Greetings from a digital immigrant

Hi everyone!  I’m a second year M.A./Ph.D. student; I’m specializing in medieval and early modern literature; I’m particularly interested in Old English Poetry.  The reason I am in this class is because I am not a digital humanist and I want to find out whether I ever could be (or if I would want to become) one.  I like the phrase Katie offered with the Prensky article:  I am a digital immigrant.  When reading Trubek’s statement “Do not tweet because you have been told to, or because you feel you ‘should,’” I wondered “Should I just leave now, then? Is there no hope for me as a DHer if I don’t feel moved by an overwhelming urge to tweet?”  I find DH counter-intuitive and mysterious, but that is why I decided that I need to give it a proper investigation and a fair try.

I was intrigued by the statement in D_H by Burdick et al. that raises a similar issue to the article to which Katie pointed us:

The lack of conventions and the opportunity to imagine formats with very different affordances than print have not only brought about recognition of the socio-cultural construction and cognitive implications of standard print formats, but have also highlighted the role of design in communication.  (10)
This speaks to my biggest question about DH:  Do people really think differently when they think digitally?  If my students need me to become more digitally adept in order to communicate with them, I’m willing to do it — even if it means tweeting!

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