msatanovsky

[msatanovsky]

Final DH Class Thoughts

Hey everyone. Happy December to you all. This year sure has gone on forever. My first semester kinda flew by. It’s crazy to think how far I’ve come since September. In this post I’m going to talk about my time in Digital Humanities.

The first time I ever heard of Digital Humanities I was confused. I never heard those words together and had no clue what they meant. Through doing all my previous digital humanities projects, my understanding about it has changed completely. I’ve learned how we can apply digital humanities to every aspect of our lives, and that we could use it for future purposes.

DH is so complex that I wouldn’t know how to explain it without going in depth with all it’s features. But in normal terms, it’s using technology and applying it to any part of the humanities(literature, history, art/music). There are many amazing projects for DH that can be found online.

My final project for the DH class was the evolution of music from the 2000-2020. This idea revolves in many people’s heads because music has gotten unbearable. I don’t remember a time when we would flip the radio as much as the 2020s. First I analyzed the 2000-2010. These years were filled with artists real vocals(no autotune or little) and actually good songs. These songs has good messages, catchy beats, and lyrics that are unforgettable in most of our minds. That was the good fresh sounds from the early decade. When the 2010-2020 period came, things went downhill. People used tons of autotune, bad lyrics, and beats that were so loud that nobody payed attention to the artist. Most of the songs from this period are so disappointing because they are nothing like the previous decade. Also, I used Voyant tools to find the complexity scores of how difficult each song’s lyrics were. But, the results I found weren’t really surprising because the song’s that are all over the place ranked higher than songs that meant something good.

Ultimately I’m proud of what I accomplished with my project. I used google slides because it was an easy way to show everything I wanted. The fact that all the tools were on the slides and I didn’t have to go out my way was very relieving.

Despite this seeming like a short semester, I’ve learned a lot about DH. DH contributes to the humanities because it combines the info into its uses. It’s important because in times like these, we could apply technology to fill that void in our lives. Since we can’t go anywhere it’s great that technology can help us continue or work virtually. Online learning is a relief because I’m scared of this virus. So many people being infected each day and I don’t want to get anyone sick. DH fills the void in all atmospheres of the educational world so we can keep on living our lives.

Happy Holidays and be safe. Michael

[msatanovsky]

DH Final Project blog thoughts

Hello everyone. Hope you all are doing good, despite the circumstances going on in the world. So this post will be a summary/walkthrough of my time making DH projects. It’s crazy to believe I’ve done this much in such a little amount of time.

The first project I did was the blog post. This project was a pain because I went through 3 different websites. It’s super difficult making a website by yourself. The website may give you guides, but it’s mostly an advanced thing. If you have no clue what you’re doing then it becomes really frustrating. Luckily, I transferred my blog onto Tumblr, which was way easier to use than the others. Creating a website takes an extra level of learning that takes a while.

The next project was a digital collage. Now I never made any collages but I knew what they were. I made a collage of everything I enjoy about life which was lots of fun. It looked even better in the end than I imagined. For any future projects, I may consider doing something with Adobe Spark. Overall I really enjoyed this project.

The next project was data mining and text analysis. For this one we used several free programs to mine new info out of pieces of literature. I enjoyed using these tools and may or may not consider using them in my final project.

The latest one I did was the sound project. It was recording 4 recordings and putting image to the sounds. I enjoyed doing this despite all the back and forth through apps. It was really clever to put image over sound. I might include something with this in my final project.

I was a bit confused as to what to do for my final project. During the beginning of the semester I thought it would be impossible to do any of the projects. I thought that all the technology use for these projects would be too much for me. But, I found ways to work through these projects and have learned about many different features and tools which I could use in the future.

For my final project I was thinking of doing something with the Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald. I originally thought something to do with mapping. In addition, I was thinking of doing a collage or a text mining on the text if I wanted to. It would be interesting to analyze how technology would understand literature. I myself am curious as to what results I will get.

Thanks to everyone for reading my blog. Hope you all have a safe and yummy Thanksgiving. See you next time.

[msatanovsky]

Memorial Researching

https://sfc0-my.sharepoint.com/:p:/r/personal/msatanovsky_sfc_edu/Documents/Memorial%20Research.pptx?d=wa70958c1318f4f7482b9e42c62e3b4be&csf=1&web=1&e=v5nBgL

Hey everyone. This week I was assigned to look at various memorials and how they all commemorate different things. This powerpoint is the research I’ve done and explains each type of memorial with a few examples. Bye everyone.

[msatanovsky]

Using Text Mining to Analyze Texts

Hi everyone. This week I was assigned by my professor to use text mining tools to analyze texts. I thought this would be really interesting because I wondered how a computer would analyze famous literature. I chose to analyze Walt Whitman’s “O Captain! My Captain!”. I was curious to see if the computer would see the same themes and messages like the rest of us do.

I used this tool called word cloud, but it didn’t really provide me with much of an analysis. Then I used this tool called Voyant Tools and it was really cool. It provided me with a chart showing the frequency of the words used, how difficult the vocabulary was, and provided me with a word cloud as well. My professor had us do research into different websites to see what's available. Mostly everything required me to download software or purchase access. However, voyant was completely free and accessible, which was a relief to me.

So “O Captain! My Captain!” is a poem about the victories of the Civil War and being triumphant. Although on the other side the captain is found dead at the end of the poem. The captain represents Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. The poem balances joy and victory from the war with the irony of Lincoln’s death on the side.

Voyant showed me many features about the poem. The word captain corresponded with the words bells, cold, deck, and dead. I think the computer recognized how the poem shows the captain and all the elements of the poem belonging to him. I don’t really think the analysis is super helpful though. Maybe if it went more into depth on what the poem could be trying to say it’d be helpful. The analysis of voyant on poetry is weak and not very advanced. I guess maybe it would help a new reader understand the poem if they haven’t read it. From an advanced point of view, it doesn’t really add on to any new information.

So I don’t really know how helpful these programs were to adding onto my understanding. Maybe other programs have different features and are more advanced with their analysis. But, we’ll have to wait and see if there’s any better tools for text analysis out there. Thanks for reading my blog everyone. Bye

[msatanovsky]

The Digital Collage Process

Hi everyone. Hope everyone is doing well. Over this week I was assigned to make a collage and it was a fun experience. Compared to what I had to go through with making my blog, this felt like a breeze. I thought everything would be so nice and easy because the 21st century would be so digitally advanced. But nope. I’m met with confusing tools and guides which led me to more questions. I went through 2 websites just to be led through more frustration and confusion. It seems without paying money, websites don’t want you to succeed without putting a price tag on everything. But, for this assignment I never created a collage before. Luckily my professor gave us a starting website which I found quite easy to navigate. I saw that there would obviously be extra features, but I made use with what I had. I used Adobe Spark which had tools and guides outlined for me very easily. With a few clicks, drags, and cropping... a collage was born. I didn’t use any other programs because Adobe Spark had everything I needed. 

Picking a topic was a conondrum for me. Originally I wanted to do a sort of new life esque collage of one side being dark and dead, and then have swirls into a bright alive side. But that topic seemed a bit too hard because how can I convey new life with just a few images because it’s neverending. So I chose to go with how special life is for my topic. I thought about what I thought made life special and was lost. When you think of life, you take everything for granted and lose appreciation for most things. That’s why I sort of came to a blank when thinking of images because I had to look back and see what I thought of everything around me. For my images, I wanted to convey elements of life that I enjoyed. I searched for bright and beautiful pictures to show my appreciation for all these parts. The free stock photos were far more nicer than my own pictures so I chose to go with those. For this collage, I know people each have their different perspectives on what they love about life. The list is ongoing on which person likes what and appreciates different things. But, we should all take a step back and see how much we should be appreciating what we have around us.

The images I put together were mostly all the things I appreciate daily. I couldn’t quite fit in everything so some things didn’t make the cut. I chose to include things that make me happy such as sunshine, beauty of nature, music, shopping,etc. These things are what I love to wake up to everyday and what I look forward to. Everything piles up near each other because thats what represents me. 

I thought of using text in this collage but then I thought why not let viewers think for themselves on whats it about. Also I ran out of space, and was just trying to make sure that everythings seen clearly. 

I am very satisfied with the end result because it makes me happy at the end of the day. I found that this site cooperated with me and let me create what I wanted to with ease. I found really beautiful pictures that were far better than what I expected to even find. Making everything collide with each other was what made this collage fun. In the beginning I kinda wanted to use text too, but I thought the end result looked better without any words. 

My peers haven’t reacted to my collage yet, but I think they will enjoy this one as much as I did. They will probably be surprised I changed my topic but it was for the better. Well I guess that’s it for this project. See you next time everyone.

[msatanovsky]

What is Digital Humanities?

Hi everyone, this is my first post. Today we’re going to talk about Digital Humanities. So why do we even need it? Well, Digital Humanities is used as a substitute for the written word and helps us gather information online. It works with the internet to change how we can use each of the different parts of the humanities digitally. DH stores data online for the whole world to access. Most DH projects seek to gather as much information and display it all digitally rather than on paper. But where is it even used? Well, one interesting project is the John Ashbury house tour, where people gathered information about every item in the poet’s home, and displayed info about it and even included sound to add to the experience. There are many interesting DH projects which use computing for digital mapping, info retrieval, and etc. Many projects have closed captions for deaf people and easy access for finding information more smoothly. How can learning about Digital Humanities help me in the real world? Knowing about Digital Humanities opens opportunities for new jobs. People can become content editors, research assistant, participating in any Digital Humanities studies people may need help with, and etc. One thing I like about it is it’s a joint effort, unlike in normal projects where people would work alone. Digital Humanities promotes creativity among people by allowing them to use tools to create anything they’d like, and that’s not really possible on paper. Many artists use the internet for reference on drawing and creating masterpieces. In addition to them coming up with creative ideas, they can transfer their work online and even draw on their tablets and computers. Digital Humanities also works with History, Literature, and Philosophy to decipher things we may not have known or thought about before. Most kids in school may be confused on Shakespeare and what famous philosophers are talking about. But there are various websites where educators and students can add their thoughts and meanings on the writings of famous literature, and help kids build a deeper understanding and appreciation of their works. In addition, Digital Humanities helps with education and religion. During this pandemic, schools have been able to transfer work online, and still use technology such as zoom and google classrooms to continue education for every student. Digital Humanities helps students interact with each other virtually, let students experience more focus to class, and help with time management and reforming everyone into responsible young adults. On another note, since most people can’t attend church, mosques, and synagogues, most have transferred these services to Instagram live and Zoom. Also, Digital Humanities has helped bring each bible from each religion and turn it into an app which can be acessible for all. The world of Digital Humanities helps store a large sum of information into a database where typing a few search words is much simpler than wasting an hour finding a document. So, Digital Humanities is a growing field which is always changing with new research and projects being done. We should take more advantage of this opportunity because we all could learn a thing or two about it. Signing off MS