Fall 2020, Oklahoma State University |Department of History

Instructed by: Brandy Thomas Wells, Ph.D.

This course introduced students to digital history. We began by exploring digital history’s relationship to public history and digital humanities, and how historians use and create digital history. We considered digital history in historical context through readings that examine how historical innovations in media transformed the ways that humans consumed information. Throughout the course students explored digital history collections, wrote reviews of digital history sites, and maintained a personal blog. This course struck a balance between students, on the one hand, understanding and exploring the scope of digital history, and on the other, presenting their work digitally. 

The thematic focus of the course was the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.

The attack on Greenwood is one of the most significant events in Oklahoma’s history.

The attack on Greenwood is one of the most significant events in Oklahoma’s history.

We learned about the Tulsa Race Massacre and surveyed digital resources that are available about this topic.

Students did not need advanced computer skills to take this course, but they needed to be comfortable navigating the internet and using Word. They also needed to be willing to learn new digital skills and use new platforms!

They completed a meta-data project for OSU Libraries, created infographics and podcasts, and authored a blog of their experiences.

Blog Post Assignments &
Links to Student Blogs

Blog Post 1 |

Do you consider yourself a digital expert, digital novice, or a digital dabbler? Why? What is your experience with digital media of communication and technology?

Take the following digital knowledge survey:

https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/quiz/digital-knowledge-quiz/ (Links to an external site.)

Were you surprised by your score? Do you think that a different set of questions would better test digital knowledge? If so, what questions might you suggest? Finally, describe the skills that you hope to gain in this course, and what you hope to accomplish by its end.

Blog Post 2 |

This week, you will learn how to acquire Twitter data, process, and analyze it. 

Read and Use: Beginner’s Guide to Twitter Data

Get started at:  https://tweetsets.library.gwu.edu/ (Links to an external site.)

Click on the Coronavirus Dataset

For your post, you are to analyze the data to develop an argument. Write at least one paragraph on what the process was like to use the data, read it, etc. Write at least one paragraph on historical information you gleaned from your set. 

Blog Post 3 |

We have looked at digitization and meta-data from the user-side and the production-side. Now, you are going to aid OSU Libraries in producing meta-data for the Drummer. (https://dc.library.okstate.edu/digital/collection/p17279coll1/id/68/Links to an external site.)

In your blog post for this week briefly teach your readers about digitization and tell them about the work you did in creating meta-data:

Blog Posts 4 and 5 |

For the next two weeks, you will use digital resources to reconstruct the lives of two suffragists. This assignment is a timely one—as 2020 is the centennial of women’s suffrage. While you will use the blog posts to write about the process of using digitized resources and its relevancy to historical recovery, you may earn author credit if you produce a quality biography. 

Blog Post 6 | 

This week, you will write an evaluation of the digital repositories or projects related to the Tulsa Race Massacre. You are to write an evaluation of this repository.

Blog Post 7 |

This week, we will create an infographic for the digital archive or project that you evaluated last week. You should consider using Venngage (Links to an external site.), Piktochart (Links to an external site.), or Canva (Links to an external site.)  Your guide should demonstrate: the basic subject of the archive or project, the creators or host institutions and their aims, the type of information that can be found there, and the type of info that cannot be found there. If there are difficulties using the site, note those too. 

Blog Post 8 |

This week we are creating content through the podcast format.   You are invited to interview a person or persons on any topic that interests you or to discuss a topic that interests you.

 Pick a lively topic. Podcasts that are especially related to the history of Oklahoma or Tulsa, and the Tulsa Race Massacre are especially appreciated and may help you down the road show. Think ahead!  

Blog Post 9 

This week, you will teach your blog readers about spatial history. You are to begin this post by defining this term. Be sure to draw upon the readings as well as the guest lectures you heard.

To teach your readers about spatial history, you must also become familiar with spatial history projects.   Look through at least five. The best posts will develop a thematic focus and explore this theme across units, time, and space.  

 Blog Post 10 

This week, you will reflect on your current ClioVis project and its importance in the production of a deeper history of historic Greenwood and the Tulsa Race Massacre. What opportunities do the digital humanities offer for producing multi-dimensional, intersectional knowledge? 

Blog Post 11

What skills and knowledge have you learned in the course? Of these, which was the most unexpected and why? As a student-scholar-practitioner, what do you think that future holds for digital humanities or digital history, more specifically? As part of this, what tool, method, or research area do you hope to master or learn more about even after the course ends?