A Course on "Digital Heritage Tools": A Reflexive, Engaging, and Ever-Changing Pedagogical Experience

Summary

Digital Heritage…? A definition could be "the valuing, protection, documentation, and understanding of humanity’s shared heritage through the application of digital tools, media, and digitally-enabled spaces." The take-away—Digital Heritage is a big concept. As scholars and educators making use of digital tools and methods, we face challenges of big data, rapidly changing technology, proprietary vs. open source, and the list goes on. Yet, increasing use of technology necessitates that we teach the digital. For three years, I have taught a course on "Digital Heritage Tools"—a course that serves not only Anthropology but also English, History, and other disciplines. Given the broad definition of heritage and the diverse student audience, course development has been challenging, eye-opening, and energizing. This paper describes a morphing course on digital heritage—speaking to successes and ongoing challenges, particularly focusing on balancing teaching critical analysis alongside technological skills. Course topics include: design and usability, web technologies, preservation and access, analysis and visualization (e.g., GIS, 3D Modeling), and relevance of digital technologies in heritage interpretation, education, tourism, and outreach. Students carry out individual or collaborative semester projects to gain hands-on experience with not only technology, but importantly digital storytelling to reflexively engage with heritage.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• Methods and Models for Teaching Digital Archaeology and Heritage

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 15046