trevordayschool

3 3 T R E V O R D AY S C H O O L ■ S P R I N G 20 1 7 – 2 0 1 8 Tyler recounts his journey to this understanding: "When I was invited into the course, I had no idea what digital history was; I thought it was something that Trevor invented! However, I learned that digital humanities is being implemented into universities throughout the country and that there are professors who specialize in the subject. I enjoyed meeting some of them in this class, including Dr. Lauren Klein from Georgia Tech." As we have seen in our experience with digital history this year, our deeply integrated approach to historical material changes the very nature of the questions asked and the possibilities for structuring inquiry. As the field shakes out into its many facets, the term "digital humanities" may fall into disuse, but the spirit of bringing a humanistic approach to the analysis of data is changing the world forever. ■ Sessions e digital portion of the digital humanities class could be an entire course on its own. As this article points out, each of the topics we covered is actually an entire course of study at the undergraduate (or graduate!) level— so we had to make decisions about what to include and how far to go. is was the big challenge in designing the lab sessions. To meet it, we set a few goals: First, to make sure that the digital activities were authentic, using actual "tools of the trade," and second, that each lab session would complete a specific task and produce a usable product. ese goals helped narrow the topics. We then settled on three primary objectives for the lab sessions: q Understanding how digital tools are used to make and track changes to a project with text. q Understanding how historical data is classified and stored online for digital archives. q Understanding how text (and other data) can be analyzed programmatically. e lab sessions covered the concepts in this order. e first lab session required that students create an account on GitHub, where they would post changes to a project. GitHub describes itself as follows: e project for which the students used GitHub was one of experimenting with websites and "markdown" language. Markdown is code used for changing the way text is displayed. Students learned some markdown, after creating GitHub accounts and installing software (Git) on their computers for editing their sites "locally." ey learned how to use Git and Github to track changes and to "clone" other projects. ey also learned new meanings for the words "commit" and "push," and gained firsthand understanding of what markdown is. In the second session, students created archives—one for each section—based on a topic of their choosing. One section focused on playgrounds and the other on holidays. e students created their sites using the same tools that historians use. ey learned the importance of metadata: what it is and how it can be used. ey also discovered myriad challenges with defining and applying metadata. ey realized how metadata can help organize an online archive, and got involved in the detailed decisions that must be made about information display and the website's general look. e last lab session used online tools for text analysis (Voyant) to get a feel for what text analysis entails, and then the students "dove deep" into text analysis by using the Python Programming language to analyze text for "emotions." is was the most programming- intensive portion of the class; it exposed students to the tip of the iceberg that is data analysis. At each step of the way, the students questioned everything—as good Trevor students should! eir questions revealed their understanding that a computer is just a tool, and that tools can be misused (even accidentally). is course has given students an authentic outlet for applying digital techniques. ■ by Stan Golanka Director of Academic Technology Lab GitHub is a development platform inspired by the way you work. From open source to business, you can host and review code, manage projects, and build software alongside millions of other developers. Page 31, top: A Lewis Hine photograph, ca. 1910, shows six children and two adults doing piece-work; Page 31, bottom: Alex Gil talks to the Digital History class about "Ed," the markdown template he created; Page 32, top: Isis K. and Maya S., juniors in the class; Page 32, left bottom: Nina Rosenblatt, History teacher for Digital History; Page 32, right: A screenshot from a Google Ngram search, using the search terms "child" and "youth." Beneath it is a handwritten diary entry from Eleanora Hallen, one of many examples of a primary source used in the class; is page, bottom: Stan Golanka, Director of Academic Technology, and David omas, History Teacher, talking to students in the Digital History class.

• Cover