Month: April 2018

The group reading “Using Digital Humanities in the Classroom” will be meeting in less than an hour, and I’d like pull together a quick agenda for the meeting. This round, group members volunteered to read and then post notes on an assigned chapter. People chose to post them in several place:

• Chapter 4: Designing Syllabi – Randy Nichols (blog post)
• Chapter 5: Designing Classroom Activities – Libi Sunderman (Google Slides; login required)
• Chapter 6: Managing Classroom Activities – Rebecca Disrud (Google Slides; login required)
• Chapter 7: Creating Digital Assignments – Nicole Blaire (Google Slides; login required)
• Chapter 8: Evaluating Student Work – Alex Miller (Google Doc; login required)

This months discussion will examine the life cycle of student learning experiences that engage with Digital Humanities practices.

We obviously have way more to talk about than we have time, so I thought we’d organize the conversation this way:

• Round robin of chapter discussion leaders:
  • What was one of  the main takeaways you’d like to share with the group?
  • What questions you would like to discuss with the group?
• Discussion of questions/points raised during round robin.
• White board activity: What is one thing you’ll do different as a result of the reading?
• If time permits, considering question: What does design process for syllabi and/or assignments look like? How best to incorporate these practices?

Two issues by way of meandering confession

Let me begin with a confession (or maybe an apology):  I don’t take notes in the ways we’re doing for this discussion group.  I don’t share slides or my notes in my classes, so I’m well-out of my comfort zone.   And I think it is worth trying a different path through just for the sake of comparison, so here we are.  Based on that, one of the things I think might actually make for some interesting starter discussion as we move into the topics for this set of readings is about taking a sort of inventory about where you have particular preferences/tendencies/what-have-you about boundaries as you’re starting to think about delving into this?

There’s also a rhetorical shift that happens in Chapter 4 that I’m still deciding about – it’s most pronounced in Table 4.2, in that the assumption seems to be that even in non-Intro to Digital Humanities (hereafter, DH) courses, that you’d have readings, etc that are explicitly about DH.  I’ve been thinking of DH as tools to use rather than as a topic to foreground, so I’m curious what everyone else thinks.

Choose your own adventure platform

One of the biggest issues of the chapter is about what digital platform you’re going to use to actually structure your DH experiment.

The chapter poses this largely as a question of whether you want to host your own site or use some existing platform (which, for our purposes includes UW’s choice of course management software, Canvas).  This section was a pretty quick fly-by, but there are some issues worth pulling out because the platform you choose is carries with it a range of issues.

A lot of these issues are going to connect to the discussions for Chapters 5, 6, and 7.

Some decisions to make about platforms

• what features do you need your site to have?
• how much intellectual property of your own are you willing to make publicly available?
• how much of your students’ intellectual property is going to be visible (and why)?
• what types of content do you intend to share that isn’t your own?
• how much time do you have to maintain the site?
• how often are you going to get to use it?
• how much can you afford?

While there’s some advantage to owning your own site, hosting and domain names can cost you money.  Using a content management platform (like WordPress) can you get around some of this, but might require some forethought before diving in.  For example, if students are going to contribute but you’ll use the site in multiple terms, how easy will it be control access to what new students get to engage with?

And in case having an example beyond this blog to consider, here’s a site I used through the content management system Tumblr from my previous life.  Table 4.1 provides a useful breakdown of some other platforms you might consider.   I know why I used Tumblr, but does anyone have any other strong opinions or recommendations on platforms they’ve used?

Wasn’t this chapter supposed to be about syllabi?

The discussion about syllabi focused on two broad issues:  Course Information and Objectives and Course Policies.

Depending on how much DH you intend to use, you’re going to have to think carefully about your syllabus and how you want to approach the class.    That might include thinking differently about office hours, deadlines, etc.  All of those things need to be telegraphed by the syllabus.   I’ve found myself wondering as we’re talking about DH whether a DH class should have to be connected to the iTech Fellows program here at UWT.  Even if it shouldn’t, I think the rubric the program uses to assess iTech fellows preparation is useful for our DH purposes.

Depending upon how much DH you intend to incorporate into your class, how you design the course and its syllabus will likely change.  Table 4.2 breaks down some of the possibilities for this.  Regardless, there are some specific points that are worth considering in both of these sections.

Course information and Objectives Points to Consider

• Office Hours and the guidelines about when and how to contact you
• Course description:  what skills do they need to start and what skills should they end with?
• What technologies they’ll need and where to get them
• clear course objectives that incorporate DH

Course Policies Points to Consider

• How will you gauge attendance and participation?
• How are students expected to use technologies and when?
• How will deadlines work (taking into account that students are likely learning a new skill)?
• Are there particular behavioral expectations?
• What is the process for getting help with technologies and where can they get that help?

I was surprised there wasn’t much discussion about behavioral expectations (for example, rules for online discussions groups, etc).  Were there other issues that got missed?

On March 26, 2018, we held the first meeting of the Using Digital Humanities in the Classroom reading group. At the beginning of the meeting, we each wrote three topics we would like to discuss, then circled around and starred 1-2 topics on each other’s lists. Here are the notes from that activity:

Tools Discussed

During the conversation that followed, several tools were mentioned, and in each blog post, I’d like to note these so we might start a list of the different technologies being used:

• WeVideo – Used in classes to make digital stories
• Fold.cm – An alternative to PowerPoint, students are able to use this make multimedia presentations.
• StoryMapJS – An easy to use tool for creating interactive maps.

Key Points

Defining Digital Humanities/Digital Scholarship

The discussion leader (Justin) raised questions about the value of starting all conversations with definitions of digital humanities and/or digital scholarship. The group found the book’s definition helpful for framing the conversation:

“We see DH not as an exclusive or unified discipline, but rather as a constellation of practical ideas, technologies, and tools that can be incorporated in a modular fashion into your own classroom practice.”¹

Some of the participants recognized that definitions become important when articulating the scope of research or teaching practice to internal or external audiences, but some have struggled with overly narrow definitions of digital humanities. Ultimately, the group appreciated the emphasis on learning goals:

“Rather than engaging with new tools for their own sake, we recommend that you ground all your experiments and exercises in course content. This will allow you to design you course carefully, on a case-by-case basis, so that particular exercises are suited to the particular course topic or text.” ²

Resistance vs. challenges

The conversation gained momentum around the book’s “Presumption of resistance” and went on to explore a number of related topics. Initially, several in the group critiqued the the way that Chapter 1 assumed varying kinds of resistance to digital humanities techniques. Generally, the faculty members present felt supported in their experiments with DH practices and that students were generally receptive to these approaches.

As the conversation progressed, however, the group began to recognize that there are some real challenges to potentially working in this area at UW Tacoma:

Extreme range of digital literacies and skills among students: Instructors experience a wide spectrum of digital abilities and aptitudes among students. Many students are “digital natives” and are well-versed in the rhetorical approaches used in this media rich environment, but most have experienced the digital realm as consumers rather than critically-engaged learners and creators. Some might even struggle with commonly-used technologies, such as Word or PowerPoint, while others may take to it quickly. Finding a middle ground can be quite challenging.³

Student access to technology: One professor present has surveyed his students access to and ownership of technology. Although we didn’t have the precise numbers, he found that while most UW Tacoma students have smartphones, a sizeable percentage do not have access to the internet at home and may not own a computer.  Flowing from these observations, someone observed that for assignments that require a lot of technology: “Whatever we do has to be on campus and in the classroom?”⁴

Recognizing failure and frustration as part of learning: Several present had backgrounds in design and recognized failure as part of the design process, but translating this approach to the classroom, technology-related assignments, and assessment can pose some difficulties. Students experience a lot of anxiety if they don’t know technology required for the assignment. Compounding the problems, instructors may not want to sacrifice classroom time for learning associated technology. One response has been to use low stakes assignments to establish a baseline of skills and then evaluate the students on growth. Another possibility is assigning reflective pieces about the process.⁵

Topics we would have discussed if we had more time

Possible workshops or training or workshops could be built around the following topics:

• Universal Design: There was an overwhelming interest in UD, but many present felt that they would need additional training and support to integrate this.
  
• Digital Public Library of America: Many were drawn to this as a resource and would like to investigate how to better integrate into courses.
• Thinking through implications of publicly-shared student work: Many classes that are creating alternative assignments are producing work that worthy of sharing with a wider audience, but several questions about permissions, student privacy, and digital repository structure remain.
• Creative Commons and copyright in general: Working in the digital environment raises a host of copyright questions, and many wanted to learn more about how to navigate these questions.