I admit that I did not have a lot of experience using various digital mediums for my English classes in the past. We pretty much used Google Docs for essays with an occasional Google Slides presentation to add some variety in all of my literature classes. This was fine with me as I would say my technological skills are middling at best. This course provided numerous resources that I have used to present various projects and assignments. Blogger is one such tool, as I had never written a blog before taking this class. I don't know if it is something I would want to continue after this class, it could definitely be a way to get thoughts down. Neatline was another digital tool I learned how to use this year, and I think I ended up using it 3 times in the first quarter. I really enjoyed all of the different features and could definitely see myself using it for future classes. While Neatline is really great at showing events or people scattered across the globe, Timeline JS proved very helpful for projects that dealt with a range of time. Together, I think these platforms give some awesome alternative options to essays moving forward. More important than these tools was the process of learning them. As I mentioned before, I'm not very adept or experienced with non-basic tech, so being able to learn how to use new digital tools was a great experience. There were some frustrating moments and I was tempted to throw my laptop across the room on multiple occasions, but I was able to figure it out. And the results may not have been very aesthetically pleasing, they got the job done and I felt proud of the work I did.
I relate to just using Google Docs and occasionally Google Slides in high school. I like how this course exposed us to new tools despite it being frustrating to learn them sometimes
ReplyDeleteI had a few laughs reading your blog post -- in specific looking at the frustrations when starting the digital humanities project. It must've felt very rewarding for you to see your growth using this skill -- I really enjoyed looking at your digital humanity project.
ReplyDeleteFiguring out how to use the tools was definitely aggravating at first, but now that I'm at least adequately familiar with them, I wonder if I'll be able to use them in future classes for creating projects.
ReplyDeleteThese tools were definitely challenging, but they made for some really nice research excursions and group DH projects! I'm not sure if I will use them again in the future, but I'm glad I got to experiment these past two quarters.
ReplyDeleteI had the same experience in high school, except I was exposed to blogger already. I also used neat line three times first quarter and then this quarter explored other tools more. I really support the idea of digital humanities and think high school classes should introduce it to students because it can change the way they see research and assignments, hopefully making them more excited (because traditional essays are a drag)
ReplyDeleteI never really thought about the interconnection between technology and English, because quite like you, all of my projects were either essays or Power Points.
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