THATCamp Alabama attendees have been provided with access to the UA-WPA-PSK network. Instructions and passwords for connecting to the network and registering your device were emailed to participants the week prior to THATCamp. A few copies will also be available at the check-in desk in Room 206.
This session will have elements of teach and play. Bring your favorite web-based text analysis tool (i.e., virtually, of course) and share what you like, what it does well, and what you wish it did. I’ll start with Textal.
So my 15-year-old son and his friends attended a science camp this past summer. Their running joke was that they’d decided they could get away with nearly anything if they cried “For Science!” as they did the deed. I’m going to try it with one of my guilty pleasures–the digital knit and crochet community Ravelry.
Proposing a Ravelry session–for THATCamp!
I love this site. I refer to it every time that I think about beginning another knitting project. I look for patterns, yarn suggestions, and photos of other knitter’s projects. The site’s founders have done a brilliant job of identifying the different points during a project where one might want to consult a community of users. How might this site be used as a model for digital humanities projects or digital humanities support? What does the success of this site suggest about how we might construct digital support structures for our own communities? What other websites out there might we use as models for our work? Share your guilty pleasure, and let’s see if we can find some models for our DH work.
And, heck, bring your knitting or crochet projects along. You know you want to.
Digital Shorts will take place in Room 132 at 12:30 on Saturday.
Known in some corners as “lightning talks,” Digital Shorts (aka “Dork Shorts”) are brief (2-minute or 3-minute) presentations in which attendees discuss current or upcoming projects, demonstrate new tools, or call for collaborators. Like most of THATCamp, Digital Shorts are meant to be as informal as possible. Although the concept might be unfamiliar to new THATCampers, veterans think it’s one of the most fun and useful parts of each meeting: Digital Shorts let you learn a lot in a little bit of time.
Not sure what to expect? Here’s a video of the digital shorts session at another THATCamp.
The more information is collected, the more difficult it becomes to sift it, organize it, and find what you need.
Statistical data analysis (data analytics) is the process of this type of analysis, encompassing natural language processing and more. This is what comes after gathering “big data”. Imagine taking the contents of 2 or more online databases, combining them, and then sifting through them for relationships, correspondences, linkages, similarities and differences and more.
Data analysts are increasingly in demand by large research institutes, big business, and government agencies. How will we fill the same need for humanities scholars? Where could we find the funding? How do we make this happen?
I for one am very interested in pursuing this type of career, but would like to do so in support of scholars, so I’m very interested in your thoughts about this.
The question I would like to mull over with you is how can we use social networking and data gathering techniques to determine what are the practical virtues of a discipline? I am curious about this because of the resurgence of virtue ethics as an alternative to rule-based and consequence-based systems of ethics that we all have received almost by default from the 18th and 19th centuries. The virtues are those things at which we desire to be excellent and help us fulfill our chosen purpose. Developing a virtue ethics approach gives us a new way of solving ethical dilemmas based on fulfillment of purpose rather than adhering to rules or trying to predict outcomes. Introspection can reveal one’s own chosen virtues, but finding out a group’s virtues takes a great deal more cleverness and inventiveness, and if you are willing I would love to borrow yours for a while.
When people talk about digital storytelling, they usually mean the use of some form of media production to share a story. I want to propose a session in which we explore possibilities for designing assignments that ask students to present information with digital tools and share their artifacts publicly. Thus, we will think about the process of digital story telling broadly, as a synthesis between research (or information gathering) and narrative (or argument).
For example, I’ve been working with a history professor at my school to develop an assignment where students practice historical reflection with data sites like Google’s Ngram Viewer, Baby Name Wizard, the Oxford English Dictionary, and the U.S. Census Bureau. Students can create narratives that show changes in time, and with tools like Timeline JS, they can create a product that looks good and can be shared almost anywhere online. My example looks at the language we use to describe people who serve us on airplanes.
In this workshop, we can talk about digital tools that invite students to locate information, ideas, and data and construct narratives that can be presented to others on websites. We can also look at other tools like Storify, History Pin, Sliderocket, and others, and we’ll actually try to build some content (so you may want to bring a laptop or tablet).
Has anyone else used web tools to have students generate digital stories? What are some of the challenges involved in facilitating digital storytelling projects?
I’d like to have a brainstorming session about how to build a network of collaborators for digital work on a particular campus or in a particular area. What kinds of skills and interests might you seek out and where within various institutions might you find these skills? What are some of the most useful ways to maintain relationships with these folks during and after the life of a project? How can you go about getting institutional support for these projects? I’ve had some experience building community around digital humanities this year but I’d love to think about how different models could work at different types of institutions too.
I’m interested in developing online spaces for student learning and collaboration throughout their university careers. I’m imagining an interactive space that students can access as needed to supplement research instruction, learn about and discuss digital tools in their disciplines, plus [your activity idea here].
Currently, these types of communities might be created in Blackboard or other learning management systems for specific courses, but I’m interested in developing them for specific majors, especially interdisciplinary programs.
Let’s work out this idea together:
Has anyone developed these types of communities (library-based or based on majors, interdisciplinary programs) or have examples?
What platforms are best for hosting these types of communities?
What is the role of the community builders (librarians, subject faculty): facilitator, guide on side, info provider, discussion leader, respond to questions?
I am not a musician, but I, like others, love the sound of music, or just hearing sound period when learning (and teaching). I especially love avoiding copyright infringement hassles if I am creating a video bearing information I want students to remember.
I have discovered that it is easy to make my own music even though I cannot read music. Using a kalimba, an African instrument, and some bongos, both purchased at thrift stores, I’d welcome showing others how they can also make fun sounds and moreover, record them as a music file on their iphone for later use on many fronts including teaching videos.
The end product can be a sort of “flip” approach to classroom instruction (i.e. the student can get basic information in the video, which is posted on a blog or via Blackboard, before entering the classroom. This allows more in-class time for other things including reviewing already shared information). The sound underneath the video, hopefully, makes the learning process more interesting. Sometimes the quirkier, the better.
I have two short videos demonstrating how this could work. One I actually used with a class; the other I shared outside of class with people who seemed to mostly dig it. I am still learning how to do this, but will share what I have done so far.
