helped each other with questions and figuring out ideas. It was truly a collaborative effort.

Goal: I will help others with things that I know about and only take on one role in group projects.

(1) Like I mentioned before, in my Voyant group project I worked with the tools that I was assigned and then collaborated with my team mates to see how all of our tools worked together. For the TimelineJS project Clayton and I divided the historical events between us, I chose to work with the latter half of the timeline and Clayton did the beginning, and then worked on our separate sections in the timeline.

(2) I helped a lot of the technical issues we were having in Scalar since I know a bit of coding that would help out and I also helped us organize how we wanted to structure out pages. I would say that my role in the group was tech person/organizer for the most part which is a pretty solid role to have and I do not think I took over too much from my other group members.

Presentation (20%)

Goal: I will become a more confident public speaker and presenter.

(1) I have become more confident in giving presentations as the semester has gone on. I am more willing to go first and show off what I have even if I feel like my project isn’t quite complete yet. This has transferred to my other classes as well and I think by the end of the semester I will even more fearless when giving presentations.

(2) One of my biggest accomplishments this semester is not being so nervous about presentations. I now get excited to discuss my findings and work with the class and talking in front of others has gotten much easier. I have learned to look at presentations as a way of expressing my ideas and in thinking that way it makes me more happy than nervous to get up and present.

Goal: Practice presentations beforehand and take on more class speaking roles.

(1) Since we don’t have planned presentations for this class and we tend to exhibit our projects when we are done, practicing beforehand can be tricky, but my solution is to set up my blog posts to hit keys points that I can say when presenting my artifacts in front of the class. My Gephi post is a good example in where I express my feelings about the program, talks about my graph, and then have a conclusion, something I can stick to while giving a presentation.

(2) This part of the semester we have had more planned presentations like the book synopsis, the proposal and the final presentation so note taking and planning have been easier. My group and I planned out our presentations in the Google Doc saying who go when, what points to hit, and things to remember. 

Tinkering (30%)

Goal: I will work to figure out how to transfer the tools we use in class to other areas of study.

(1) In my Annotation Studio blog I discussed how the tool is useful to digital humanists and also how it would be helpful to high school students studying a certain text. My use of Gephi involved quite a bit if tinkering because I used the program in a way that it was not intended to be used and it showed how something that might be intended for empirical data can be molded to fit other areas of study. My use of Google Maps also exhibits this idea. In my map in showing where characters physically went I could also see how the distance some characters would travel for another exhibits character relationships.

(2) Using Scalar is something I will definitely carry on to other classes and projects. I decide to put my Toni Morrison project on it because it is so cool and fun to use. It is a platform that is very customizable to it can fit any project you may be working with. It was frustrating and a bit overwhelming to use at first, but once you get the hang of it, it is fun and it may be hard stop tinkering with all the different things you can do with it. I have learned a lot about perseverance, dedication, and the right way to Google this semester with all of the different technological skills I’ve been working on. I feel like Scalar has become another tool in the toolbox for me.

Goal: I will play around with the tools and apply them to things I’m doing in other classes.

(1) You can see me experimenting with the tools in my examples I provided above. I plan on using either TimelineJS or Google Maps for my digital exhibit project in my Toni Morrison class so when they project gets going I will be sure to show it in a blog post or maybe even present it to the class.

(2) Here is the link to my Morrison project, it’s not quite done as of yet so wait until around Tuesday before checking it out 🙂

Participation (10%)

Goal: I will be diligent in my blogging and getting classmate’s input.

(1) I have met all of the blogging and commenting requirements and am sure to respond to questions when people pose them on my blog posts. When giving presentations, or listening to other’s comments during class discussion, I am sure to keep my peer’s comments in mind when working on projects.

(2) Blogging got a bit confusing as to what was due and not due towards the end. Some people stopped blogging completely so I found it difficult some weeks to meet my commenting requirements, but over all I think I kept up with my blogging well. I tried to make insightful posts that explained my thought processes thorough the final project. There were few times that Michaela commented on my posts and it helped me think more about certain aspects of the project.

Goal: I will come to class and meet and exceed post requirements. I will also be sure to be active in commenting and replying.

(1) Like I said previously, I have met all the requirements for posting, but I could do better in trying to exceed requirements in the second half of the semester.

(2) I kept up pretty well with my posting in the second half of this semester and I made sure to make informed comments on my classmate’s posts. I made sure to speak in class and ask others questions about their projects when necessary. I did end up missing one class, but overall I did well in the participation department.

Student-Chosen Outcomes (5%)

Goal: I will look into developing new research techniques and think of how race and gender relate to technology.

(1) I think I am branching out in my research techniques. For the TimelineJS assignment, I looked at the Victorian Web and historical websites to get ideas and information on historical events when normally I would just use MLA International Bibliography. Like I mentioned in my introduction, I am going to change looking at sustainability to thinking of how race and gender relate to technology, so in my last portfolio I will have soemthing to show for that.

(2) To look up sources for out final project I more or less used the same research techniques I always use, but in my pictures for the Iola Leroy page I had to do a bit more digging on library collections websites, which was interesting to do. In this project we had to consider how the intersections of race, gender, and class would all fit together in the same project without being too separate, but also without being too homogenized. In setting up our Scalar page, we carefully considered how individuality of the various texts go with similarities and how do we do justice to the texts themselves and comparing all three? It took so thinking and tinkering, but I believe that our final project shows intersectionality through both form and content.

Goal: Use new research techniques and incorporate thinking about race, gender and technology in my blogs and writing.

(1) Again, I will change sustainability to thinking of race, gender, and technology. I should be able to find a lot of interesting articles on the topic and in comparing Herland and Iola Leroy I will be able to discuss these topics through my final project.

(2) In researching things about intersectionality, it made me realize how technology is often barred from both women and people of color and how both gender and race identity play into how people perceive and use technology. Technology is not always accessible and things like the Digital Humanities can seem frivolous in the face of oppression and poverty, but I believe that digital humanities methods give opportunity where there was none before. Even though not everyone has access to the internet, people have less access to scholarly work, and archives but DH is trying to change that by making the internet a democratizing space for academia. In teaching kids to share information, explore, tinker, tear things apart and put them back together, I think we can make a more informed and equitable world.