From the start of the semester, I was completely at loss with the idea of how to connect literature with technology and I never thought that something like this would interest me in so many ways. Being introduced to Visual Studio Code was something extremely new and if you were to ask me what VS Code was, just two months ago, I would not know how to respond. Should I thank my english concentration for leading me in the direction to get this opportunity of a new digital world I was so unfamiliar about? What is a Terminal window? Who is Henry David Thoreau? Not only have I learned so much in the past couple weeks, but I have been able to help others in class along my journey of digital learning as well.
Learning what a terminal window was, like gibberish to me. However, I learned that a terminal is a way you can access anything on your computer. Isn’t that awesome? There were multiple steps in the process of creating my first own journal file but I will forever be grateful that I was introduced to this type of ability. I not only use VS Code for my digital humanities class, however I now use it for multiple of my classes which is easier for me to keep my thoughts and ideas organized throughout the semester. Terminal almost acts as an easy way to access your notes that you want to jot down for the day. Being that you only have to type in ./journal.sh into your terminal to create a whole file with a date and title without having to do it yourself! I never knew things could get this easy. Terminal and VS Code are very important to me in ways that terminal allows you to use text-based commands which makes it easy for you to interact with your computer instead of navigating through it, trying to find a specific thing you are looking for. Additionally, I learned that instead of calling my dad for issues that I’m having on my computer I can just access my terminal window! Terminal is a place you can go to when issues arise and you are unsure of how to fix them. It allows you to troubleshoot problems effectively along with many tools to debug your computer that you can find through the command line. I’m confident in saying that I am no longer intimidated by Terminal, however I am excited to learn new things about it every day.
It’s safe to say that I am still new to everything involving technology but I continue to learn new things everyday given the opportunitires I have in my Digital Humanities course. Being in this course gave me the opportunities to attend Suny Geneseo’s annual Duglass Day! Here, I was educated on the importance of digital learning. The Douglass Day experience created a base and also gave me a bigger leap in a different side of digital learning that I was completely unfamiliar with. I am grateful to say that this opportunity was something I will never regret being that I learned many things about not only transcription but also Douglass himself. You may ask what is Douglass Day is about? The whole day consisted of history, music and transcription where everyone was given the opportunity to help transcribe correspondence of Douglass in the collection of the Library of Congress. A few things that I thought impacted me on this day was the fact that I never was really taught cursive in schools which made it a bit difficult for me to transcribe some of the documents. However, being that I was never taught cursive, this whole experience was more enjoyable and challenging for me.
Who is Henry David Thoreau you may ask? He was an American philosopher, poet and political activist who was famous for his work “Walden”. In 1845 Thoreau built a house near the shore of Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts. This is where he finished a draft of his first book and began his second book, Walden. Thoreau continued to write his book and finally published it in 1854. For Someone who writes all about problems in the world of being a human being, Thoreau is a very impactful writer that many people are able to connect to. I learned a lot about Thoreau throughout this course so far and I hope to continue to learn about him and all his accomplishments more in the semester.