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Lesser-known BruinLearn tools you might actually use
For managing course materials, UCLA uses a Canvas-based application branded as BruinLearn. I don’t love it! Everything takes too many clicks to accomplish, it’s ugly, and I hate its built-in student-surveillance features. I tend to create a WordPress site for each class I teach, using BruinLearn mainly for submitting assignments and hosting material that’s not…
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Tenure
The title says it all: a couple of weeks ago, I received notification that my tenure and promotion to associate professor is officially approved. I am immensely relieved. I’m fortunate that the whole process was fairly smooth for me, but you just never know, and part of me couldn’t believe that this would ever happen…
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Teaching tools I use right now
We’re staring down the barrel of an extremely bleak future, and yet I’m still teaching every week and doing the best I can. It’s sometimes hard to focus on my classes, but sometimes it’s a relief; I do believe that what we do matters and I would like to keep doing it for as long…
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Care, capital, and COVID
In the spirit of letting no writing go to waste: my friends at Arizona State University asked me to lead a “design studio” on the future of work and caregiving. They asked me to write three introductions, one for each of three “movements,” during which the studio participants were invited to discuss questions about caregiving…
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Teaching technical skills online
Here I am, still blogging like some kind of caveman. I guess I should be using Substack or Medium or something, but maybe blogs will come back in style, like other artifacts of the ’00s. Anyway, in the past, when people asked me whether I could teach my digital humanities classes online, I hemmed and…
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Sitting with the rage
Have I ever felt this angry or trapped in my entire life? Certainly—let me cut you off right there at the pass—the world has seen greater cruelties and outrages. “Broken childcare infrastructure” barely makes the list of world-historical tragedies. And yet for sheer absurdity, for the unbelievable stupidness of this problem, for our steadfast refusal…
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Several new publications
I’ve published several things in the last few months, and thanks to UC’s institutional repository, I’ve been able to make them available to everyone. “See No Evil” Logic Magazine no. 4 (buy a copy of this great magazine!) This is a piece for general readership that investigates the software behind today’s massive, sprawling supply…
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Scaling up DH101
Over the last few years, enrollment in my Introduction to Digital Humanities class has been trending steadily upward, as has enrollment in the minor itself. Last spring, we had an unexpected surge in enrollment in the minor, and many of those students needed to take DH101 right away. We had to scramble a bit to…
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Data Packages for DH Beginners
The quarter is off and running again at lightning speed. At UCLA, we’re on the quarter system, and things move fast — just 10 weeks to get through all your material. I’m teaching DH101 again this year, and, as usual, it’s a race against the clock. The profile of my students changes a bit every year,…
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New job, same school! (Same office, even!)
I can never keep my mouth shut, so this announcement already made the rounds on social media, but I’m really excited about my remodeled job title: as of July 1, I’m an assistant professor of Information Studies and Digital Humanities (still at UCLA!). For those who care about such things, the appointment is 100% in…
