TEACHING WITH DHNOW

In this assignment, students engage regularly with DHNow as a lightweight way to observe the activities taking place in the digital humanities field, in real time. Have students subscribe to DHNow and read the two editors’ choice posts each week. Then ask students to write a blog post each week (or other appropriate interval) responding to one of the editors’ choice posts. This is an excellent way to provide an overview of the DH landscape for students in introductory courses on digital humanities.

In this assignment, students use DHNow to research the history of a topic as represented through notable postings. Ask students to select an area of DH praxis (such as text analysis or mapping). Then, using the search function on the DHNow site, have students read through all the posts on a specific topic over the years of DHNow’s existence (or a more constrained period). The results could be presented through in-class discussion, or by having students prepare a blog post or short paper that provides an overview of the history of the topic–perhaps preparatory to a hands-on exploration of that topic in class.

In this assignment, students sign up to be DHNow editors-at-large for a semester, to nominate items for inclusion and identify appropriate sources. Editors-at-Large have the opportunity to review feed content and nominate noteworthy content at their own pace, as well as using the ‘Nominate This’ bookmarklet to nominate content that they find on the web, outside of the feed sources. Having students serve as editors-at-large is an excellent way for students to get a better sense of the DH online landscape. During the course of the semester, in-class activities could include sharing notable posts, having students discuss what makes a good source (and engaging with DHNow’s own criteria for inclusion), or examining the different genres and modalities of digital humanities research. At the end of the semester, students could write a reflection or short paper on their experience as editors-at-large, discussing one or more pieces they found particularly interesting, or developing a longer paper on the topic of a specific post.

In this assignment, students use past DHNow posts as a window into specific periods of digital humanities praxis. Ask students to read all of the posts for a specific month a few years ago, and then select one that feels significant in some way (for instance, connected to the themes of the course, or to the student's personal research interests). Have students investigate the context for the post: for instance (as applicable), the author of the source blog and their research focus, the history of the project or research problem being discussed, the occasion or milestone that prompted the post. Students could prepare a short "where are they now?" post that investigates what happened next, or could share their findings orally with the class.

In this assignment, students situate DHNow postings in a disciplinary context and use them to shape an understanding of DH as an interdisciplinary field. As a starting point, ask students to read all of the DHNow postings during a specified period (scoped to the footprint you’d like to give this assignment). In class, have students work in groups to divide the postings into groups representing discipline or field commonalities, based on features they can observe. These could be overt features such as references to departments or journals, or they could be more tacit things such as terminology or methodological assumptions. When the groups reconvene, ask students to share the results of their discussion: the features they focused on as indicative of field, the kinds of differences they observed. What approaches seemed closest to students’ own interests (or the topic of the course) and why? What approaches appear in very specific contexts and which are very widely shared? Depending on the focus and level of the course, students may be able to observe differences and commonalities without being able to name specific fields.