Week 2: Tools

Project Charter

Post your project charter to the DSSF19 website by 9 am, Friday, June 14. Use the Project Charter category.


Reflective Essay #2

Post by 9 am, Monday, June 17

It is important to think critically about the digital tools that we use and not simply take them at their face value. We have to engage with them at a deeper level, discover inherent biases and limitations, address them, and ultimately work with them.

Critically evaluate a digital tool, either one that we look at during week 2, or another one you have found that you may want to use in your project. Consider the extent to which the values of the tool’s developer(s) align with the values of the Digital Humanities community. You can use the Criteria for Digital Tool Evaluation specifications to guide your evaluation.


Monday, June 10

9-10 am: Meet with Your Librarian Partner

10 am-1 pm: Inside the Black Box: Using HTML & CSS and WordPress to Create Websites (Public Session, Library 014)

Today, we will take a look at the basic building blocks of any website: HTML and CSS. We will pull apart a few websites to see what makes them tick and create a basic website using HTML and CSS. We will culminate by taking a closer look at WordPress, a content management system that powers over 1/3 of the world’s websites, as well as getting an account set up for you on Gettysburg Sites.

Before the Workshop

To Learn More

Wednesday, June 12

9-11 am: Mapping (Public Session, Library 014)

Digital maps allow us to visualize data spatially, in modern, historical, and even fantastical constructs. Generally, digital mapping can be divided between narrative maps, that is, maps that follow a path and tell a story, and data-driven maps, or maps that are focused on visualizing various large sets of data (such as GIS). Today we will focus  on maps that tell narratives using the ArcGIS Story Maps and Knight Lab StoryMapJS products, as well as introduce you to others.

Before the Workshop

To Learn More

Thursday, June 13

Noon-1 pm: Lunch Discussion (Browsing Room)

Spiro, Lisa. “‘This is Why We Fight’: Defining the Values of the Digital Humanities”

Lunch will be provided for the DSSFs

Friday, June 14

9-11 am: Timelines with TimelineJS (Public Session, Library 018)

We will not be in a computer lab, so please bring a laptop!

Just as maps allow us to visualize data spatially, timelines are a way to visualize chronological events that occur in a linear fashion, but perhaps more importantly, show us how to conceptualize a linear progression of time as points of data. We will be looking at one tool specifically, TimelineJS, but others will be briefly introduced. Note: for this session, you will need to have a  Google account (you do not need a Gmail address).

Readings and Assignments

To Learn More

1-2 pm: Friday Updates and Planning (Library 014)

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