Write a post about undergraduate DH (how it should be taught; what guidelines or restrictions; experience, etc.)
How:
- By a professor with significant experience in the DH field – willing to bring in experts (guest speakers & lecturers are phenomenal assets) to cover the topics they are not qualified experts in
- A small classroom (NOT INTENDED FOR A MASS LECTURE SETTING) where a tight community feeling can be easily and quickly established
- Around technology and computers (clearly a necessity)
Guidelines/Restrictions:
- 300 level course – that type of dedication, intuition, seriousness is needed to really get what one can out of this course
- In my personal opinion, THIS SHOULD BE A REQUIRED COURSE FOR GRADUATION FOR EDUCATION MAJORS OF EVERY DISCIPLINE (and I will explain why later)
- Students, in some way, shape or form, should have some collective project to contribute to the developing field
- Definitions/Topics/People that need to be covered and studied: XML, TEI, Collaboration, Digital Nation, Transcribing, Transcribe Bentham, Clay Shirky, Sherry Turkle, Mark Bauerlein, John Unsworth.
Experience/Reasons why:
- We live in a digital age. As I’ve quoted Bob before, the times they are a’changing. We have an obligation to ourselves, to our society, to our existence to examine these changes, their effects. That’s really what we’ve tried to do this entire semester – weigh the pros and cons of this change – its implications (what else is changing? what’s causing this change?), what we’re loosing (printed text? or more? [Turkle]), what we’re gaining (collaborative work?), what we don’t know yet (thanks, Shirky). We’ve read statistics and heard personal accounts. We’ve studied writing, in implementation, in incremental changes and fundamental ones. We’ve been behaviorists, psychologists as we’ve looked at why and how we use the internet the way we do. Who wouldn’t benefit from taking a step back and looking at technology (how we rely on it, what we do with it, what it’s doing with/to us) and learn from that? Question, maybe, all of the above? DH makes us do that. This course was not, and is not, just about ‘going digital’ or how to go digital – it’s about really focusing on what that means for the humanities and how to make the humanities that way.
- DH is a new field. It needs new ideas, new input, fresh blood – and who better to give it, than those natives who are the experts in this field, yet old enough to be mature, insightful, educated and honest – undergraduate students. Plain and simple.
- As an education major, this course has opened my eyes to the capabilities the internet/technology have that I can exploit in the classroom. A different way of thinking, of utilizing to the highest ordered thinking power, that I never got in my “Educational Computing” course. If my [future] students are natives, which they will be, I need to accommodate to their needs and to what they know. I need to study DH. I need to be prepared to deal with why they rely on it the way they do, why they use it, what they use it for, what they can use it for. And I need to teach them that. And DH teaches me that.
Your How section: I completely agree. All necessities.
Your Guidelines section: Collaborative projects – mos def. Preferably a few of them. The first couple things we did this semester laid a solid foundation on which to build our research projects. Things that need to be covered – yes, all that and so much more. That’s why I proposed the possibility of breaking up DH into multiple courses (better explanation on my post).
Your Experience section: “We’ve been behaviorists, psychologists…”. Yes, and there are so many social implications to be explored as well, especially in regards to Web 2.0 and Creative Commons. I love the diverse/interdisciplinary nature of DH and believe strongly that it should be embraced and stressed.
I have one question…you say it should be a 300 level course. However, the class we are in is a 200 level, and there were no prerequisites to taking this, except that you had to be in the Honors program. I was wondering what kind of pre-req classes you thought should be required of students before completing a Digital Humanities course. I am not challenging your beliefs, just wondering why you think it should be as high as 300.
That’s what I was thinking too, why 300? I also like how you think it should be a requirement for education majors. It definitely gives a new perspective on things!
This may be a 200-level class, but (and correct me if I’m wrong) we’re arguing that DH should be taught at the undergrad level — not the undergrad honors level. I’m not sure if Amanda subscribes to the idea of splitting DH into a couple courses or not, but a course identical to this one would probably have to be bumped up to a 300, given the levels of intellect and participation involved.
Actually, you are challenging her beliefs and there’s nothing wrong with that. Questioning our peers facilitates higher levels of thinking, which is a very positive thing. Never view such a ‘challenge’ as rude. Our [intellectual] arguments have yielded some awesome results. Challenge away!
300 to all = 200 in honors [to put very very simply, and in no way arrogantly]
I feel that at a 300 level, students in the class would have a lot to bring to the table and to contribute. Does that mean I feel freshmen and sophomores don’t have anything to contribute intellectually? No, of course not. However, we’re honors. Plain and simple. An honors freshman, on average, is very different than a “regular” freshman. That’s why we’re separated from our peers – because, very typically, we are different from them. I’d also like to hope that what these undergraduate DH classes would contribute to the field would be something great – and the more knowledge and experience you have under you, affects that.
Think about it. What if we all got together in 2 years, or even 3? Would our life experiences and what more we’ve learned/gained affect our ideas? Would we be able to produce something even better than we already have? The answer is probably yes.
A little off topic, but I’d be all about a reunion.
same.