OK, I don’t want you all to go too far down the rabbit hole without seeing how programming would work for digital history, so as I mentioned in class yesterday, let’s hold off on the rest of the Codecademy lessons and jump into some digital history applications.

For next week,

• Read through the lessons on the Programming Historian, as well as Ted Underwood’s Underwood’s “Where to start with Text Mining.”
• Watch online interview with Bill Turkel (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKZOz9CxMsU)
• Sign up for a free account at Wakari.io (https://wakari.io/plans) — bring username and password to class next Monday

Look around at the Old Bailey Online website, get a sense for what kind of historical information is stored there, and think about what kinds of historical questions you might be able to answer with the archive.

Then read through the Programming Historian, but don’t get too caught up in the code. Take a look at it, see if you understand any of it, and then move on. Focus more on the plain English instructions and the explanations of how this could be used for history.

On next Monday, I’ll step you through “Downloading Web Pages with Python” and “From HTML to List of Words” using your accounts at Wakari.io

As you practice with Codecademy and MIT’s Scratch, I thought these tutorial videos might come in handy. Remember, on Monday, we’ll be showing off our ridiculous Scratch program, and explaining why our cat is behaving the way she/he is based on the instructions we’ve given him/her.

If you join Scratch, you’ll be able to save your workspace to show it off on Monday.

https://scratch.mit.edu/help/videos/

Welcome to HIST 703: Introduction to Digital History! This is where you will blog about your experience this semester. You’ll respond to the readings on the syllabus, essentially creating an online annotated bibliography of the semester’s readings. You will also blog about new tools you’ve found, other readings on digital history you’ve read (outside of the official reading list), ideas you have for projects, and your experience with learning technical skills, from databases to XML to Python.

You are encouraged to comment on each other’s posts, as well as read them. We’re all in this together as we explore what it means to do digital history.