Link round-up from THATCamp OSU

**Update 5/10/12: Added links to DH books and another DH-focused journal issue **

So you don’t have to wade through the Twitter archive to find a link to something, here is a round-up of the documents, projects, tools, and publications shared via Twitter during THATCamp OSU. If there’s anything I missed, feel free to leave it in the comments.

The first group contains links to the Twitter archive, a blog post about the event, and Google docs for a few sessions. The second (below the fold) is a jumble of other stuff.

Documentation:

Continue reading

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Schedule for the day

The schedule for the day is on Google Docs, and can be found here: docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AoJbCe8J2_t2dDg2UFEwNzNzQm0tSVJ3VkJGQUt4Nnc

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Turning “Online Learning” into “Digital Humanities”

I’d like to propose a general discussion session about teaching online and hybrid classes that are not explicitly about DH but that would be enriched through incorporating DH approaches and methodology. I taught my first fully online class–a GEC survey of American Literature–last summer, and I fell into what is probably a common trap: cramming a fairly traditional f2f course into an online medium. Moreover, I found the students uninterested in learning any new technology to enhance the experience. It was a revelation to learn that these particular students didn’t want to have an innovative experience; they wanted to tick the course off their list of requirements. So how do we use the digital humanities to make online learning something other than the educational equivalent of Jiffy Lube?  My hope for this discussion is a kind of “show and tell” in which participants share strategies and philosophies for enhancing online classes in a variety of disciplines. This can take the form of demonstrating the technologies through which courses were constructed (as well as finished products), along with discussing the pedagogical considerations motivating individual choices. How do we create collaborative and individual assignments that incorporate DH approaches into online and hybrid courses? How do we do so while maintaining a balance between conveying content and teaching the technologies necessary to utilize DH strategies? How do we create “buy in” from students, especially nontraditional or technologically inexperienced ones? As a novice in this area, I have lots of questions and very few answers, but I’m willing to share whatever I can.

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Sessions Cloud

Hi, all. While reading through all of the session proposals submitted to date, one of THATCamp OSU’s organizers decided it might be fun and (OK, this next descriptor might be a stretch) heuristically valuable to create a Wordle from all of the session proposals (titles + text):

Wordle drawn from session proposals

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Evaluating digital scholarship (resources)

We’ve been mostly leaving the (blog) floor to the session proposals, but the Modern Language Association just released the first update in 12 years to its Guidelines for Evaluating Work in Digital Humanities and Digital Media, and I thought it warranted a mention.

How to evaluate digital scholarship is a hot-button issue in DH. It is an area of concern both for promotion and tenure committees tasked with evaluating scholarship in non-traditional formats, as well as for authors, reviewers, and editors interested in exploring the possibilities of the digital environment for improving the evaluation process. Those of you who are interested in evaluating digital scholarship should also check out:

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What do Digital Humanities scholars want?

I work in the OSU Libraries Digital Imaging Division.  As someone who produces digital images, primarily from materials in the Libraries’ collections, I’m interested in knowing what it is that Digital Humanities scholars want/expect/hope for/require from digital surrogates of physical items.  I figured I’d just show up at THATCamp and spend the day lurking, as a way of finding out what’s most important to those who study scholarly materials.  But, as there are so many questions–and possible answers–involved in even the simplest digitization effort, I decided this issue could generate its own discussion session.

So, when you think about digitization of a book, manuscript, illustration, 3D object, or other item, what is most important to you?  Reading text?  Studying images?  Examining surface detail?  Exposing properties that lie under the surface?  Reproducing the reading experience online?  Leveraging digital capabilities to go beyond traditional reading practices and invent something new?

Whether your ideas are simple or elaborate, highly articulated or barely formed, I look forward to hearing them.

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Logistics for Saturday

When and where should I show up? We will be convening in the Thompson Library in room 165 (first floor, west side). Doors open at 8:30 for sign-in, coffee, and mingling. We will start the program at 9:00. A more detailed schedule for the day can be found on the About page.

What should I bring? You should bring a notebook or tablet computer if possible (see this post for more details), a travel mug and/or water bottle, and, if you don’t like sticking things to your clothes, a nametag holder. (One of the organizers apparently has about a dozen of them leftover from conferences. Maybe you do, too!)

Tell me more about food. We will be providing coffee and tea all day, and lunch. Any other snacks or beverages will need to come with you, or be purchased at the Berry Cafe on the ground floor. Unfortunately, we aren’t able to provide breakfast – maybe next time.

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Capturing and Building Visual Fluency into Ohio State’s Humanities Curriculum

I am not proposing a game of Capture the Flag where those of us who teach in the Humanities use strategy and guile to avoid being imprisoned by old methodologies.  Instead, I am proposing a session where we talk about ways to invigorate the curriculum through the visual.  Students today are less inclined to read.  Educators in composition and literature fields of study generally acknowledge that the curriculum satisfies students well when courses use visual and other multimedia in the classroom.  As one model, I will teach a 500-level English class this summer on the Graphic Novel.  The proposed session will be fluid in nature.  I imagine that, after a general introduction, participants will cluster into pairs, small groups, and the like to talk and brainstorm independently.  One thread begun at Ohio State’s recent INNOVATE! conference was growing use of mobile technologies in secondary and higher education classrooms (e.g., Digital Storytelling using the iPhone and iPad).  I expect that participants in the proposed session will:  a) talk about students’ interests and proficiencies with one another; b) share Real World stories, projects and templates; and c) brainstorm new ideas during the day that may potentially update the curriculum in Humanities.  When individuals and small groups reconvene as a large group, I will facilitate sharing the following:  learning and talking points, technologies to explore, and questions for further consideration.  One of the outcomes I anticipate may be creation of a Virtual Network in the Humanities (contact list) or website where people share ideas and discuss ongoing projects, research, emerging technologies and best practices.

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You’ve Gotta See This

What’s the best DH project you know?  How do you talk about how great it is?  What comes after “that’s cool”?  Let’s find out what really moves us, and how to get more of it.  Share some links and conversation at this General Discussion session.

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