So I’ve been thinking …
In the past few weeks I’ve found myself thinking about how I identify with the Digital Humanities and as a Digital Humanist. It’s possible that I’m hyperaware of issues relating to DH right now as I apply for jobs that are specifically or tangentially associated with Digital Studies, but I’ve been a Digital Humanist since long before I ever heard the term. Somewhere on Dropbox is my 2003 application to the UToronto MA program in which I waxed poetic about a digital scriptorium. In the years since I’ve got used to explaining and defending methodologies and perspectives, but recently I’ve been surprised by how many people still find us alien and a little bit threatening. In fact, it really hadn’t occurred to me that there is an “us.”
Report from the Grading Trenches: Dispatch One
I spent a lot of time this summer thinking about how to streamline my grading process. I spoke with colleagues, read many Profhacker articles (just search Profhacker by “assessment” and you’ll get 101 hits), and looked at my past approaches to embracing a syllabus that expects students to experiment with multimodal forms of composition without having what I consider to be the proper tools for assessing those forms (how the hell DO you properly assess a Google Map?) Sometimes it feels as though I’m marking up a play-text to evaluate a live performance. Not sure if that metaphor works for anyone else, but I’ll stick with it for now.
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What Does It Mean to Be on “Vacation”
Once upon a time, when I worked at Home Box Office, we had a mandated four-week vacation – well, to be accurate, our first year we were given three weeks but then it would be raised to four. Part of our benefits package also offered the opportunity to take a “sabbatical” (I think the threshold for that was ten years at the company). The sabbatical was a holdover from the old days at Time, Inc. when editors were expected to take time away from writing to write. Apparently Time, Inc. believed everyone had the Great American Novel tucked in their desk, ready to be polished over a few months’ break.
Checking back in
Have been flying below the radar lately. Have drafted several posts but life kept getting in the way of properly editing them. I have spent some time tweaking the site’s theme (still not happy with it, but I’ve become quite the theme hoarder).
Digital Pedagogy at DHSI, part the second
It’s hard to believe that I flew home from Victoria a week ago yesterday. I’m still decompressing and wrestling with the last vestiges of jet lag. And I’ve been thinking a lot about what I learned over the course of DHSI, especially what I learned in co-teaching the Digital Pedagogy course with Katherine D. Harris and Jentery Sayers.
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