ME.Digital Humanities Institute

Do you have a digital storytelling project that you'd like to tackle, but feel overwhelmed by how to begin?  If so, consider applying to participate in the ME.Digital Humanities Institute. This free seven-week online workshop is aimed at creating a collaborative space for humanities professionals to work with others in developing a digital project.  

The workshop is scheduled to run for from mid-January to mid-March.  We will use the Slack.com platform to communicate and share, and will focus on building a project using easy-to-access tools like Story Maps, Knight Lab tools, Google Maps, and others, and will explore basic HTML, and the command line. We may also explore more advanced tools, such as QGIS mapping, depending on participant interest. We seek participants from both secondary and higher education, libraries, and museum professionals. Applications that propose a specific project will receive first consideration. 

The workshop will include lessons and materials, but we will also rely upon each other to share information, skills and knowledge.The ultimate goal of the ME.Digital Humanities Institute is to foster a network of practice in which participants build expertise as they work on their project and through their interactions with each other.  Participants who complete the 7-week program will feel more confident in their knowledge of specific digital skills and in working with developers in defining and developing digital-based projects. 

The Institute is supported by York County Community College, CUNY Grad Center of New York, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The workshop will be limited to 12 participants. No specific technical expertise is required, except that applicants should generally be comfortable with using the Internet, setting up accounts, and uploading photos. These are the baseline requirements:

• Participants must have access to a desktop or laptop computer with some available storage space required, as we will be downloading various free software tools (Ipads and other tablets will not support these tools).
• Participants must propose a multimedia project that they will focus on developing during the workshop. This project doesn't have to be complicated or "big", and could be as simple as working with a small set of digitized photos and text. We'll aim to create projects with a professional look and feel, but definitely won't let "perfect" get in the way of "good." 
• Participants commit to participating asynchronous weekly sessions, as each week will build upon another.  There is no set time for the workshop -- participants will determine what works best for them -- but we will have weekly deadlines to move forward. 

Keep in mind that participants won't necessarily need to master all of the material -- the goal is to introduce a variety of tools, build our knowledge, and complete an interesting project .

If you are interested in participating, please complete the attached short application form below and return to Dianne Fallon at dfallon@yccc.edu.