We have been charged with submitting, for all the world to see, a critique of our digital history seminar. We have further been instructed to be honest in our critique, and not be “nice” simply for the sake of making people feel good. So, here goes.
I started the semester fairly enthusiastically – I really wanted to take a course in digital history, and I was excited to see something besides standard history seminars in the course offerings. Plus, a friend and I had snooped around the Internet and perused the course syllabus before enrolling. We knew what to expect (so we thought) and were intrigued. I did balk a bit at being coerced into using Twitter and setting up a blog. Prior to taking this class, I had been entirely anti-social media, and have a Facebook account mostly so I can check in on my family now and then. I rarely, if ever, post anything of my own. Twitter struck me as a trendy, superficial everyone-is-doing-it-so-you-should-too fad. But, bravely onward! Blogging seemed a waste of time – time I could spend instead reading, doing research, or writing, but I liked the idea of blogging comments rather than sending an email or writing a response paper. Once I got past the course requirements, which, in all honesty, appeared fairly light in comparison to other seminars (beware the shiny exterior – I probably did more work for this class than any other) I felt ready to tackle the world of digital history. After a semester of frustration, elation, and at times utter confusion, I’ve concluded that every grad student should take a course in digital humanities. The top five reasons are…..
1. This course will change the way you think. The brain game of figuring out digital tools forced me to ask new questions of my topic, and treat my research as data. I had to alter how I thought about the information I gathered, and manipulate (not distort) it in so many ways to use the tools appropriately that I sought out more and more information, looked in additional places for untapped sources, and pondered more effectively the meaning of the historical stuff I had in front of me.
2. If you want to be a historian in the 21st century, you need to learn how to use Twitter. Twitter certainly had some haters, and I more than once bemoaned the lack of conversation in #dh2068. I got into Twitter quite a bit. I still am, but have unintentionally tapered off my use over the last week. (Have no fear – I plan to resume Twittering after the chaos of finals week is over). Twitter is no fun if it is not used to develop a conversation, and some people assume that Twitter confuses peoples’ meanings and isn’t suitable for sharing big ideas. My philosophy? Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it. Multiply your 140 characters by an infinite number of Tweets, and you can have as long a conversation as you want. I found that my best experiences with Twitter were the result of commenting, re-tweeting, and contributing to conversations (even with people I don’t know personally) on a regular basis. Like the DH world in general, Twitter requires collaboration and community, and despite the millions of conversations, can indeed be a lonely place without them.
3. Blogging is a good way to practice your writing. I’m not going to lie – I got into blogging, and plan to continue throughout my academic career. Though we were encouraged to blog for class, I found myself blogging about my research and other topics along the way. Because blogging was a requirement, I think some classmates were annoyed by the additional alerts they received when I updated my blog and suggested that we could perhaps use a separate blog for class, and another for personal use. My philosophy is this: if you don’t want to read my entry, delete the email or cancel the alerts. We were encouraged to push our boundaries and take risks in this course, so I did.
4. Taking risks pays off. Because the possibilities of digital tools intrigued me so much, I dove into a research project and didn’t look back. While I have not had the time to devote to a full-scale research paper, I have uncovered a multitude of sources and compiled a series of questions to guide further research next semester, and am on my way to a more well-defined dissertation topic. Beyond that, I have figured out how to use digital tools and feel fairly confident in sharing my still-limited know-how with other DH newbies, and am working on a tutorial to submit to The Programming Historian. I am well-versed enough in the challenges and possibilities of DH to sustain a reasonable conversation with others, and am looking to continue my DH skills well after the seminar is over.
5. You get comfortable with failure. We started out the semester with a reading about productive failure. I sat in front of my computer staring and clicking with little to no progress. I made version upon version of visualizations with no visible change. I attempted Gephi and just about had a panic attack when my screen changed and I couldn’t figure out how to get my pretty network back. (Nevermind the repeated attempts it took to get the network in the first place). Historians don’t like failure – we’re not used to it, because failure to us is a personal inadequacy. We can dismiss failure in the sciences because experimentation is the name of the game, and usually the net gain of the successes outweighs the even more innumerable failures. The more comfortable with “failing” I get, the more productive I am as a researcher and a writer because I take the risk and believe that the potential for success overrides my desire to avoid failure.
Those are the warm fuzzy things. There are certainly more pros to our DH seminar, but I’ll save them for my final project.
Here are the not-so-warm-fuzzy-things:
1. Grading and evaluation were not quite clear. I know I earn a certain percentage for my blog posts, my use of Twitter, my leadership of discussion, and my overall engagement in discussion. I certainly could have asked for a grade estimate at any time, but I feel that the lack of regular reporting on grades contributes to some of the requirements not being taken seriously by all, which impacts the ability of the entire class to engage critically with each other.
2. While I love the freedom of doing a series of blog posts for my final project, I do think that the freedom we have been given means that the objectives are not as clear. A standard expectation for final projects is a sort of equalizer. But, we have raised this question more than once in our class. How do we evaluate digital work? Does time spent count for anything, or is it the final product that matters more? We all take varying amounts of time to write a 25 page research paper, but in the end, we all produce a 25 page paper. We can count the pages. How do we do this with digital projects? How do you evaluate risk? Creativity? Effort? Usefulness?
3. We were a small class, and the use of social media means that we all see the work we are doing for the class. This is more personal than it is a reflection of others, but I was frustrated when I saw that others had not done the required work, or engaged critically with the content of the course in the way I thought was expected. You would think that with social media as our main form of “work” and communication, public visibility would inspire us to adhere clearly to the requirements (we are in grad school, after all) but does it have the opposite effect? Does a digital forum somehow relieve us of strict deadlines and requirements?
4. Again, we were a small class. We were each supposed to lead a discussion, and we were all supposed to be in charge of a reading every week, if there were enough to go around. Some people did a lot. Some people did not. If we need to take responsibility for discussion and for readings, we need to get this sorted at the get-go and at latest the week prior. Leaving it to Twitter didn’t work all the time.
Despite some of the frustrations with the mechanics of the class, I learned more than I anticipated and look forward to learning more in the future. I blog and I tweet – no small achievement, I assure you. I am more comfortable with making my work transparent, and significantly more prepared to share my work in its early stages rather than in its final form. And, at every possibly opportunity, I will dissuade colleagues from slapping up a PowerPoint and calling it digital history.
Elena M. Friot 