Not DH Enough?
Designing a workshop is hard. From what I understand, you need at least three components for it to be successful:
- have an activity;
- have a method;
- have a takeaway.
Connecting these three components is not as easy as it seems: you might have a takeaway but no other clue as what you want to do (the potential trap of backwards design), or have a fun activity but no takeaway, other than “hey, this could be fun”. Amna and I both expressed having the same fear. What is the workshop we were supposed to design wasn’t DH enough? But what even is “DH enough”? Requiring attendees to bring their laptops, making sure we’ll be using our terminal, making sure we have a shiny tool to baffle attendees with our DH skills?
Being exposed to “pen & paper” and “beyond buttonology” pedagogies meant that we were confronted to the limitations of DH from the outset. You don’t know if everyone will even come up with a laptop (or have a functioning one, RIP to my previous laptop and its broken keyboard which required me to copy and paste each “x” and “w” for the first months of Praxis), just like you don’t know if people will actually learn something in a critical way, and not just follow orders.
Being exposed to “pen & paper” and “beyond buttonology” pedagogies meant that we rapidly became hyperaware of the limitations surrounding our practice and our format. Because it can lead to feelings such as anxiety, doubt, and the weekly imposter syndrome crisis checkup, I had to sit down with myself and outline what I understand to be enough.
A “DH enough” workshop is…
- a workshop in which people are invited to think critically about a specific subject
- a workshop that allows you to ask questions about the field of DH in general
- a workshop in which you assume that everyone is interested and happy to be there
- a workshop in which learning goes hand in hand with some level of creativity
- a workshop in which you look at limitations as something exciting
- a workshop in which adults are encouraged to use crayons