Schedule

I. The Basics

Wed., Jan. 20: Introductions

Mon., Jan. 25: Higher Education During the Covid-19 Pandemic

• Join the class Slack workspace (see Canvas announcement for instructions), customize your profile picture, and write a post introducing yourself in the #general channel - feel free to include a GIF, picture of your pet, etc.
• Sign up for Hypothes.is and join the class group (see Canvas announcement for instructions). See Hypothes.is Quick Start Guide for Students.
• Annotate the following with Hypothes.is (be sure to make your annotations in our class group sp21-dig-stud rather than private or fully public):
  • This course website (write questions or clarifications about policies, assignments, etc., reactions to different topics, things you’re dreading, things you’re excited about, etc.)
  • Becky Supiano, “Grades Can Hinder Learning. What Should Professors Use Instead?” The Chronicle of Higher Education (July 19, 2019)
  • Shea Swauger, “Our Bodies Encoded: Algorithmic Test Proctoring in Higher Education” Hybrid Pedagogy (April 20, 2020).

In Class

• Online privacy, what you want to get out of the course, Zoom best practices, troubleshooting Slack and Hypothes.is

Wed., Jan. 27: Computers and Files and Servers, Oh My!

• Annotate in Hypothes.is:
  • Scott Weingart, “The Route of a Text Message, a Love Story” Vice (February 22, 2019).
  • Audrey Watters, “The Web We Need to Give Students” BRIGHT Magazine (July 15, 2015)
• Register for a personal account and domain name with Reclaim Hosting (Cost: $30 - this will be the only thing I will ask you to pay for during the semester (I hope))
• Make sure you have a Google Account that you are willing to use for this class.

In Class

• File types, folder structures, servers, and navigating Reclaim Hosting.
• Hands-On: Creating a “Sandbox” on Reclaim Hosting

II. Websites and Archives

Mon., Feb. 1: Website Design

• Annotate in Hypothes.is:
  • Ian Bogost, “The Age of Privacy Nihilism is Here” The Atlantic (August 23, 2018)
• Follow these instructions to install a Wordpress site in a “sandbox” directory on Reclaim Hosting.
• Select a topic for your Zoom presentation and describe it in 1-2 sentences on the Slack #presentations channel
• Either: make a LinkedIn Page and connect with Professor Blevins OR write an email to him explaining why you don’t wish to do so

In Class

• Using Wordpress

Wed., Feb. 3: Zoom Presentations

• Prepare to present your Zoom Presentation

In Class

• Student Zoom Presentations and peer feedback

Digital Hygiene assignment due 2/8-2/21

Mon., Feb. 8: Digital History

• Annotate in Hypothes.is:
  • Sheila Brennan, “Digital History” The Inclusive Historian’s Handbook (June 4, 2019)
  • Jessica Marie Johnson, “Markup Bodies: Black [Life] Studies and Slavery [Death] Studies at the Digital Crossroads” Social Text, Vol. 36, No. 4 (2018).
• Finalize a Wordpress theme and its layout for your sandbox site. Add some kind of landing or About page with a short bio and interests. Post the URL of your site to the #assignments channel in Slack.

In Class

• Q&A with Caroline Klibanoff, Program Manager for Made by Us at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.

Wed., Feb. 10: Digital Archives

• Annotate in Hypothes.is:
  • Lara Putnam, “The Transnational and the Text-Searchable: Digitized Sources and the Shadows They Cast,” The American Historical Review, Volume 121, Issue 2, 1 April 2016, pp. 377–402.
  • Replaced above reading with: follow these instructions to Install Omeka Classic through your Reclaim Hosting account.
  • Post 1-2 questions, comments, or reactions to the following reading on the #readings Slack channel: Samantha Thompson, “Why Don’t Archivists Digitize Everything?” May 31, 2017.

In Class

• Understanding metadata and creating items in Omeka.

Mon., Feb. 15: Digital Collections

• Annotate in Hypothes.is: Post discussion comments or questions to readings channel on Slack:
  • Julia Falkowski, “Custom collections content and generous interfaces” Museums and the Web 2016.
  • Jennifer Hijazi, “Is Instagram killing our museum culture or reinventing it?” PBS, November 17, 2017.

In Class

• Working with Omeka

Wed., Feb. 17: Digitization Class Postponed

• Post discussion comments or questions to readings channel on Slack:
  • Ana Parejo Vadillo interview with Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive 19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century 2015 (21). Note: you only need to read the interview, not the attached article from 1996.
  • Kim Christen, “Does Information Really Want to be Free? Indigenous Knowledge Systems and the Question of Openness”, International Journal of Communications (2012)

In Class

• Class visit from Matthew Mariner, Digital Collections Manager at Auraria Library to discuss digitization

First Self-Assessment due this week by February 21st

III. Data

COVID-19 Digital Archive due 2/22-3/7

Mon., Feb. 22: Making Data

• Post discussion comments or questions to readings channel on Slack:
  • Catherine D’Ignazio and Lauren F. Klein, “Introduction: Why Data Science Needs Feminism” in Data Feminism (MIT Press, 2020).
  • Sandhya Kambhampati, “Cleaner, Smarter Spreadsheets Start with Structure”, Source (March 23, 2017)
• Please also read the following, which provides background for a historical source that we are going to be working with over the next several classes:
  • Joe D. Horse Capture, “The Alcatraz Logbook: Signs of Red Power” The Autry Museum of the American West Blog (October 12, 2020).

In Class

• Data structures and recording information in spreadsheets

Wed., Feb. 24: Processing Data

• Post discussion comments or questions to readings channel on Slack:
  • Katie Rawson and Trevor Muñoz, “Against Cleaning” in Debates in Digital Humanities 2019
  • Christopher Groskopf, “The Quartz Guide to Bad Data” Quartz (December 15, 2015).

In Class

• Jaclyn project review
• Transcribing data from Alcatraz Logbook

Mon., Mar. 1: Analyzing Data

• Either annotate in Hypothes.is OR post discussion comments/question to Slack for:
  • “Chapter 6: The Numbers Don’t Speak for Themselves” in Catherine D’Ignazio and Lauren Klein, Data Feminism (MIT Press, 2020)
• Transcribe the remainder of your assigned page from the Alcatraz Logbook (see my post in #general Slack channel for more information).

In Class

• Processing data and spreadsheet functions

Wed., Mar. 3: Data Science

• Either annotate in Hypothes.is OR post discussion comments/question to Slack for:
  • Benjamin Pimentel, “Dear Liberal Arts Major: STEM Companies Need Your Skills to Grow” EdSurge (February 25, 2019)
  • Paul Musgrave, “Plato and Proust can’t save Silicon Valley” Washington Post (August 15, 2019)
  • Video: “Data Analyst vs Data Engineer vs Data Scientist” (April 12, 2020)

In Class

• Q&A with Alexis Baird, Director of Product Management at Thumbtack

Mon., Mar. 8: Data Visualization: Charts

• Install Tableau Public on your computer
• Post discussion comments or questions to readings channel on Slack:
  • “Ch. 5: Visualizing with Clarity” from Nathan Yau, Data Points: Visualization That Means Something, pp. 201-240. (see #readings channel for PDF)
  • Matt Korostoff, “Wealth Shown to Scale”
  • Watch first 13:20 of Neil Halloran, The Fallen of World War II (2015).

In Class

• Scott project review
• Making charts in Tableau Public

Wed., Mar. 10: Data Visualization: Maps

• Annotate in Hypothes.is or post discussion comments to readings channel on Slack:
  • Sarah Bond, “How Is Digital Mapping Changing The Way We Visualize Racism and Segregation?” Forbes, October 20, 2017.
  • Andrew Wiseman, “When Maps Lie” CityLab, June 25, 2015.

In Class

• Teresa project review
• Discussion of spatial history and cartography, understanding spatial data, making maps in Tableau Public

IV. Media

Data Exploration due 3/15-3/28

Mon., Mar. 15: Images University-wide class cancellation due to weather

• Annotate in Hypothes.is or post discussion comments to readings channel on Slack:
  • Reading moved to Weds. 3/17: Kate Crawford and Trevor Paglen, “Excavating AI: The Politics of Training Sets for Machine Learning” The AI Now Institute, NYU (September 19, 2019)

In Class

• Discussion of computer vision and machine learning, working with image files and basic image editing

Wed., Mar. 17: Images / Graphic Design

• Write 2-3 discussion questions/reactions on the Slack #readings channel on:
  • Reading moved from Mon. 3/15: Kate Crawford and Trevor Paglen, “Excavating AI: The Politics of Training Sets for Machine Learning” The AI Now Institute, NYU (September 19, 2019)
  • “Chapter 1: Visual Knowledge (or Graphesis): Is Drawing as Powerful as Computation?” in Johanna Drucker, Visualization and Interpretation: Humanistic Approaches to Display (MIT Press, 2020) (reading posted as PDF to #readings channel)

In Class

• Q&A with Guy McClellan, historian for the National Parks Service
• TJ project review

Mon., Mar. 22: Video

• Write 2-3 discussion questions/reactions on the Slack #readings channel on the following podcast:
  • Kevin Roose, Andy Mills, Julia Longoria, and Sindhu Gnanasambandan, “Episode 1: Wonderland” Rabbit Hole podcast, April 16, 2020.
• Install Shotcut on your computer

In Class

• Introduction to Shotcut

Wed., Mar. 24: Video

• Write 2-3 discussion questions/reactions on the Slack #readings channel on:
  • Renée DiResta, “The Supply of Disinformation Will Soon Be Infinite” The Atlantic (September 20, 2020).
  • Glance through MyHeritage’s page for its “Deep Nostalgia” tool and then read Marisa Parhma’s Twitter thread on it.
• Record a 30-second elevator pitch video for a future CU Denver student to convince them to take this class next year. You do not need to plan this out in depth and you can be as silly as you want - just make sure it is under thirty seconds. Use Zoom to record the video and then upload it as yourfirstname-yourlastname.mp4 (cameron-blevins.mp4) to the #in-class Slack channel by 1PM. We will be using these during class to learn how to edit videos in Shotcut.

In Class

• Bianca project review
• Video files and editing with Shotcut

Data Exploration due by March 28th

Mon., Mar. 29: Audio

• Write 2-3 discussion questions/reactions on the Slack #readings channel on the following:
  • Jennifer Miller, “Have We Hit Peak Podcast?” New York Times (July 18, 2019)
  • Listen to the second half (starting at 14:15 min) of Nick Quah’s interview with Catherine Saint Louis: “What Does a Podcast Editor Do?”, Servant of Pod (August 5, 2020).
• Download and install Audacity on laptop and have it ready for class. Note: if you are using a Linux computer you might need to install the LAME .mp3 encoder

In Class

• Whitney project review
• Recording and editing audio with Audacity

Second Self-Assessment due Friday April 2nd

Wed., Mar. 31: Audio

• Listen to Episode 8: Eden to Ashes from the podcast Consolation Prize and post at least two questions you might want to ask its creator, Abby Mullen, to the #readings Slack channel.

In Class

• Q&A with Abby Mullen, George Mason University, creator of podcast Consolation Prize

V. Class Choice

YOU will be in the driver’s seat in April. The class will vote on a topic(s) or method(s) that they would like to learn more about. This can consist of revisiting a topic (ex. “we want to know more about spatial history”) or exploring a brand-new one (ex. “we want to learn about machine learning”). I will then select readings and activities for these topics.

Mon., Apr. 5: Digitization (Rescheduled)

• Review readings from cancelled class in February:
• Ana Parejo Vadillo interview with Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive 19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century 2015 (21). Note: you only need to read the interview, not the attached article from 1996.
• Kim Christen, “Does Information Really Want to be Free? Indigenous Knowledge Systems and the Question of Openness”, International Journal of Communications (2012)

In Class

• Class visit from Matthew Mariner, Digital Collections Manager at Auraria Library to discuss digitization

Wed., Apr. 7: Data Analysis and Visualization

• Read the following related to the project “Land Grab Universities” and post 2-3 discussion questions on the #readings channel on Slack:
  • Twitter thread describing the project and its reception over the past year.
  • The README file for the project’s Github repository of data.
  • Spend a few minutes poking around the project’s interactive site.

In Class

• Using Tableau

Mon., Apr. 12: Data Analysis and Visualization (cont’d)

• Ana Jofre, Josh Cole, Vincent Berardi, Carl Bennett, Michael Reale, “What’s in a Face? Gender representation of faces in Time, 1940s-1990s” Cultural Analytics (March 19, 2020).

In Class

• Using Tableau

VI. Final Projects

Wed., Apr. 14: Project Consultations

Mon., Apr. 19 No Class, Spring Break

Wed., Apr. 21 No Class, Spring Break

Mon., Apr. 26: Final Project workshop

Wed., Apr. 28: Final project workshop

Mon., May. 3: Final Project presentations

Wed., May. 5: Final Project presentations

Final Project due May 12th

Final Self-Assessment due by May 12th