What is Digital Public History? Teaching and Practice

What is Digital Public History? Teaching and Practice

Enrica Salvatori - Laboratorio di Cultura Digitale - Pisa

Digital History: methods and perspectives (Firenze EUI 21 october 2016)

Digital History at Infouma

• Since 2010 course of Digital History at the Master Degree course in Digital Humanities (Informatica Umanistica form here IU) in Pisa

• Since 2016 (NOW) course of Digital Public History in the same Master Degree course

• Students not expert or educated in History (only one course during BA) and students with BA in Humanities

• Digital History ≠ Public History but

PH needs DH & DH is a PH (almost always)

DH Skills (base, use of)

Word Processor

Spreadsheet

Image Formats

Sharing Platform

Audio & Video Formats

Social Network

Backend CMS (wordpress)

Database (base!)

Bibliographic Sofware (es. Zotero)

PH Skills (base)

Macro Periodization in History

Methodology (base)

Reading and Interpreting a source

Researching and Collecting a Bibliography

Professional Writing

Geography

Humanities

• 50% Theory (home made texts and slides)

• 50% Lab building the conceptual structure of the App

• EXTRA but NOT OPTIONAL free course on App organized by IU Degree Course

First year: building an App (about History)

DH Skills (advanced)

Graphics

Audio / Video

(GIS)

Web Design

App Design

PH Skills (advanced)

History and historical method (full)

Multimedia Communication

Marketing

Professional writing

Second year: Epigraphs

• telling the “story” of an epigraph (from ancient to contemporary era) using TEXTS, IMAGES, AUDIO, VIDEO and structured paths go reading

• make citizenship aware of their history by “reading again” this “ghosts” and by collecting them

• 50% theory 50% lab in digital video production (external aid)

• municipality and school collaboration requested but not achieved


Graphics

Audio / Video

GIS

Web Design

Digital Philology

Epidoc?

Database and Datamining


History and historical method (full)

Epigraphy

Multimedia communication


Management

Third and Fourth year: e-book History of Pisa

• thinking at an ebook as a real multimedia device;

• reasoning about the best way to explain and tell history to readers with new tools

• 50% theory 50% lab in writing, recording and ebook production (with external aid)


Graphics

Audio / Video

e-publishing (formats)

e-publishing (platforms)

Sharing Platforms


History and historical method



Management

Fifth year: building a reenactment

• Reenactment of a witch trial during the XVII century in a rural village in Val di Vara (La Spezia): writing of the plot

• use of primary sources, building of the characters, recording voices, thinking how to build an event into and out of the web

• interacting with local people by recording interview, sharing contents, arguing choices

• reasoning about logistic and economic issues

• municipality interested and willing to cooperate

• financial aid possible in the next two years


Graphics

Web Design

Audio/Video

Web research

Sharing Platform



Historical Research

Digital Philology



Analyzing and setting the environment

Teaching and Speaking Ability

Flexibility / Adaptability

Management (STRONG)

sixth year: migrants’ stories

• Audio interviews to young migrants about their past, culture (history), present, future

• advanced skill in audio recording and audio production software

• interacting with migrants and associations (Ass. Malatesta- Pisa)

sixth year: migrants’ stories

• logistic and ethical issues (permission, risk of recognition)

• valid data and use of them (collaboration with a a Master in Statistics)

• strong effort in building good outputs in term of interviews, publication, dissemination (format of the audio and web design and press agency)


Web Design ?

Audio/Video

Drama

Web Research

Data Visualization

Sharing Platforms



Historical Research

Multimedia Communication

Professional Writing

Social Science

Teaching and Speaking Ability

Flexibility / Adaptability

Management

Base and advanced…

Nobody can, in ONE COURSE, to teach how to be a FULL digital public historian, of course. But the question is how to do it in a complete BA/MA course degree.

What I have learned during 6 years of practice:

a Digital Public Historian needs more then a superficial knowledge of the digital world then


• in the BA degree students should learn the “bases”: word processor, spreadsheet, image formats, sharing platform, audio & video formats, social networks, copyright issues, theoretical foundations and programming, web design and programming, data bases, statistics, bibliographic software

• in the BA degree student should learn also the bases of history and historical method (and this is enough!)


• in the MA degree students should advance their skills choosing among the more useful and favorite (meaning suited to personal aptitudes) digital tools, but knowing a little bit of every things

• they cannot be focused on a specific period of time (the diachronic point of view is compulsory)

• they cannot be focused only on History: (digital) Philology, (digital Art, (digital) Libraries are also required

• and also they should know something about the recent innovations: crowdsourcing, born digital sources, open access issues, sentiment analysis…

LAST but not least

in the MA degree students should learn also how to manage a project, how to deal with public, how to interact with institutions, how get their hands dirty in the public arena

How we could possibly teach this?

adding traditional courses in management, speaking skills, social behavior could be useless

We need a different education

• Problem solving methods should be put in the core of the course degree

• Workgroups should be the basic format of the working method

• A great commitment is needed in training and thanking care of the groups (tutoring)

• The object of the work should be real (not invented, not theoretical)

• The course degree should not be the addition of individual courses, but a shared educational project

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What is Digital Public History? Teaching and Practice

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