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DH course thread: So last semester, I taught Intro DH to students who were new interns @CreateCaribbean. There were a few other students from DSC in the class who needed an elective. I've been teaching the class remotely since I moved from Dominica in 2018 so I thought it'd be ok
But my students did. The COVID changes were so much and the school really hasn't recovered from 2017's hurricane damage. This was a lot of change and instability for them. Yet we pressed on. I made massive cuts to the course content and lowered my expectations.
But I did give them a tough final assignment, tough even by my own standards. They had to imagine a future disaster and the 25 yrs of rebuilding following it. 2040-2065. They could use Twine, Knightlab JS tools, Omeka, Google Maps to tell this story.
The presentations were this evening. I came to the Zoom a little scared because so many of them were worried and said they didn't understand or couldn't wrap their head around the assignment before we broke for the holiday. But I gave them my classic line: "I believe in you."
Reader, honestly I wasn't sure I believed in me. I was off my game in general. New job, new country, a panopticon outside and well, the US acting like itself. And no one was emailing me with questions. So I was worried for them and this assignment.
But let me tell you. I was not prepared for the level of awesomeness that I saw this evening. They were all nervous about the use of DH tools. But the most impressive and gratifying thing was in the storytelling. These new worlds that they have imagined are just... wow.
They did that. Substantive, compassionate, accountable, creative. I'm happy that they did their best. You can teach people tools but I'm so grateful to have curiosity, experimentation and imagination. You can foster those but not teach them.
There were so many limitations in teaching and learning for this course. But I'm happy they did their best to figure it out and push through with solid work. And happier that I'll be working with some of them @CreateCaribbean for the next year or two.
