Author: Miyuki Mihira
This year (2021/22), my third and last year as a DHA, I have worked as a senior DHA to assist other student co-workers. Having more flexibility, I was also able to get myself exposed to various new tools—including FTP server, CVS import, pivot tables in Google Sheets, 3D model viewer, Storymap, Podcast editing, and Canva—and to take advantage of my skills and experiences in projects even beyond the DHA.
I was fortunate enough to get involved in several history projects using digital tools throughout this year. As I mentioned in my introduction post, I’ve always been interested in historical narrative-telling with ArcGIS StoryMap and ArcGIS Mapping. Using my skills and experience in digital humanities, I was able to take an initiative in brainstorming and creating digital presentations for two history projects respectively in HIST316 Presenting America’s Founding and HIST200 Historians for Hire. In the former class, my group built a story map Mapping the Congregants of Color at Old South Church telling a life story of one of the congregants of color at Old South Church in revolutionary era Boston. With GIS mapping tools, we attempted to interpret and visually present the understudied individual’s emotional experience of the time.
In the latter project, my group also created a story map Learning from Place: Honest Stories of the Land and People aiming to raise the spatial, historical awareness of the land and the Indigenous people on the land where Carleton College now occupies. It was a great experience to build digital story maps from scratch and to push myself to think about the effective ways of storytelling while trying to make them thought-provoking and facilitative in the audience’s learning and reflection experience.
I feel grateful for my supervisors who gave me this wonderful opportunity and for my co-student workers who always inspired me throughout the year!
