Author: watrall
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Good code cannot save bad planning: Working with leafletjs plugins
In a previous post I discussed my experiences learning to code for my Oak Bluff’s Mapping Project on leafleft.js and the issue of finding examples that help fix specific problems. In this post I want to share a bit more on the topic of learning to code, specifically knowing when to stop trying to fix…
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Stories and Numbers
While waiting on IRB approval to begin collecting and analyzing subreddit data for my project, I’ve been thinking about the rhetorical dimensions of computational topic modeling. In preparing to undertake this project, I looked for examples of similar analyses in humanities-based rhetoric and composition journals but found that this hasn’t been a terribly popular method,…
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FA History | Mapping Update
In order to create a tool for students looking to become involved in the field of forensic anthropology, the first step I wanted to create for my website was a map of graduate programs in the United States. This map will serve as a resource for students to easily find universities with either a Master’s…
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Project: Smart City Tracker
Humanity’s success in tackling environmental, economic, and social sustainability challenges directs the path of our future. As smart cities (i.e. cities that incorporate information and communications technology into management strategies to solve problems in public domains) have emerged as solutions to urban sustainability, current knowledge on how this conceptual idea has been deployed at the…
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Accessibility and Social Justice
While developing the site and submission portal for materials to be hosted on The Social Justice Classroom, I have been occupied with issues of accessibility. Teaching in only one institution has given me the luxury to dismiss the ethics of assuming everyone has a google account because this particular institution grants all enrolled students access…
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Lansing’s Culinary Heritage Trail
My Project for this year is tentatively named the Lansing Culinary Heritage Trail and it will be a straightforward web map based digital heritage trail. The project concept is relatively simple, but the application is more advanced than the Twine-based project I built as a fellow in 2019-2020. A major challenge to the project is…
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Ethical Engagements with Ownership and Digital Heritage: Examining Two (Connected) Case Studies
Back in my November blog post, I wrote about exploring copyright and ownership in digital heritage. In that post, I focused on UNESCO documentation explaining the various policies related to digital heritage. As I promised at the end of that post, I’m following up with a quick look at some articles and essays tied to…
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Describing Kim Turley’s political compass
In my previous entry, I let you all know that I will build an application to visually represent the type of emblematic memory Colombians use to make sense of the inner armed conflict. I also told you how I thought I could build it. But I could not tell you Dr. Watrall’s (CHI’s big boss)…
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Project: The Oak Bluffs Highlands History Map and the Issue of Too Many Coding “Solutions”
For my fellowship project, I will be creating an interactive, web-based map showing the history of property ownership in the Highlands area of Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts, on the island of Martha’s Vineyard. Oak Bluffs was and still is a summer resort community noted for is African American vacationing communities dating to the late 19th and…
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Back to Virtual | Quick Transitions
With the COVID-19 pandemic beginning in the spring of 2020, educators had to learn quickly how to adapt to virtual learning in a world that quickly became isolated. As teachers and students alike learned to acclimatize to the new online environment, realization on the lacking access to virtual, pedagogical resources was immediate. Adjustments began immediately…