In a January article, the Chronicle of Higher Education mentioned Associate Professor Kim Miller’s digital timeline assignment.
The article included a collection of comments from Chronicle readers about how digital platforms are integrated into humanities teaching and scholarship in the undergraduate classroom. Professor Miller’s response was included:
“I have long wanted to integrate more sophisticated digital tools in my ‘Introduction to Women’s Studies’ here at Wheaton College,” she wrote, “to teach students how to engage deeply with digital tools and empower them to be participants in digital knowledge production. So I had students create digital timelines to document an issue or topic related to our class.”
The assignment required students and the professor to learn to use open-source software to build an interactive timeline that incorporates multimedia elements and scholarly sources.
“The project provided students with practical, transferable skills that they can apply to future coursework, to internships, and to their careers. Each and every one of them left the class with a much greater familiarity and experience with new technologies, and an understanding of how the technologies can enhance learning in the humanities,” she wrote.