Comments for academhack

Comment on Twitter for Academia by Nancy

Nancy — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 18:46:51 +0000

Very interesting. Is anyone using Twitter for classroom learning games/challenges?

Comment on A Model for Teaching College Writing by sázky

sázky — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 15:03:03 +0000

Here’s one case of students creating open content.

Comment on Twitter for Academia by Jose Lepervanche

Jose Lepervanche — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 13:50:45 +0000

I have been using Twitter in our online courses since last summer. I copied the HTML code of my tweets feeds to be able to display the last 10 on my website, blog, Blackboard announcements and finally Blackboard discussion boards. I encourage students to select one tweet from my list, visit the link (if any) and then create a conversation on the discussion board called “Twitter Updates”. When I review the conversation, I may select some of the answers and RT them in Twitter with the hashtag #eCampus and the “Found on our forum” heading to recycle the tweets into the discussion board. Visit my http://www.managementadventures.org to see the feed follow me on Twitter (DrLepervanche).

Comment on iPhone Apps for Academic Types by Chris

Chris — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 01:03:25 +0000

For controlling my computer during lectures, Rowmote Pro allows me to do almost anything with it (and line of sight is no problem so long as both devices are on the same network.

Agree whole heartedly with Tim that Papers (along with Papers for the Mac) is an unbeatable combo when it comes to finding and reading academic material – just brilliant!

JotNot is an excellent one as well. It allows me to photograph pages from various publications and read them later. You can even run them through OCR if you want. Basically, I’ll never need a scanner/photocopier again!

ZBar is a barcode scanner which I often use to take note of books, movies and other things. You can then use the code to look the items up on Google, Amazon, etc.

Comment on Online Course Management-Nfomedia by Dan

Dan — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 03:20:58 +0000

Thanks for posting this. I was looking for info on this service as someone (more likely a mailing list) suggested I try it out. I don’t like the way that this started, but I’ll try the service out anyway.

As for the problems with 3rd party sites collecting student data, I really don’t see the problem. I’m willing to listen to arguments, however. We have a reasonable expectation of privacy with these services. How is this really different from hosting services for Blackboard (I’d venture to guess that most universities don’t host their own)? Additionally, many universities are now using Gmail for their email services. Indiana University has done this for most of their email services.

Comment on Be Online or Be Irrelevant by Unlikely

Unlikely — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 17:24:05 +0000

I wrote a rather lengthy response at: http://unlikelyscholar.blogspot.com/2010/01/open-response-to-academhack.html

Comment on Be Online or Be Irrelevant by Amanda French

Amanda French — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 18:54:57 +0000

The article that Brett cites is indeed a very good exploration of the move from humanities computing to digital humanities.

Comment on Be Online or Be Irrelevant by Brett Bobley

Brett Bobley — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 03:27:53 +0000

@Rana,

You might also want to read Patrik Svensson’s “Humanities Computing as Digital Humanities” in Digital Humanities Quarterly. See: http://is.gd/6afB0

Comment on Be Online or Be Irrelevant by Douglas Knox

Douglas Knox — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 02:56:43 +0000

With respect for both Rana and Steve (and for Dave who may not have wanted his provocation to head so far down some of these paths), I do think there’s an interesting issue with the past of digital humanities, and the role of story-telling in community formation. There are certainly conversations and bodies of work that go back decades, but at the time weren’t they more likely to be called “humanities computing”? The term “digital humanities” has widened the community and brought in conversations that themselves already had histories. Labels do matter, and “digital humanities” does different work and fosters community in a different way from “humanities computing.” The invention of digital humanities from humanities computing seems under-narrated. I don’t know if there are good reasons for that, but not all the effects are good. Googling won’t always turn up the interesting silences, but they can sometimes matter anyway.

Comment on Be Online or Be Irrelevant by Amanda French

Amanda French — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 00:29:23 +0000

Rana and Steve —
Personally, I’d say the discipline of English is at least as difficult to define as that of Digital Humanities, so the fact that there’s an ongoing discussion about how to define DH isn’t proof of anything in particular to me. Is a literary critic defined by her objects of study? Her method? Her purpose? The channels through which she disseminates her work? I don’t think those questions have ever been resolved, and yet the discipline continues to exist.

I did find your questions “mildly ridiculous,” Rana, but I certainly understand why you’re insulted by Steve’s response. Using Blackboard definitely doesn’t make someone a digital humanist, but subjecting Blackboard to rigorous critical study does. Similarly, listening to Madonna doesn’t make someone a cultural critic (it would be mildly ridiculous to ask whether it does), but subjecting Madonna to rigorous critical study does.
Here are a couple of Digital Humanities 101 resources: first, the definitions from the “Day in the Life of the Digital Humanities” project undertaken by TAPOR: http://tapor.ualberta.ca/taporwiki/index.php/How_do_you_define_Humanities_Computing_/_Digital_Humanities%3F — the participants’ descriptions of their days is also immensely useful, though more time-consuming: http://tapor.ualberta.ca/taporwiki/index.php/List_of_Day_of_DH_Participants (I remember I spent that whole day writing a syllabus for a course called “Creating Digital History,” for instance.)

Second (or third, or 2B, or whatever), here are the abstracts from the Digital Humanities 2009 conference: http://www.mith2.umd.edu/dh09/index.html%3Fpage_id=99.html Browsing through that would be a good way to get a sense of what activities are considered scholarship in the Digital Humanities. See also various resources at http://digitalhumanities.org/.