Assignments

Course Participation: 30 Points

To gain the most out of this course, you will need to demonstrate active engagement with the materials, discussions, and practicing the digital skills. There are a variety of ways to be participate and stay engaged with the course: attend Zoom class meetings (unless other accommodations have been made), ask questions/share thoughts during class (vocally, using the Zoom chat box, or the class Slack Channel), and reply to students’ blog posts throughout the semester.

You are expected to come to class prepared to discuss the assigned readings, critique digital history work, and learn new digital methods.

Extra Credit: Make substantive comments on a maximum of THREE (3) of your fellow students’ blog posts throughout the semester. You will receive one point extra credit per comment. Reflect and think about their ideas, experiences using the tools, or other aspects of their blog posts in a few sentences.

Blog Posts: 45 points (9 posts at 5 points each)

Over the course of the semester, there will be 9 total blogging activities (one per week). These assignments will correspond with each week’s themes, digital tools/approaches, and in-class activities and tutorials using provided data sets. Blogs are due by midnight on the Saturday of the week they are assigned and should be roughly 350-600 words.

To create a blog post, sign in to the course website: http://hst251.jenniferandrella.com/wp-admin/, navigate to “posts” and create a post.

Final Portfolio Revision and Reflection: 25 points

At the end of the semester, you will write a reflective essay as a longer blog post (about 1000 words) that will have two components. First, revise and expand one of your digital history creations from the previous weeks. Was their a particular tool or skill that was your favorite? Or, perhaps there was a challenging one that you would like to reattempt? You might explain the context of using the tool/skill you selected, the process of using it, the data you are using with the tool (and why), and the significance/critiques of the results.

Secondly, reflect on your entire portfolio of work and your experience with “doing digital history.” How might certain aspects of this course echo into other parts of your life?