Category Archives: Uncategorized

Teaching and Learning with Blogs

Kathleen Fitzpatricks’s emphasis on the importance of blogs in the maintenance, creation, and development of critical thought and academic communities, lead me to consider the function of “blogs” in academic teaching. Particularly, first-year writing.

I’ve taught writing courses and seminars using a WordPress blog for 3 or 4 semesters now (funny that I can’t really remember) – – – and have always struggled to get my students to use it. I’ve even struggled to get them to join it. Part of the issue was, clearly, the fact that I didn’t really know how to use these blogs myself – – – at least not “optimally.” (I’m hoping to attend a WordPress workshop before teaching again next year!)

But another part of the problem seems to run deeper – even, as Kevin pointed out on Monday – in our own DH Praxis class.

Along with student resistance to engaging with new (or really, unknown and thus intimidating) technical skills, the problem seems to be linked to the fear of exposing oneself online (as discussed last night). Exposing oneself in writing (which we are taught must be perfect, or precious), exposing oneself in permanence (rather than aloud, with no recording), and exposing oneself in front of peers and teacher(s), who might pass judgement for all sorts of reasons (this post is too long (I know), this post is too academic or too casual, this post is too short, this post is offensive, this post is irrelevant etc.)…

I myself have struggled to post on this blog, and this of course feeds my interest in the matter. Why? Perhaps its because, when I asked my own students to “post on the blog before every class,” it lead to a very difficult classroom situation. We all ended up repeating the same ideas over and over again. Because of this experience, I may have some illogical fear of being somehow forced to repeat myself, or to choose between ideas expressed “in class” and “on the blog.”

I admit that I have, at times, withheld a thought in class, deeming it “better for the blog.” I decide that I need more time to think it out; that I can express it better in writing. I’ll take copious notes, then go home with every intention of posting my thoughts. But then when I type it out, I get in over my head. Is the comment still relevant, has it become too heavy, long, or intricate in writing… too “developed”? Not blog-worthy. Turns out that if you “hide” a thought in order to work it out alone, expressing it can become a far more difficult task. I think this speaks to Kathleen’s ideas of being transparent rather than hidden, thinking and writing “in real time” rather than in time… delays.

I wonder how we can make classrooms – and academic communities – work both “in person” and “online.” How do you teach effectively both in person and with a blog? Matt & Kevin’s suggestion to post on this blog only 4 times, on subjects that are not often addressed in class discussions – is a far better model than ones I have used in my own classes. I’m definitely going to try to take this strategy to my writing classes. I’ve addressed the classroom community with “real time” “draft workshops” for each student’s paper, but I’d love to create an online community for the students to communicate about undiscussed topics, too. Perhaps the “draft workshop” can even go online. I see some connections here.

And as for the (serious) issue of self-consciousness in “public,” in writing, or “online.” that’s probably just a matter of getting used to the blog form. I still have far to go as both a student and a teacher – – –

WordPress Workshop

Last Monday night I went to my second WordPress workshop.  I have been going to a lot of workshops for this class, and by far I found WordPress and Lexicon the most informative.  Monday night was part II and since I had already created a web page on commons, this workshop reinforced what I learned in part I.  What we learned was how to customize a menu, create widgets, and the fact that I can create my own theme page is awesome.  Also, I was really interested in learning about plugins, since I had no idea what they were about, and now I know that plugins are really essential for any website.  Looking forward to using these tools for my final project.

Everyone, have a Happy Thanksgiving….

Juana

WordPress II Workshop

I went to the WordPress II Workshop last night. The workshop was helpful in assisting me refresh some of the things I’ve learned about WordPress in the past. A couple of things we gone over included: Categories, custom menus, pages vs. posts, widgets, plugins, and CSS. I thought the CSS aspect was really interesting. And I’m planning to attend the Advanced WordPress Workshop next Monday to learn more about it.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

-Maple

Workshops: What I learned, and how…

… it helped me this semester :

I learned what I didn’t want to know.

Which is valuable! Here’s a quick run-down, for anyone who’s interested :

First, I went to “Scraping Social Media,” on October 19th, which was taught by a very energetic and helpful woman named Michelle Johnson-McSweeney. The workshop moved quickly, but I was able to keep up, especially by sneaking questions to the excellent lab partner next to me (JoJo). After learning about the various interests, reasons, and concerns about gathering data from the likes of Twitter and Facebook, we moved on to actually “scraping” those sites – which worked for the most part, and felt quite satisfying. There were of course, some issues, and these became more present towards the end of the workshop. The main disappointment I remember was the I couldn’t “scrape” Twitter on a Mac… at that point I hadn’t been considering doing a project exclusively on CUNY computers. Nevertheless, the workshop was encouraging enough to lead me to think of projects for which I could use this tool. This lead me to my first (overwhelming) data set proposal: scrape the web for data regarding a controversy in Best American Poetry. Unfortunately, as soon as I went down that rabbit hole, I ended up composing a project that was totally unmanageable, about “Appropriation” in contemporary poetry. It was way too big. So I moved on to something else:

I had a book come out November 1st, and I thought, why not just use my own poems? This was a moment of anxiety for me – I felt that I could “thick map” my book, create a hypertext version of it, disclose more information and “be transparent,” perhaps take some responsibility for my own “appropriations.”

So, the next workshop I attended was “Text Encoding,” taught by the ever-wonderful Mary Catherine Kinniburgh. I was pretty excited to learn about “code,” excited about the prospect that I might one day learn to “code,” excited overall to lock down some acronyms at the start, such as HTML, TEI (the focus of this workshop), and XML. However, as the workshop progressed, I naturally started wondering whether I wasn’t up-to-speed enough to be here. Or rather, that my “hypertext” project idea wouldn’t actually benefit from TEI. If HTML stood for “hypertext mark-up language,” wasn’t that what I needed to learn first? The TEI projects we looked at were Shakespeare plays, and some Latin / Greek texts, and it was great to learn more about the “backbone” of how text is encoded, with plenty of examples and explanations.

But even more than realizing HTML was what I would probably need for my hyper-text project, I realized once again that hyper-texting my book of poems wasn’t really a “data set.” I went back to my idea of “deformance” (interpretation + performance). I wanted to try to learn something about the language in my poems, and to simultaneously make “art from art.” I regretted that I had forgot to register for the “Data Visualization” workshop a week prior before it filled up.

So, although my path through these workshops may have felt like a bunch of (gentle) dead-ends, I do think that they helped me arrive at a project, albeit late to the game. I’d imagine that if I had gone into the semester knowing more about the digital terms (why did I have to miss the “DH Lexicon” workshop! And why was it so late in the semester, too?) – I might have been able to learn tools that would actually help me conceive of a project / start conducting it quicker.

There’s a kind suggestion here: have more workshops early on that might help students get grounded without prior knowledge of DH and digital tools. That said, I did learn a lot from each workshop, even if it wasn’t what I “wanted” to learn. And there’s a lesson in that: I should have gone to more workshops, or at least done better research on my own before just “following my gut.”

Reflections On Volumetric Cinema and Digital Surrealism

I meant to post this last week but it got away from me. Re: Kevin’s work: Looking at his sums of Disney films reminded me of Jason Salavon’s work with old master portraits where for four artists he averages the bulk of their work and thereby “reveals the hidden norm lurking within” (Met Online). Also, and perhaps more tangential, Kevin’s 3D stacks had me thinking of films as sculptures that are carved further and further into as time and the story progresses. This reminded me of some of the work of Alberto Giacometti, who made these very existential sculptures that are very thin and appear to have been carved almost to nothing. I am told, and I don’t know if it is true or apocryphal, that these sculptures come out of Giacometti being so traumatized post-WWII that he would carve compulsively and often would do so until his work was completely turned to dust. Left only to his own devices, even the sculptures that survive would have been completely ground down. (A bunch of his stuff is up at MoMA. I’m thinking of Tall Figure III, Man Pointing, and Standing Woman.) Anyway, with this story and Kevin’s work in mind, it’s interesting to think of the movie viewer’s gaze as compulsively carving into the film. In that case, the progression of time in a film is a measure of the observer’s destruction, before which the unfolding of plot becomes almost incidental.

Unix/Linux Command Reference Workshop

Okay, so I was originally supposed to go to the Text Encoding workshop this past Tuesday, but there was a mixup with the rooms, so I ended up in the Command Reference workshop. Although this really won’t be of any use to me in my future projects (or maybe it will, I won’t speak too soon) it was good to about this entire program in my computer (Terminal) that’s basically a command center for everything that goes on in it. I was told that through Terminal, I can use commands that go above and beyond the basic commands that you are prompted to do on a Mac. For example, if I wanted to clear out some files that weren’t being cleared the traditional route I could go into Terminal, put in a specific file command and it would be gone. Also, you can make “directories” within Terminal that can then be exported as PDFs and/or HTML codes. It was really interesting, but definitely something you have to work with consistently as the commands and codes seem to be endless. I’ll be looking forward to attending another workshop where we work on the command screens.

 

Scarlett

Unix/Linux Command Reference Workshop

I have been to the wrong work shop on Tuesday, instead of going to Texting Encoding I have been to Unix/Linux Command Reference. Both of them aren’t specifically connected to what I would do as dataset project, but I’ve never been to a workshop before and I’ve found it really interesting.
Basically had this paper in our hands and we started playing with commands able to create, delete and modify files in our own computer. We started opening “Terminal” in the spotlight search bar, and few weird codes appeared on the screen.

I can’t say I understood what I was doing, but the guys were really nice with us – they understood we didn’t know anything about coding and directory – and they taught us few tricks to create directories with letters on the keyboard. For example: “pwd” for printing working directory or “mkdir” to create new folders, etc…

The useful thing I learnt is that with GNU nano to convert files in pdf, write a script, download pictures and convert them from .jpeg to .pdf.

This link will provide a guide for Command Reference

https://ubuntudanmark.dk/filer/fwunixref.pdf

 

Thank you all,

 

 

Nico

Deformance / Hypertext Project

This is a sort of two-pronged post, addressing Matt’s question towards the end of last class, re: how the readings / class discussions are helping me think more about my data (or final) project.

I’m really interested in the ideas and examples of “deformance” (in Jerome McGann’s definition = interpretation + performance) that have come up recently, especially and most recently in Lev Manovich & Kevin’s digital work. I suppose I think of “deformance” as a way of turning art into new art… the purpose of which is beyond just “playing around” and being creative (good purpose in itself), but also, as Kevin pointed out, to ask questions of the “data” (the art, or the world in which it was produced) that you wouldn’t have known to ask before. Disordering the work of art (text, photo, or film) in order to change its questions, its answers, its “rules.” I have also been interested in the way that digital “deformance” tends to “aesthetically pleasing” results – Kevin and Lev’s work simply “look good,” and I’d love if one my projects in this course (i.e., project fully executed) could aspire to that type of artistic attention (which seems to derive from direct intention + skills + a level of pure play or “accident”).

Along these lines, it is now my intention to do a “deformance” project that is focused on my own writing / creative process. That is, rather than trying to uncover and work with the huge and somewhat impossibly impenetrable “data set” I previously proposed (Appropriation in Contemporary Poetry), I would like to either:

  • 1 – Make a digital hypertext edition of my book manuscript (Babette, recently published in print this month), adding one or more layers of text to discover more information about the language on the page. This may include anecdotes, links, or perhaps even other “poems,” that seem to enrich, deconstruct, or disorder the present text. Thus the “data set” would be the original text (+ the new text?) I would like this hypertext edition to move the reader away from the “search” (for meaning) and towards the “browse” function, revealing both writing and reading as dynamic, non-linear, and layered, with interconnected information and experiences. On that note, a final goal would be to open the text to “community, relationship, and play” (Stephen Ramsay) by allowing “users” to add their own interpretations, experiences, links, etc. (though I understand this might be beyond the scope of this project).

OR

  • 2 – Create a digital hyper-text edition of my three published manuscripts (Babette, Parades, and Latronic Strag) and do a data-visualization of the neologisms I’ve used in these works. The “data set” would thus be these “neologistic” words, about which I could ask starting questions such as: “how often do they appear in each book,” “how much do they sound like one another,” “how closely are they “related” to each other (by the computer’s definition),” how closely are they “related” to “real” words, what words do these associate with in my mind (or the computer’s, or in the minds of other readers)… what “real” language do they sound like, and is there some sort of “neologistic” conversation going on between the words, phrases, poems, manuscripts? Again, the aim would be to use the language as data to “browse” for new questions about the text, rather than “search” for these answers, and one ultimate goal would be to have the project allow for “users” to add in their own experience of these words (creating more data).

Allowing others to add reactions, data, or personal experience is one way for me to get away from the fear that this would be a “vanity project” (in which the data in the set is simply my own data). Another way would be to see this project as a starting point for hypertext-ing or disordering other texts, texts that are not my own. Perhaps I see this project as one that might move me closer to that more “research”-like or scholarly question of how language is appropriated or repurposed in contemporary poetry.

As for creating a “digital edition” of one (or more) of my books, I found a tool called Ediarum on the DIRT site, which claims to help authors “transcribe, encode, and edit” manuscripts.

As for the second (and I’d imagine, more fun and elaborate) task of “hypertexting” the book(s), I had to do a little more research to see what’s out there, and where it’s coming from. What “kind” of hypertext am I looking to produce? Based on the Wikipedia definitions of “forms of hypertexts,” I’d surely like to create something that is “networked,” i.e. “an interconnected system of nodes with no dominant axis of orientation… no designated beginning or designated ending.” And, if I wanted to be able to add that user interaction, I’d want something “layered”: a structure with two layers of linked pages in which readers could insert data of their own.

Searching for tools to create networked / layered hypertext lead me to two options on DIRT: Mozilla Thimble, and TiddlyWiki. (It also lead me to investigate what software is or has been available for hypertext, starting with Ted Nelson’s ProjectXanadu, and ending, it seems, with the popular (and expensive, at $300) program from Eastgate called StorySpace, neither of which I think will be very helpful).

I’d love any thoughts on which project (1 or 2) seems more interesting, appropriate, or feasible for this project… I’m going to make an appointment with the Digital Fellows to get their advice (and guidance on the tools).

Thanks!

– Sara

 

Native American Boarding Schools

At my other class we read Report of the Maine Wabanaki-State Child Welfare Truth & Reconciliation Commission. That is how I found out that the little Native Americans in Maine are 5.1 times as likely to go to foster care than the non-native children. The Native Americans see it as the continuation of the genocide they have experienced from the Europeans. To them, foster care is a sequel to the Indian boarding schools.

Having come from a different part of the world I knew some common facts about Native Americans, but I did not know anything about their boarding schools. The latter were created to deal with “the Indian question”. Captain Richard H. Pratt established the first boarding school in Pennsylvania in 1879 with hope to “kill the Indian and save the man”. Europeans thought that if they teach the native children their ways (like religion, team sports, the notion of private property) and give them some education, there would be no need in eradicating the race. The main goal of the Indian schools was to assimilate the Natives with their Caucasian neighbors. It was done in the most hurtful ways. Children as young as six had to adapt to a new way of life: their hair was cut, clothes burnt, native language prohibited. At a boarding school everyone had to wear uniforms, accustom to a very rigid schedule, and speak English. For any kind of misbehavior the Indian children were severely punished. Physical and even sexual abuse was a rather frequent phenomenon in the Native American boarding schools. Since boarding schools for Indian kids were mandatory, the approximate number of their students reached 60000 in 1973. This leads us to believe almost every Indian family was impacted by the system. The mistreated students of the Native American boarding schools carried pain and resentment into their adulthood, which often resulted in substance abuse and poor parenting skills.

The truth commissions are created for those who need reconciliation. Having openly discussed their negative experiences, adults are trying to forgive the system and possibly become better parents to their kids. A loss of a child to foster care is a parent’s personal tragedy. For Native Americans it is also a tribal catastrophe, since their communities are too small and risk extinction without progeny. Everyone makes mistakes, and the Native Americans have as much rights for their children as any other racial group.

For my project, I would like to tell this story in a digital way. I plan on making some introduction about the purpose of the Indian boarding schools and illustrate the narrative with pictures. Then, I would like to use Neatline to map the schools across the States. When clicked on a certain school, a short history of it has to show up. To make it more complex, photographs of schools will be presented. Since there were about one hundred Indian boarding schools in the US, it is too big of an undertaking to map and describe all of them. Therefore, I will concentrate on the biggest or the most famous ones. The project should be accompanied with the Trail of Tears music at the background. If time permits, the project will develop with a narrative of Native American revival: schools, festivals, and modern culture. With happy Indian music, of course.

I am not sure about the data I will draw the information from. So far I have not found any collective sources I hoped to come across while doing research. It is possible I will be looking up every school separately and using my Zotero account to cite the sources.

Suggestions and any kind of help are highly appreciated:).

Workshop: The GC Python Users’ Group (PUG)

Last week, I attended my first Python Users’ Group (PUG) with the GC Digital Fellows for help with setting up and accessing Python on my machine.  They meet every other Monday from 2 – 4PM in the GC Digital Scholarship Lab (Room 7414) to help and support students working on digital projects.  So far this semester, I’ve attended several workshops but felt that the instruction I received at PUG (on both Python and MALLET) was particularly helpful due to the collaborative atmosphere and the opportunity for one-on-one discussions.

Evidence of my attendance: me on the far right, confused but determined.

Evidence of my attendance: me on the far right, confused but determined.

PUG will meet again next week, November 16.  A recap from last week’s session makes two suggestions for participants:

  1. Come to learn Python independently with a group of tutors nearby.
  2. Come with a specific Python-related question or project that you want help with.

I regret not having a data set prepared to work on the last time I attended but I encourage everyone in class to go with something to work on.  Since the last session, I have been working on accessing my data set (a recently published short story collection) and converting it into a readable file for analysis.