Part of doing and thinking about digital history involves first understanding and thinking about digital citizenship, identity, and work. Digital technologies are the “water” we swim in today, but we often don’t pause to consider how best to live and learn in that context.
In this week, we will explore:
- Introduction & basics of digital technology
- Challenges of learning in a digital environment
- Tools to enable better learning
- Establishing your own digital space for creating and showcasing your work
Tuesday, January 19
Course Introduction
Tools for aiding focus and limiting online distractions:
- “Turn Off Your Push Notifications. All of Them.” Wired.
- Reader View – strips away clutter like ads, background images, videos, and changes the page’s text size, contrast and layout for better readability
- Leechblock – extension for Firefox and Chrome lets you specify which sites to block, when, and for how long.
- Freedom (Chrome, Firefox, iOS, macOS, Windows) for blocking anything you want, anywhere you want
Thursday, January 21
Becoming a (digital) 1-percenter
Topics
- establishing your own digital presence & identity
- basic elements that make up a website
- how to set up a website with an external hosting service & custom domain
- how to install software on a server
- basic skills for using WordPress
Note: In this class, we will be establishing a personal online domain with Reclaim Hosting & installing and learning to use WordPress. Please have credit card information available at this class session to pay the registration fee. Please wait to do this until our class meeting. Finally, you may want to be thinking ahead of time about the domain name you will choose!
Reading
- “History of Computers – from the Abacus to the iPhone.” Explain That Stuff.
- Video: “How the Internet Works”
- Ryan J. Pelton “How Is Your Consumption Versus Creator Ratio?”
- “The Web We Need to Give Students”
- Audrey Watters, “Why ‘A Domain of One’s Own’ Matters”
- Sample student sites (please visit each and explore how these students use their domain space):
