Schedule

Thursday, October 20

12:30 pm 

Clio in the Classroom: Digital History Made Public

Watson 455

David Trowbridge, Professor of Digital History and Public Humanities, UMKC

Dave Tell, Codirector, IDRH  

Clio is a GPS-based website and mobile application that provides a mobile guide to historical and cultural sites. Students build the site by researching and writing about places. Entries are written by students and vetted by teachers before they are made public. The platform is designed to be used in classrooms. 
 

Using Omeka for Participatory Archiving with Students

Watson 503

Kaylen Dwyer, Digital Media Specialist, IDRH

Omeka is a free web-based publishing platform for creating digital archives and exhibits. An accessible interface for creators and users has made Omeka popular with libraries, archives, historical societies, and individuals interested in presenting digital collections. Omeka is a powerful tool for educators to invite students to think critically about the archive as they take an active role in its production. This workshop will consider approaches to using Omeka in the classroom and will provide a hands-on introduction to the tool in a collaborative environment where participants work together to build an archival collection.
 

An Introduction to Using Voyant in the Classroom

Watson 400B

Randa El Khatib, Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Toronto

This hands-on workshop explores Voyant, a powerful and intuitive text analysis and visualization tool. Used to analyze single texts as well as larger corpora, Voyant offers a suite of text analysis tools that range from word clouds and keywords in context to more complex approaches such as topic modelling. In addition to exploring Voyant for research purposes, the workshop also addresses how to implement Voyant in the classroom by working through select tools and offering sample exercises and pedagogical resources.   

2:00 pm

Break

2:15 pm

Panel Discussion

Watson 455

Rebecca Aycock, PhD Candidate, American Studies

Nishani Frazier, Associate Professor of History & American Studies

Bruce Hayes, Professor of French

A panel of KU teachers on their experience using DH tools in the classroom.

3:45 pm

Reception

Watson 3 West

4:30 pm 

Keynote Address

Watson 3 West

“Rethinking the Synchronic Classroom: Concepts and Templates for Balancing the Analog and Digital in Course Construction"

Dr. Shawna Ross, Associate Professor of British Literature and the Digital Humanities, Dept. of English, Texas A&M University. Co-Author of Using Digital Humanities in the Classroom: A Practical Introduction for Teachers, Lecturers, and Students (Bloomsbury Academic, 2017).  

In the wake of the Covid pandemic, instructors have been forced to react to quick shifts in course delivery mode. One opportunity presented by this crisis is to rethink all our classes as intentional blends of asynchronous and synchronous events, as well as of analog and digital means of learning.

This talk will not only explain how and why you might want to experiment with course construction in this way, but also provide a series of formulae that model how to combine the synchronous with the asynchronous, and the analog with the digital, in ways that further your course objectives. 

Friday, October 21

1:30 pm 

Found Media: Students Make Documentary Editions of Internet Sources in Scalar

Watson 455

John Randolph, Editor, SourceLab and Director, Russian, East European, and Eurasian Center, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Kaylen Dwyer, Digital Media Specialist, IDRH

How can students work with existing or new digital resources to create their own presentations and narratives? Scalar is a free, open-source platform that supports digital storytelling with rich annotation, multimedia, built-in mapping and visualizations, and non-linear narratives. It can be used to produce many different kinds of scholarship, from original essays to documentary editions. This session will introduce the basics of Scalar itself and also present how it has been used at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign to create a digital documentary program, SourceLab. Participants will create a Scalar book, explore core features, and discuss its role in project-based learning.
 
Telling Stories in the Classroom with Interactive Maps and Timelines: An Introduction to StoryMapJS and TimelineJS

Watson 503

Brian Rosenblum, Codirector, IDRH; Scholarly Digital Initiatives Librarian, KU Libraries

This workshop will introduce participants to StoryMapJS and TimelineJS, two free and easy-to-use tools for telling visually compelling, interactive stories through digital maps and timelines. StoryMapJS and TimelineJS are great tools for classroom use because the learning curve is minimal and there are few technical issues to derail valuable classroom time. They provide a great, low-barrier introduction to students (and instructors!) for using digital humanities in the classroom and are appropriate for simple classroom assignments as well as semester-long projects, although they also have advanced features that more skilled coders can make use of. 
This session will provide an introductory, hands-on tutorial to the tools, a comparison to other mapping/timeline tools, and ideas for and examples of classroom assignments. 

3:00 pm

Break

3:15 pm

Digital Storytelling with Twine

Watson 455

Shawna Ross, Associate Professor of British Literature and the Digital Humanities, Dept. of English, Texas A&M University

Twine is an approachable digital tool for creating branching, nonlinear hypertext narratives. Ideal for digital storytelling, it provides a simple means of writing creative nonfiction online, but it is also used for multimedia fiction and interactive games This workshop will teach you the minimal technological skills needed to coach students through using Twine, with special attention to collaborative authorship, audiovisual enrichments, and unusual applications for Twine that are especially useful for the classroom (such as study guides and argumentative essays). 
 

Creating a Culture of Possibilities with Podcasting

Watson 503

Tami Albin, Associate Librarian, KU Libraries

In this session we will cover: 

• How podcasting can be used as an assignment, 
• The types of skills students will develop through creating a podcast,
• How the podcasting process encourages students to develop a sense of ownership, accountability, and community, 
• And lastly, how the KU Libraries Makerspace can assist you and your students with podcasting.