In one week, we will have our last class of Digital Humanities. It has been a fun and adventurous time I must say.
But… this is just the beginning. DH, you will always be in my heart. And so… I leave you with this haiku poem I wrote.
A book lies alone.
A laptop gilded in warmth.
I smile, light the match.
I have the opportunity with this post to talk about a digital method of my choice. Instead of talking about a fancy smancy new program, I am going to present three reasons why I still use and greatly enjoy Microsoft Word and Microsoft Power Point. Yep… I’m going to defend these oldies. Let’s go!
1. I know them and am very comfortable with them. I have been using Word and Power Point for many many years now. I am comfortable with them and know how they function. Word has that excellent tool where you can change your style of paper to fit whether you are doing a brochure, letter or a simple essay. Power Point you can install sound and animations into your presentation. Cool! I know where to find the “Insert Footnote” button and how to insert Greek symbols into my writing. With these two programs I can create an essay or a presentation quickly and without hassle. Yes, I tried prezzi and I most likely will again. But the amount of intricacies in it are sometimes surmounting.
2. They are basic and easy to use. Microsoft Word has a simple tool bar, with everything laid out in front of you. You can find every task easily and can navigate through it with ease. It’s plain and simple… you write your document right there without any complex splitting it up, or putting different sections here and others there. Yes those may be helpful to some… but I like my word documents all in one piece. For Power Point… again, basic tool bar and easy to work with. The slides don’t go all haywire like with Prezzi sometimes, and the set up of your presentation is fast. Many can argue against me, but the easiness and simpleness of Word and Power Point are the reasons why I still prefer to use them.
3. I’m an old, stubborn fella. If I like the way things run and still enjoy them, why leave them behind. I’m not like a moth attracted to shiny, bright lamps. Yes, Prezzi and Scrivener look great and may make my work easier, but I can’t seem to let go of Word and Power Point. They are like a favourite coffee mug that you keep using. It may be old and dirty and unattractive to the other new, clean mugs. But it’s still your favourite one. And that is why I stay in the 90s in terms of Word and Power Point. Thank you.
Last week’s discussion I found went really well. It was a lively seminar on collaboration, led by Melanie and Heidi. I found the readings very engaging this week, especially the Cohen article and the Wyman one on Steve.museum. Cohen presented to us a nice introduction to collaboration, writing about the Bentham project, in which the public is able to transcribe sections of his work. There was also the Lincoln Papers, where members of the community can help transcribe letters written by Abraham Lincoln. Although I do see the benefit in collaborations such as these (time and effort by museum curators cut down), the amount of mistakes that need to be corrected almost reverses those benefits. This division between amateurs and professionals came up in our discussion last week. We were semi-divided on who has authority in disciplines, and our discussion slowly moved to the university. Do professors have authority anymore? It was suggested that profs do still have this power, but in order to maintain it they have to keep doing certain things and act in a specific way. I agree… professors need to keep this authority in the university. Can’t let the students run everything! As well… we talked about Gee’s article on education system today. I do agree with him on the fact that universities today seem like camp. You can clearly see that even at Brock. People partying, drinking on the weekdays, running around rampantly. But… that’s university. I don’t think it will change. Unfortunately.
On a brighter note… I presented my first prezzi last week. It was a disaster. But, that’s the fun in trying.
Ohhh yes, this could be totally awesome.
http://www.medievalists.net/2011/11/18/first-trailer-released-for-crusader-kings-ii/
A Crusader’s Video Game… why not?
The glass of Brandy is slowly getting empty and the fire crackling in the fireplace is becoming smaller, turning into a warm simmer. My mood is slowly changing to a much more sadder tone. I’m tired… maybe a little drunk. Here are the tools that were not as valuable to me this year.
1. Just as a general comment, the tools that were only available on Macs (DevonThink, DevonAgent, Scrivener) I was unable to try out. WTF? W…T…F…? Program designers… get on that! I would like a PC version for these programs that I can actually put to the test. Just reading about them and looking at their fancy websites does nothing for me. Nothing I tell you! Thus, they weren’t really valuable to me. I can’t access them or download them onto my computer. I can’t use them unless I plop down over a thousand bucks and get a Mac. That isn’t going to happen any time soon, so I will be missing out on these programs. Again… WTF?
2. With the methods that I did try, the one that was as useful as a can of oil to get rid of a fire, was… HTML. Ok yes… I did have to become familiar with it for the Wiki page, but other than that… I could care less. I really do not see myself having to become super engaged with it anytime soon. I’m not designing or updating a website, nor trying to understand how it’s made up. After this class I will return to my books, twitter feeds and blog posts. I am not going to go and design an elaborate history website with tons of trinkets and doodle-dees. When I was learning about HTML during class and after… I began to question the need for HTML in my own research. Really… do I need to know it and use it? Some may think differently, but I believe I don’t. I’m a medievalist. And us medievalists like to keep things old school sometimes. HTML… you are the weakest link.
And with that… my brandy is finished and I’m feeling sleepy. Maybe I will try to write just one more
Just imagine me sitting in front of a stone fireplace in a leather lazy boy, a glass of brandy in my hand and a pad of paper sitting on my lap, a feathered pen resting on the open page. That is how this post is going to go. It is my time to reflect on the programs and software that I have encountered over the past semester. A time to go back to my other blog posts and to reveal which digital tools aided me the most. Now lets pick up that feather pen and swirl that glass of brandy.
1. Oh Twitter… I was so skeptical and weary of you at the start of the semester. But now… I’m so madly in love with you. This digital method has become one of the most valuable resources to me. I began by just browsing twitter accounts that I could follow: ByzantinePhil, Medievalists.net, Early Scottish History, etc. I then followed what they tweeted… and boy, am I glad I took notice. Medievalists.net especially allowed me access to various articles on medieval topics. Want to learn about Icelandic horses or medicine during the Crusades?… twitter has your fix. Most of all for my own research, there was a link to an article on Varangians from England in Constantinople… Boom, help for my MRP right there. Twitter has offered me a great wealth of information, not just for school, but also for my own personal interests. And to think… I was going to never get an account. Sheesh.
2. Ngrams were another digital method that I found greatly beneficial. I spent time, both in class and at home, researching the frequency of certain terms in scanned literature. For example, I looked up how many times “Viking” turned up, as well as the word “Byzantium.” I even felt brave enough to search “Varangian” in the search. Discovering how many times a certain word appears in literature over a period of time, and then linking those words to specific books, is a huge aid to my own research. Research for my MRP has now been lessened just a little! I can now quickly scan through books to see if they are beneficial to me… a huge time saver. I immediately saw the benefit in the Ngrams… and I was not mistaken!
3. Lastly… the Wiki page for HIST 5V71… thank goodness it exists. This was by far one of the most useful tools we had this year. Having all of the blogs together so I could access them and read them intently was a huge help. I had never heard of Brock’s Wiki pages until this class, and I may use it for my own teaching in the future. Being able to post thoughts, summaries and questions for everyone to see was excellent. When putting together my own seminar facilitation, the Wiki was an excellent asset. I eagerly awaited for my peers to respond to the questions I had posed, and commented when necessary. As well, I was able to respond to other questions asked. I know I’m chatty in class, and I sometimes found myself being just as chatty on the Wiki too. It was a great program to interact with my classmates outside of the seminar room, and I am thankful it exists.
Hello All!
I’m going to make this short and sweet. Like a rollercoaster. Here are some things I found interesting this week on twitter and the blogs I’m following.
1. From twitter, Medievalists.net posted two very interesting articles. One is on horses in Medieval Iceland as status symbols and their placement in Icelandic culture. The other is on Opium in 9th century Baghdad. When do you get to read about topics like that?!?! Links below.
2. Also from twitter, the ever trusting Byzantine Phil just posted a link to published manuscripts of works from Aristotle, Theophrastus and Galen. Check it out yos!
3. A post on the “A Corner of Tenth Century Europe” blog discusses the existence and life of the Picts and the archaeological evidence for them. A very cool and fascinating blog post for those interested in Irish history.
And… there is a book coming out in February on Wales and the Crusades. I’m already starting to put money in my piggy bank for that one.
Links!!!!
http://www.medievalists.net/2011/11/13/opium-in-ninth-century-baghdad/
http://pds.lib.harvard.edu/pds/view/24336731?n=1&imagesize=1200&jp2Res=.125&printThumbnails=no
I love Google Advanced Search. Since I’m a caveman and don’t have a Mac, I was unable to use DevonAgent, but Google Advanced Search worked just as well. Here is a step- by-step account of my interaction with this program:
Find pages with:
all these words: viking, empire
this exact word or phrase: viking empire
I then narrowed my results to just English with any region and anytime, with the terms appearing anywhere in the site. I clicked search and just over 100 000 search results came up. A little much for me. So I narrowed my search even further. I included the word “Danish” into the search engine, and just over 18 000 results came up. Instead of having close to a million results, I was now able to narrow things down a bit to a more manageable amount. This will now aid in my research for my essays to a certain extent. Thanks Google!!
P.S. Just for fun, if you switch the language to Danish with the same search results as before, you get 61 results. Boom to multilingual google search!
Well, it’s been a while since I’ve updated this little bloggity blog, but I thought I’d give my two cents about last week’s class. I as very impressed with the structure of the seminar and give a thumbs up to both Robert and Terry. Many different ideas were brought forth about teaching, DH and the readings we were assigned. We discussed the different knowledge and skills that gaming, papers, video and websites could offer to students if they were incorporated into the classroom. Just as discussed in Bass and Enyon’s article, different types of learning exist, and gaming can encompass embodied learning, while videos can bring out visual learning. Yes, the paper is the staple and basis of all these different teaching mediums, but each one offers its own unique contribution. A website for example can promote collaboration, a point that was brought up in our discussion this week. I fully endorse these new teaching methods, and they demonstrate new ways of educationg young people about old things. In Cohen’s article, the idea of recreating a global theatre was extremely interesting to me. And in Bass and Enyon’s article, the comment section to better understand a historical document= genius. These new teaching methods that were discussed both in class and in the articles are opening new doorways for both teachers and students. Out with the old… in with the new!
Well, considering that I do not have a Mac, I was unable to download DevonThink and try it out. Darn you shiny and sleek new PC laptop that I bought. Darn you…
However, I did download one of the alternatives of DevonThink, MyInfo and I think it is… subpar. It looks almost exactly like Microsoft Word and functions nearly like it. But, it has some pretty cool features that Word does not. First, it has this handy tree aspect, in which your documents are listed in order along the left side of your screen. Having all my documents right there in front of me is pretty helpful. If I need to refer back to one document, I can just click on it and… boom, there it is. Along the right side of the screen, MyInfo lists the attributes of a certain document. It tells me when it was created, when it was finished, its position in terms of priority and most helpful of all… when it is due. The due date aspect would be a great asset, as I could keep track of assignments I’m working on rather than referring back to my agenda all the time. MyInfo also allows me to embed web documents and sub-documents into it. That quality I will admit is pretty cool. Lastly… MyInfo also lets me create a task list, much the same as Evernote.
With all of its cool new features… MyInfo is only a step above Microsoft Word. I’m still going to stick with Word, and use Evernote to organize my ideas and tasks. Sorry MyInfo… you may look like Word, but you aren’t as good as it. At least to this traditional computer user.
schramarama 