Digital Jumpstart Workshops - October 17, 2025

The Institute for Digital Research in the Humanities and the Center for Teaching Excellence are proud to announce the Fall 2025 Digital Jumpstart Workshops, “Digital Technologies in the Classroom.”

“Digital Technologies in the Classroom” is a series of workshops aimed at equipping teachers at the University of Kansas to integrate the tools of the digital humanities into their classrooms and to think critically about them. All sessions will be held in-person in Watson Library in the Clark Instruction Center.

“Digital Technologies in the Classroom” provides three levels of support for KU teachers who want to integrate digital humanities tools into their classrooms.  

1. Instruction. Workshops will cover a range of student-friendly technical tools, from text-mining with Voyant, to critical digital mapping, to AI literacy in the classroom, to creating digital archives, and more.
2. Support. Any workshop attendee who uses a digital humanities tool in a 2026 KU classroom will have the support of the IDRH and the CTE as they teach the course and implement the tool. Support entails pre-assignment and mid-term consultations as well as a measure of troubleshooting.  

3. Funding. to use digital humanities tools in the classroom. Through the generosity of the Center for Teaching Excellence, a selection of workshop attendees will receive $500 stipends to support implementation and evaluation of a digital humanities tool in their classroom in 2026 (spring, summer, or fall). Because of limited funding, applicants will be selected competitively.

    

Schedule

9:30 am - Coffee 

10:00 am - Lightning Panel  

10:30 am - Workshop 1: Making Interactive Websites in the Classroom, John McEwan 

Building a website is a complex intellectual task that offers students exciting opportunities to explore new modes of presenting ideas and arguments. This workshop examines accessible website-building tools that humanities instructors can integrate into their classrooms to help students appreciate the potential of digital media. We will explore two complementary approaches to argumentation. First, we'll consider tools that support linear presentation structures, similar to traditional essays, but enhanced with multimedia components such as images, audio, and video. Second, we'll examine tools like Twine and Ink that encourage students to experiment with non-linear, branching structures. Participants will gain hands-on experience with these platforms and leave with strategies for incorporating website creation into their humanities courses, whether as individual or collaborative projects.

11: 45 am - Break 

12:00 pm - Lunch & Workshop 2: Digital Mapping for Social Justice, Katie Knowles (box lunch provided)

Maps are never neutral. In this workshop, we will explore how instructors can use digital mapping software and geo-spatial data in the classroom to demonstrate the way maps are used to construct narratives. We will examine a variety of tools and resources, and we will complete a practice assignment using to StoryMapsJS to explore how students might approach mapping their own narratives in the classroom. We will discuss the ways mapping software might shape the narrative of a digital project and propose methods for working against or around certain structures.

1:15 pm - Break 

1:30 pm - Workshop 3: Using Digital Tools for Student Projects, Maggie Unverzagt Goddard  

In this presentation, Maggie Unverzagt Goddard will share strategies for introducing students to different platforms, or software, and the kinds of digital forms, or projects, they can build. Applying lessons from last year’s Digital Jumpstart keynote speaker Danica Savonick, she developed a digital tool parade, in collaboration with the IDRH, to engage her class on their affordances and limitations. Students each selected a different tool to explore how digital humanities can offer new interpretative strategies for curating museum collections.

2:45 pm - Break 

3:00 pm - Workshop 4: Ethics of AI, Katie Conrad

This session begins with an introduction to some of the ethical issues around generative AI as well as its capabilities and limitations. The session will focus on ways to talk about and curate examples of ethical and use issues with AI and help students to think about them. The session will include demos of some tools and discussion of pedagogical challenges and strategies. Note: this session will not focus on integrating generative AI use into the classroom, but on building the literacy necessary to help students and colleagues make informed choices.

4:30 pm - Happy Hour @ Lawrence Beer Co. (snacks provided) 

Registration

Registration for the Digital Jumpstart Workshops is now live! Register by October 1st if you would like lunch. Registration will close completely on October 10th.

Funding

If you attended the workshops on October 17, 2025, and if you are an instructor planning to use a digital humanities tool in a 2026 KU classroom, you are eligible to apply for a $500 incentive.  

To apply, submit the following materials as a single PDF file. The file should be named “2025-JumpstartStipend_Lastname-Firstname.pdf” and submitted via email (idrh@ku.edu) by 11:59 CT, November 21, 2025. 

1. 1-page Cover Sheet that includes the following information
   
   1. Name, title, and contact information of applicant.
   2. Workshop(s) attended (does need to match the tool you propose to use in a classroom)
   3. Course details: time, semester, enrollments
   4. Course description
2. Description of the assignment that will utilize any digital humanities tool
   
   1. 1-page max.
   2. Explain how the tool will be implemented in the classroom. How will it be taught, how will it complement the larger themes of the course, and what support do you anticipate needing?
3. A draft of the course syllabus (optional)

Applicants will be selected based on the degree to which the digital tool is implemented in the course and the quality of the description of the assignment.

Awards will be announced by December 5, 2025 (Spring 2026 Awards) and May 4, 2026 (Summer/Fall 2026 awards). Each award will be $500, which may be taken as either a stipend (minus fringe) or as reimbursement for research expenses.

By accepting the financial award, successful applicants commit to the following obligations.  

1. Use the DH tool in the course as proposed.
2. Within 3 months of the end of the semester in which the tool was used, successful applicants will provide the IDRH with a copy of the final assignment and, if possible, examples of student work. Where appropriate, assignments and work may be featured by the IDRH on their website and other reports.
3. Participate in a CTE poster session at the end of the academic year in which they teach the funded course.

Deadlines

October 17, 2025: Digital Jumpstart Workshops

November 21, 2025: Deadline to apply $500 for Spring 2026 semester. For details, see below.

April 20, 2025: Deadline to apply $500 for Summer and Fall 2026 semesters. For details, see below.

Spring, Summer, and Fall, 2026: All participants in the Digital Jumpstart Workshops are encouraged to use the digital tools and methods taught at the workshops in their classrooms. The IDRH and CTE are excited to provide instructional support and tool-specific consultations for all instructors on campus, whether they receive funding for course development or not. 

Questions

If you would like assistance crafting a digital humanities assignment, please reach out to the IDRH at idrh@ku.edu with questions.