After learning about the various styles of DH projects, I am interested in the visual or audial based ones. I should avoid working with extensive writing or walls of text. I plan to work on a project where visual representation is key. I am drawing inspiration from a website called playphrase. I feel most comfortable dealing with media representation of religion, or any topics combining subjects in religion with news, film, tv, or music. It will take some brainstorming, but there is data out there worth collecting. The biggest challenge will be finding enough data. I will use the internet to collect the data required for a successful DH project.
Category: Lab
Lab 4
From the several models of data that we reviewed, I really found an interest in text analysis, network visualization, and digital archives. Briefly, I have an interest in text analysis because I think the idea of mapping common phrases/ words would be a really interesting, yet also insightful endeavor. I liked the network visualization because I simply thought it looked really interesting, but then as it was explained to me how it worked, it just made it even more worth while to look into. Finally, the digital archive was my least favorite of the three, but I still found it interesting to archive all of a person’s work, so it is a viable option.
I am really interested in working within the field of philosophy or theology. This is where my entire interest in higher education lies, so I have a decent amount of background knowledge. I am not sure what angle I would like to take; however, I would think it would involve using a person who has a large amount of work, like Thomas Aquinas, or maybe using the Bible itself and archiving/ visualizing it somehow. I also cannot leave the possibility of doing something with data in relation to the Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant denominations.
I would probably have to do some digging in regards to large pieces of philosophical or theological works. Also, I am not a super creative person when it comes to things like this, so I will have to do some brain storming and perhaps inquire help to narrow down exactly what I want to do. For example, if I landed on doing something within the Bible, then it would probably be analyzing text or creating an archive of stories, words, characters, etc.
Lab 3
Three exercises I chose are my travels, my time alone, and what I eat. I have had many fun vacations. My favorite trips were going in Ireland and London with my dad and sister and going to Disney World and Universal Studios and going to zoo and beaches with my old youth pastor in San Diego. Parks at Disney World I liked most are magic kingdom and Epcot. I’m not alone a lot and when I be alone I read books watch tv and play video games. I read sports books sci fi books Christian books and joke books. My favorite type of foods are Italian foods and Mexican foods. I be with others more than being by myself. It was unexpected to go to London in England and Ireland in 2 other countries I was interested to go to. Subways were used more than cars. British had more pubs than United States. Irish and British loved Americans. I did not expect British hotel rooms are smaller than American hotel rooms.
Lab 3
The three exercises I chose to do were #06 My books, #17 my inbox, and #22 What I eat. I have completed the data gathering for all three exercises. What was unexpected as I tracked this data was how many books I have that are not very well organized. I try and organize my bookshelves by author and series or for example, all of my textbooks are on one shelf. This exercise showed me that I have sometimes the entire series all in a row, from first book to last book, but as I was doing it, I realized that for other series I would have book 2 and book 3 were right next to each other but book 1 was on a different bookshelf. One of the other unexpected things I realized was for some digital books that I had not read in a long time, I had to go and check what the completion percentage was because I could not remember if I had finished them or not.
Lab 3
One thing I am curious about is the possible use of photos. I have thoughts even now about the Digital Essay project. If I decide to stick with the Civil War, I am afraid of copyright infringement. A combination of earlier black-and-white pictures might be presented with others in color. My second Lab Project (Against All Odds) is convincing me more and more it was the right choice. I am still amazed about what I saw concerning the black legislators in Mississippi during Reconstruction. So much so: I have similar ideas to create actual and professional websites.
Lab 2
Pictures are worth more than a thousand words! Consider DeeDee Baldwin’s website. “Against All Odds (AAO)” is the project I chose. DeeDeee Baldwin’s website has pictures painstaking collected and presented on the Home page; they are verifiable primary sources. We learn above 150 African Americans served in the Mississippi State Legislature to say the least. Details are important. As the project director, Dr. Baldwin started the project in 2018 as a digital archive for the sake of reparations. The 1863 years of Reconstruction are covered to the 1890s. There are nicely located links: Home, The Legislators, Sources, Miscellaneous, Contact/Info. Although initially at the bottom of the page, click one link; then all appear neatly above near the task bar.
Against All Odds: The First Black Legislators in Mississippi brings to mind another momentous work. But in that case a book. I speak of Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois’ well documented The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade. This is what Dr. Baldwin said about the African Americans he wrote about. “They were farmers, teachers, ministers, and blacksmiths. Some were born free in the North, while others were born enslaved in Mississippi. Some were highly educated, and others had been forbidden by law to be taught to read.” Viewers can see some of everything. Portraits (many retrieved). Newspaper clippings. Biographical information. Census records. Maps. Citizenship verification. DeeDee Baldwin portrays elegance.
Lab 3
So far I have started working on the one-sitting data diary out of my three. I’m working on “my favorite painter!”. This work was a little bit challenging at first glance. When I saw what the outcome of my drawing was supposed to look like, its seemingly just a bunch of different colors and lines. When I read through the directions, I realized that the dots, lines, sizes, strokes, etc. are indicative elements of the information being described. As a visual learner, I enjoyed seeing the breakdown of what all of these different elements mean separately and how they correlate as a whole. There’s a lot of information that is being put into basically different colored/designed boxes (which is interesting!).
Data Journal Progress
The three exercises that I chose to complete for the Data Diaries project are Exercise 2 (Birthdays), Exercise 15 (My Swearing), and Exercise 18 (Distractions). I have collected my data for all three exercises. After a brief review of each exercise, I found the Birthdays Exercise to be the easiest for collecting the data. I was surprised at how many birthdays I remembered and gathering information for those I forgot was simple. I was most surprised by the My Swearing exercise. I swear at lot more than I would have thought while watching college football (or any sporting events). I’m generally not one to swear on a regular basis. The Distractions exercise was challenging because I was distracted by having to record my distractions while completing a task. It will be interesting to see what distracts me the most after I analyze the data from that exercise.
Lab 3
So far I have completed two out of the three required data journals. Like I mentioned last post, I decided to do the “My Books” journal which is under the one sitting section and the “My Time Alone” journal which is under the one day section. I enjoyed both of them, but I will first talk about the books journal. I only had to go off my book shelf I have here in Tuscaloosa, compared to the one I have back home. If one was to look at drawing I did, they would notice that I have read every book on my shelf except for one. I also found that I have exactly three genres on my bookshelf, which I expected, but this exercise just confirmed that. As for the time alone journal, that was very interesting. I am definitely an introvert, but I can be gregarious when needed (which is a lot). This exercise has shown me that I spend a lot more time around people, but even more interesting than that, is that it is for longer durations. Over all, I have learned quite a bit about myself, and I look forward to learning more.
Connections In Sound project
Connections in sound by Patrick Egan is what project I will do my 2nd lab on. This project investigates patterns of collecting and accessing traditional Irish music in North America. The project reviewed Irish music in 1850 to 2000. Irish music is popular in North America. Traditional Irish music had influenced country music in Nashville, Tennessee. Irish took their traditional music with them to America. Collections of Irish music are at Library of Congress in American Folklife Center. Library of Congress has 2500 recordings of Irish music. Old recordings were online. Irish singers played different instruments. Irish music is almost like Scottish music. One of instruments Irish singers play is flute. Archivists, librarians, and digital specialists worked on Irish music at Library of Congress.