A History Grad Student’s Approach to Digital History

Sharing project ideas with a group is a good way to collaborate and get fresh perspective. A few history grad students will share their digital theses projects and discuss ideas for future digital projects, the problems associated with creating a digital thesis, and look for feedback or ideas for their current projects.

One issue with creating a digital thesis is the lack of precedence. Here at SIUe, there have been few examples of master’s students creating and defending digital projects. Without that precedence, professors and students seem unsure of steps to take or defense strategies. New guidelines published by the AHA and universities like George Mason University provide an idea but they have yet to be tested at SIUe.

This session will bring researchers together to brainstorm. Talking about current digital projects will make others to think about their research in new ways. Learning about platforms for presenting research could encourage more digital work and build precedence for future work.

Session Proposal: Come learn more about SIUE’s IRIS Center!

The Interdisciplinary Research and Informatics Scholarship (IRIS) Center (siueiris.com/) is a facility designed to support individual and collaborative scholarship at faculty and student levels that applies digital content as a primary methodology. IRIS facilitates cross-disciplinary and collaborative projects that involve applications, enhancements, or re-conceptualizations of technology in the humanities and social sciences.

The IRIS Center is home to a number of exciting faculty-student research projects, and IRIS-affiliated faculty have even launched a brand new interdisciplinary minor in digital humanities and social sciences.

The co-directors of the IRIS Center (Jessica DeSpain and Kristine Hildebrandt) would like to offer a tour of the Center, including some illustrations of current and past projects, conversations with IRIS faculty and student researchers, and a discussion of the minor.

We are planning two tours: one on Saturday June 11 @ 1.45pm and one on Sunday June 12 @ 10.10am. We will meet in the MUC Hickory-Hackberry Room and walk together to Peck Hall, where the IRIS Center is housed.

Anyone up for early Saturday THATCamp coffee?

Anyone up for early Saturday THATCamp coffee? In true unconference unplanning, I’ll roll in to EITHER the

Sacred Grounds Cafe

or

222 Artisan Cafe

at 7:30 a.m. Meet me on the street, and we can decide together which of the two cafes to go to. After 7:30 a.m., come and join me (and others?) for an early coffee. [There will be breakfast foods on site at 9 tho.]
Feel free to join me for early coffee and an unconference preconference meet-up with discussion, caffeine, and sharing of ideas, weekend interests, and any mutual collaborations (for sessions or beyond).
Address of the cafes:
222 or 233 N Main St

Edwardsville, IL 62025
Phone: (618) 692-4150 (Sacred Grounds) or 618-659-112 (222)

Talk session proposal: Digital Human Rights

Facilitators:  Nancy Lutz, Diana Nastasia, Sorin Nastasia

New communication technologies have revolutionized the field of human rights, making it possible to create connections between individuals and organizations in a myriad of different ways. This session hopes to collaboratively explore examples of the ways in which social justice groups and other human rights organizations locally, nationally, and internationally are utilizing digital media, and some of the issues and challenges that arise in this process. Depending on participants and their interests and experiences, we will explore specific examples, shared successes and dilemmas, and ways to forge new collaborations between individuals and organizations, both for community work and for teaching.

 

Session Proposal: Making Maps With Computers

I have some experience with making custom maps using Google Maps and also using some free software called (R), which was originally developed for doing statistics, but has become much more powerful and useful through time. I’m interested in leading a hands-on session to demonstrate some of the features of both tools, and to briefly mention some other shareware that is out there for mapping and geospatial visualization, that I am less familiar with (e.g., QGIS). I would also be happy to have any other members participate in this session if they know about additional programs.

Why is this an interesting topic? Maps are useful beyond much more than just making travel plans or identifying places and objects in space. They help us to understand relationships and make connections (both spatial and temporal). They let us “see” relationships. They offer a sophisticated way to analyze very different types of information or variables (e.g. space, history, and politics). Here are some examples of some projects that incorporate geovisualization in with topics and disciplines that are more familiar to my own education and professional experience:

Civil War Washington

The Manang Languages Project & Atlas

Dialect maps, like this one featured in the NY Times

The World Atlas of Language Structures

It would be useful if you have your own laptop (any OS will do) with internet access. I’ll demonstrate whatever I can, but you will be able to download and sample different tools alongside me and others if you have your own computer.

Betty Friedan’s Peoria

I’ll be teaching an introduction to Digital Humanities at Bradley University in the fall. Bradley hosts a tribute site to Betty Friedan (a Peoria native) that I would like to see the class improve and create content for in a series of engaged learning projects. I would like to share with the participants at THATcamp some preliminary ideas that I have for the class and am eager to hear from participants any suggestions they might have based on their own experiences.

Make Session-Teaching with Omeka

Bring your laptops! I’ll walk you through the basic steps to setting up an Omeka site for digital archiving, anthologizing, and exhibiting, and we’ll discuss possible pedagogical uses and best practices.

 

Handouts:

exhibitassignment

Using Omeka

 

Slides available on SlideShare:

Talk/Play Session-Digital East St. Louis

Session Organizers: Sudhamadhuri Arvapally, Jessica DeSpain, Matt Johnson, Sharon Locke, & Mallory Maves

This presentation will share work underway with Digital East St. Louis, a project funded by a National Science Foundation Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers grant. Housed at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, the project is a collaboration between the Science Technology and Math Center, the Interdisciplinary Research and Scholarship Center (SIUE’s digital humanities Center), and the East St. Louis Community. In addition to sharing information about the project, we’ll also give session attendees the chance to interact with and comment upon student work.

Faculty in English and History who specialize in the digital humanities work alongside middle school teachers in the East St. Louis school district to develop a comprehensive three-year summer and after-school program for a group of middle school students. The research component of Digital East St. Louis is assessing how a digital humanities, place-based approach inspires student interest in the computer sciences. Over the three-year program, which launched in the summer of 2015, students will build a comprehensive database and a content-rich digital map showcasing their research into the history and culture of the city and its inhabitants.
One of the project’s primary goals is to encourage students to think across disciplines about ecology, geography, the lived environment, history, literature, and culture. Students will use skills central to information technology and information literacy to draw linkages between these topics, which will expand their critical thinking abilities and encourage them to see technology as a tool for exploring and visualizing broader questions. The project plans to train students in photography as they learn about East St. Louis architecture, learn about video production as they conduct oral history interviews with East St. Louis residents, and develop skills in research and metadata as they develop their own research interests for the project. This presentation will highlight the projects’ progress and discuss how to develop successful collaborations between the fields of STEM and the digital humanities in informal K-12 learning environments.