I'd like to revisit Amanda Visconti's blog post about the must-have technical skills for a di

One of the hallmarks of the digital humanities is the collaborative nature of the work.What we do is interdisciplinary by nature, and we generally believe that the more eyeballs a project receives, the better. We also fully recognize that no one person has all the expertise necessary to move thin

We lament the damage being done by the terms "digital native / digital immigrant." But what are we doing about it?

OK, I'm sure many people saw yesterday's New York Times article, "Texting, Surfing, Studying?" (apologies if the link doesn't work - it's in the Health section, 18 and Under). Once again, the question of multitasking and whether younger people are better at it is raised. The article points out early on (and pretty heavily) that we just don't know. Then it goes on into good old journalistic speculation and anecdote.

Oh, well.

But about halfway down, we suddenly see that terrible terminology: digital immigrants / digital natives. Bad Times! Bad, bad Times! Those of us who are immersed in both technology and academe, regardless of our age or generational affiliation, know better than to use these terms; if you search here in HASTAC you'll find (among a few other denunciations) Cathy Davidson saying: "I agree completely that 'digital native' is a weird term. I look forward to its passing into irrelevancy." Hear, hear!

I don't know how many of you have had direct experience using "clickers" - also known as classroom response systems, polling systems, audience response systems, etc. If you're not familiar with them, think of the "ask the audience" lifeline on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? used in a lecture on campus. It's a system designed to make the lecture setting into a more engaging and interactive environment for both students and instructors.

I bring it up because our English department is about to begin using them in a 200-student lecture, and I'm part of the team that's making that a reality. We had a demo for faculty and graduate students yesterday, and it was well-received in general. But there are a couple of types of resistance we met, and that's really what I'm thinking about at the moment.