Much like tparmar's comment, some of the professors I have had were not very willing to use technology. This was either because they did not know how or just did not like to use it. I think with the way things are going people are going to have to start using technology or at least know how to use it in order to do some things. Especially with this last year when everything was online many had no choice. A lot of professors I had learned new things by doing class online and also used different apps and modes of communication. Maybe it was not that they were uninterested in the digital humanities, it was more that they were unfamiliar with it and now that everyone has learned some of the basics it could continue into in-person things. I know that I had no idea what digital humanities could do and now that we have started talking about it I am excited to learn more.

I like the way this was worded. I think that some people view digital media as an end and so there is not much you can do with it. What people are forgetting is that if digital media is a means, then that means there are so many things you could do with it and directions you could take. Digital media is the means to spark inspiration and generate new ideas on different subjects. It is also a different way to deliver things that could be more effective for some audiences.

I agree that the latest frontier is about method. Methods change all the time with new ideas and developments taking place in every field. I think it is important to keep up with the changes and stay relevant because if you refuse to adapt a little bit you could lose some of your audience. Since scholars are using digitized materials that previous humanities scholars did not have they can take things to the next level and keep learning. Their work can be shown off in new and exciting ways.

My mom and dad still have their old tapes but we never use them anymore. I also remember burning cd's but we never use them either. The phone has taken over and we just use aux or bluetooth to connect to speakers. I doubt I would ever use a CD again unless I find an old movie, but the computers barely even have a slot to load them anymore since people use netflix and other websites to watch shows and movies.

I did not think that computers were more expensive back then than they are now. If you look at iMac's and MacBook airs, they are well in the 2000 dollar range if you buy them brand new. Prices of phones, tablets and computers have gone up considerably so I wonder how much they were valued at in the 80s and 90s.

I like the part that says "if any single-word term can be used to describe this period, it would almost certainly be "consolidation"". Computers have not been around for very long but their technology very quickly started advancing. Everything was then consolidated into one place: the computer. It seems like in the 70's and 80's people began to realize what a computer could do for them. I think it is interesting that the "diffusion of knowledge" was not just done through computers, it was still being done at conferences as well. People were using a combination of computers, technology, and conferences to share their knowledge. I think that is a piece of what digital humanities is.

I did not know that the most influential investigation was carried in the 60s because I would have thought that it would be later on when technology was more prevalent. I just google searched the image of the old mechanical calculators and it is interesting to see how that big box became so advanced. Imagine carrying that to a math exam! The dials on it look confusing since you have to turn them. It is fascinating to see how much technology advances and how it becomes faster and faster.

I agree that it will change the way you write. Because you are using a blogging platform you already know someone is going to read it or at least that is the goal. One of the main things I have learned in digital humanities so far is that there are different ways to do things. Writing for a blog or website is one of those different ways. Because you can use hyperlinks, add audio, or add video you need to be very clear in what you want to say in case some readers don't click on these links. They are added tools you can use to enhance your writing that you would not be able to get with a written paper but you have to engage your reader enough to want to click on them.

I completely agree that technology has changed the way we read, write, and learn. You can do all three of those things using a computer nowadays. I am doing it right now to write this post. In any assignment I get in a class I immediately go to online articles for research or start typing up notes on my laptop. I was not always so dependent upon it, when I was younger we used books and notebooks. Kids today are growing up with it almost right away though. I think everything is going to continue to be done digitally because that seems to be where we are heading. Technology links the components of digital humanities together and in the article Brett Bobley describes it as a game changer. I think that it is as well because we are learning new things and are going to be able to use the humanities in different ways.

I love that this referenced digital humanities as a unicorn. Being a unicorn sometimes means that the thing, in this case digital humanities, is desired but difficult to obtain. I could see that being true because everyone uses a computer these days so more and more people are looking for someone who knows how to work one and what they can do with it. I don't think it is super difficult to obtain, more that not everyone really understands what digital humanities is. I had no idea what it was I signed up for the course because I wanted to learn more. I think that everyone can learn how to participate in digital humanities especially since it is becoming more and more prevalent.

Is this implying that people do see progress in labs? Or that somehow labs are in a way accessible for people to come in and view academic research in progress? If that's a thing that happens, I'd love to check in on the labs of more advanced students, but I have a strong feeling that simply asking to be in a lab and watch people work will be met with quite a bit of resistance.

In my microbiology lab in the January semester I realized for the first time exactly how much work goes into a paper. It gave me a healthy respect for published academics, as well as made me realize, immediately, I do not want to stay in academia my whole life. Some people are incredible with the amount of effort they put into their research.

Do you ever wish you read the whole article before annotating because you read one paragraph down and find out the article says the exact thing you said in your annotation? Yeah. Well, at least I feel validated in my constant search for accessible academic content.

Oh, what a coincidence that our major project in this class is to maintain a blog about our findings! Joking aside, I wish articles came with a link to a blog about the research involved in them. No matter how many times I read and re-read the methods section I never can seem to fully understand what the researchers were doing, because I'm an undergraduate just scratching the surface of topics. A blog would have more casual details and wouldn't assume the audience knows a lot already and would allow me to learn without having to delve for 80 hours down a rabbit hole about a specific enzyme in one microbe to figure out why it was even mentioned. Or maybe I'm just not a natural born student!

I keep coming back to history in my annotations, and honestly the article could work as a reading in a history class too. This kind of collection of data; of sources for the future could do wonders for future historians. Digital records, especially those online, don't burn or get water damaged or get eaten by moths. I think it's very important that we consider our digital footprints in a historical sense, from our own personal data (which I can see functioning much the same way as diaries do for historians now) to larger projects such as the tapestry mentioned above.

As he should; he's correct. Technological advances come from "playing with technological toys" all the time, it's no stretch of the imagination to assume academic advances would as well. Of course people are always resistant to change; it's in our nature, but using the tools at our disposal to improve our work is a part of academia.

While I am not surprised that the extent of England's greatness was greatly exaggerated (given our colonial, euro, and white -centric views of history) it's very important to have the data and evidence to back it up.

We explored the expansion of digital records briefly in HIST211 in the January semester. One of the issues with history is having very few (if any) primary sources, but a bigger issue is that they often contradict each other. Digital databanks and scans of old documents and even sites like ancestry.ca have broadened sources available to historians but they also cause more contradictions to be found, making the reconstruction of any historical event/period potentially more difficult.

Honestly the category of digital humanities seems like it could do with being split into two (or several) smaller fields of study. I'm sure it already is, the same way ecology and ornithology are both biology, but at least with biology it can be summarized as "the study of life" - with digital humanities I still struggle to come up with something like that - "the study of anything that could possibly be explored further/easier with anything similar to a computer?"

Not to argue with the New York Times and a Princeton Historian, but are the digital humanities really limited to quantification? I think that's perhaps a bit of a narrow minded opinion, or that I'm misinterpreting. For example, digital art or the study of digital artwork could be considered digital humanities, and I don't think that digital art has anything to do with quantification.

I do understand the idea that quantification and data can't "deal with elusive questions of aesthetics, existence and meaning, the words that bring tears or the melody that raises goose bumps" (frankly an awful sentence, but that's besides the point) without human interpretation. I've seen some truly horrifying or very encouraging statistics before that can evoke these responses like a piece of literature, but the statistics alone do not embody those reactions.