In this THATCamp session, there were several professors who discussed their adventures in teaching a class on digital history.
Jeff McClurken (at U of MD) taught a senior seminar down at my alma mater, University of Mary Washington, entitled Digital History. Among the projects produced by the different groups there is a collection of works by James Farmer.
Bill Ferster from UVA discussed his digital history seminar entitled Jefferson's Travels. That class produced a fascinating tool to help visualize a particular history called The History Browser.
And of course, Paula Petrik's History and New Media courses, to which this blog owes its origins.
Some of the overlapping issues:
- Students are often uncomfortable with the lack of milestone grades.
- The myth of the "digital generation" — students who are comfortable with the tools are few and far between. "There are many things not on Google" causes a crisis of faith.
- Group dynamics is often as important as digital skills. This is a particular issue since historians don't necessarily play well together.
- The tools change, the mindsets don't — we're teaching procedural thinking, and coding is a way to reinforce procedural thinking.
- This is a new approach to learning, not just history.
We wrapped up with Patrick Juola and his idea that math is a base skill for digital history. He advocates for teaching math a different way, including an intro to advanced math concepts. This textbook/class hits the "septembers" of several advanced math syllabi.
The final thought was how do we build upon the skills and products of digital history? How do we get the academic institutions to accept the work of digital history? How do we assess the quality and/or acedemics of digital history? The collected group in the room seemed to be quite the digital history brain trust, so the feeling was that we should work together to help move the bar.
Comments