Introduction
Overall, I believe I have done an exceptional job in regards to holding up my end of the learning contract. With all contracts, however, comes times when things may need to be modified on either end. With that said, my work has not been perfect, but I do firmly believe I can spend the final eight weeks of the semester working harder than the last eight to exceed my goals. The first eight weeks of the semester were particularly difficult for me, as my work load in general (between work and school) had been the heaviest I have experienced in years; however, a few of these factors now cease to exist, giving me more time to focus on and better complete assignments to show off my full potential. Specific areas I will make my goal to improve include commenting on blog posts, perhaps falling under both collaboration and participation. Below, you will find examples of my work thus far.
Key – {1} = Midterm, {2} = End of Semester
Content
Composition
Collaboration
Presentation
Tinkering
Participation
Student-Chosen Outcomes
Content (40%)
Goal: Learning how technology and literature connect.
{1} In this blog post, I discuss Voyant, a website we explored which focuses on text analysis. I found the exploration of Voyant to be a crucial learning experience in understanding the link between technology and literature, as such tools aid in the understanding of literature. With its countless features (such as Correlation, Bubblelines, and Word Tree), the possibilities on Voyant for analyzing a text are quite literally endless. Before using Voyant, I was not aware such tools existed; however, after tinkering around with it, I have found it to be a staple in analyzing a text.
{2} In notes I took during class time shortly after spring break (pictured below), I recorded several terms, such as technological determinism, which we connected to Herland. Such terms can also be connected to literature in general. This lecture in particular really helped me to to connect technology and literature, even in texts such as Herland where the use of technology is hard to decipher. In terms such as fin de siècle, this aids in giving the underlying context behind Utopian writings and the technology written into them when it is hard to tell what the exact technology used in the story is.
Goal: Learning the use of late 19th century technology versus how they are used today.
{1} With the creation of my timeline outlining women’s medicalization as it relates to Herland and present day, I have learned a lot about how technology has evolved over time as well as how close authors may or may not pay attention to historical accuracy and use that to their advantage in their literary works. In Herland, for instance, it seems as though Gilman was well aware of the circumstances surrounding women’s health and medical technology at the time and ultimately used that to her advantage in writing the novel. While the book did not exclusively mention women’s health and medical practices, Gilman made it clear that the women of Herland were a much more advanced people than those reading the novel when it came out.
{2} Through reading Looking Backward in preparation for my final project, I have been able to further explore historical technology of the late-1880’s along with what they hoped the technology of the future would be. In Bellamy’s novel, for instance, it was clear that he dreamed of a change from a private capital government to a public capital, where technology is advanced to a different type of credit card system than the one we know. As far as available technology in the late-1880’s, it is clear from the beginning of the novel that doctors had already discovered theories of treating insomnia. Below, I have linked screenshots of my final project proposal PowerPoint to exemplify this.
Goal: Defining the relationship and importance of technology and literature.
{1} Through looking over my learning contract, I have realized that this goal is the same as my first one in this category (“Learning how technology and literature connect”). Therefore, I think I should omit it from my contract.
Composition (15%)
Goal: Improvement in writing style/techniques.
{1} While this course is not exactly writing-intensive, it does offer for a unique way to express ourselves – blogging. This is a more relaxed type of writing than I am used to for a college course; however, I find it fun, especially since we can explore our writing style by adding memes in our blogs, for instance. The linked blog shows an example of this – one of my favorite blog posts in which I really began to feel more comfortable with the blogging set up.
{2} The final project made for an excellent opportunity to do some writing in this course, especially since we created a website on Scalar. The writing for this project was, of course, more formal in style than the blogging we have been doing throughout the semester. Because of this, I was more careful with editing and wording the titles and content of the project. It also gave me a chance to look at my partner’s writing style to compare to my own and maybe even feed off of hers in certain areas.
Goal: Learning how to use writing with different types of technology.
{1} With Annotation Studio and Voyant, I have found a different type of experience with writing than I have come into contact with in previous English courses. In this blog, I go into further detail with my experiences with the two tools and their effectiveness. While Annotation Studio was not the most user-friendly, I did find the overall concept of having an online annotation platform to be a fairly convenient type of technology which I would like to use more in the future.
{2} In this blog, I outline the process of my final project that I did with Gabby. For this project, we used Scalar, which is a DH platform we have not used in class before. We believed it would be the best for our project, though, as our project was sort of a text analysis and exploration of a few subjects surrounding the novel. With that said, a lot of writing had to be done on this platform. With that writing, we wanted to make sure it was diverse – headings, quotes sections, paragraphs,…With this platform, as you can see in the link to the project in the blog, we included a lot of writing which we worked very hard on, all on a technological platform unfamiliar to us.
Collaboration (10%)
Goal: Contributing to the ideas and creation of assignments and projects.
{1} With the mapping assignment, although it was a very quick assignment, I felt it was a good collaboration experience as my group members and I talked a lot about how to create our map. This project was different in my mind, as we had to create everything from scratch – even the concept of locating where Herland took place. Such a task takes a lot of collaboration, brainstorming, and close examination. While our finished product may not look like much at first glance, I am extremely proud of it as we confidently marked locations relating to the book with text-evidence.
{2} With the final project, Gabby and I did A LOT of collaborating to figure out the process and content of our project. In addition, this was definitely the longest collaboration I’ve had during the semester, as the final project took a few weeks to map out and create. Overall, it was a good experience, as we always bounced ideas off each other, worked out who would do what as equally as possible, and just generally worked very well together. We even went out for cupcakes after our presentation! Below, I have provided a picture of one of our many plans for splitting up work. In addition, this blog also exemplifies our collaboration process and plans we made.
Presentation (15%)
Goal: Becoming more confident and comfortable in front of the class in leading and participating in presentations.
{1} Throughout the course of the semester thus far, I have only presented in front of the class two times I believe. Although this is not something I find issues with, having to present in front of such a small group becomes intimidating at times as opposed to a larger audience. From the few presentations I have done in class, however, I have become more comfortable since it is a smaller group and we have all gotten to know each other better.
{2} The final project presentation was definitely the biggest event of the semester to prepare for. Throughout this process, we created 2 presentations via PowerPoint, which we presented to the class. This blog gives a few screenshots of the presentations we made at the top of the blog. These first two presentations, done in class, were definitely more informal and overall easier to present. The final presentation at the DH Conference was without a doubt the most nerve-wrecking, as it was for a bigger audience – an audience full of people we were unfamiliar with as we presented projects we were nervous about showing. Overall, however, I found myself surprisingly comfortable at this presentation, and I believe the 2 PowerPoint presentations truly helped me in my confidence level with presenting. In fact, being in a smaller class and presenting information all the time really helped me become more comfortable with presenting, more than before I began this semester.
Tinkering (5%)
Goal: Properly trouble-shooting and experimenting with different types of media, focusing more on the process than the finished product.
{1} When reflecting on this goal, the first project that comes to mind is Gephi, as this project was by far my biggest challenge to overcome this semester so far. From not being able to run Gephi on my laptop easily to trying to learn a program that had no instructions or guidance to it, completing this project was nothing short of a headache. In the end, however, I was able to at least create something after a significant amount of tinkering with the program. Though I would have loved to have more time to tinker with Gephi to have a better-looking finished product, I realize a major part of this class is to simply familiarize yourself with things and focus on learning things for yourself instead of rushing to have the most perfect end product.
{2} As exemplified in our blog with our final project and proposals linked, the final project took a lot of tinkering. Especially since we used Scalar – a platform we have never used before, it took a lot of navigating and tinkering to figure out how to make our project the way it ended up looking. For instance, in order to create the background images for each heading and even the main screen, I had to tinker with the different layouts to make it look more like a website and less like a table of contents. The layout of each page also took some tinkering as we decided if pages should have headings or additional links and images or not. Even in the process of creating the project (pictured below), you can tell we have tinkered around with what texts the project should cover and what topics we should focus on.
Participation (5%)
Goal: Giving proper feedback when requested.
{1} Perhaps the most fitting subject for this goal is commenting on other’s blogs, as this is our time to really give feedback or help in any way we can. Although most of my commenting has simply been agreeing with what others have said or bringing up good points relating to their blogs, I still find it helpful to interact with each other in this way outside of class to check in on each other and see how we are progressing along in the class, or (such as in my linked blog post) to reach out and give assurance in times of uncertainty.
{2} I feel as though the best example of participation for the second half of the semester would be the class in which we went to the classroom across the hall from ours and wrote out on the white board our ideas for our final project. We all gave each other feedback and bounced ideas off each other; it was a genuinely good experience and I felt as if we were all wanting the best for each other for our projects, given the size of the project we were about to tackle. We did similar feedback seminars after our project proposals, which I also enjoyed.
Goal: Completing proper in-class work.
{1} A large portion of this class is to simply tinker around and complete the given assignments. Seen in the screenshot below, Voyant was the first major assignment completed in class, as we were simply tinkering around on the application to see what we could come up with in terms of literary analysis. Through a few days of exploring Voyant in class, I came across one of my favorite features, TermsRadio, which gave hints as to what the assigned reading might be about or discuss the most. This is just one of the many examples of work completed in class since the semester has begun.
{2} The second half of the semester was dedicated to preparing for the final project. With that said, the in-class work to be completed included a lot of proposals. All the work done for the last half of the class was done both in and out of class, but nonetheless, they were completed. Our final project proposal, for instance, is something I remember working on and completing in class.
Student-Chosen Outcomes (10%)
Goal: Having a proficient understanding of the importance of the relationship between technology and literature.
{1} Coming into this course, I was not sure what to expect as far as connecting technology and literature – I did not even know the Digital Humanities existed until January. With that said, the previous sentence itself is proof that I have clearly made at least a bit of progress. Through every assignment linked in this portfolio, I have showcased my understanding of technology and literature. My goal for this category specifically, however, refers to the final project, in which has not been completed yet, so let the above examples act as a guide until then.
{2} Throughout the course of this semester, I have learned a lot about technology and its connection to literature. Whether it be the use of technology in a novel’s story line, or using the Digital Humanities to do a book analysis or to map out key words in a novel, I have grown to learn that technology can be a crucial part in understanding literary works. As I said during my presentation at the DH Conference, technology can help us to better analyze and appreciate novels. I have truly enjoyed this course with our small, cozy class size, and I will miss it.
