This has been one of the more productive reading weeks throughout my career here at Guelph. After dicussions with Prof. Ross, I have really narrowed down my focus on what I want to accomplish my my project. I am sticking to my original idea on what I want to do: map the origins of NHL players over a period of time.
Originally, I expected to maybe map players over a few decades, but due to information being more readily available than I had anticipated, I am mapping the origins of every single NHL player, ever, upwards to 6000 people.
I hope to create a digital map with this information, that possibly moves with a timeline, much like the example we saw in class a week ago. Along with a moving digital map, I hope my project can easily show certain trends in the statistics.
I have access to a database that has every player, and I am sifting through the data now to create sound data that could easily be implemented into a good earth map. Here is the main problem I have encoutnered with the data in this regard: Eastern Europe and the changing geography. What I mean by this is the dismembering of the Soviet Union, and Czechoslovakia. My information is in a microsoft excel format. So currently, I am gioing through all the players listed under: USSR and Szechoslovakia. Based on the city that the respected player is from, and what country that city is in TODAY (ie, Latvia, Slovakia, Russia, etc.) is what I am changing their country of origin to, so the map can be more easily read.
Thats all for now, hopefully I’ll have more for my presentation on Tuesday!
It is needless to say that the dawn of social media is upon us. Many of us cannot go a few hours without checking out phones, facebook or twitter for the latest news. After a days work, some feel out of the loop because they are a few hours behind on the breaking story of the day. Using these social media tools, things like CASP and the ROmeo and Juliet Shakespeare App have been able to thrive.
Who would have thought 10 or 15 years ago, somebody could go on their smartphone and analzye the plot, characters, sources etc. of a Shakespeare play. These are the wonders of social media that DH are starting to take more and more advantage of.
I believe that the CASP page is a great example of how DH has thrived with the advancements that have been made in technology. It is not a page that analyzes Shakespeare, but a page that analyzes how SHakespeare has grown in a Canadian society. This is something that is very interesting. As I have noted in a few other blog postings, a very interesting note about CASP is the Learning Commons, which provides lesson plans for students. I believe this is a very innovative way to keep students intrigued about a topic that is quite intimidating.
In the first week of HIST 4170, I had a very tough time wrapping my head around what was expected of this project. I have minimal digital experience, and was not exactly sure how I was going to tackle this project. When mentioned in class that some sort of sport project was a possibility, I was determined to base my project around some sort of sport idea, as it is something that greatly interests me.
Upon reading the Introduction to Database I came up with a preliminary idea of what my project could include.
I would like to create a database that would help compare the ehtnicities represented by professional hockey players in the NHL, and comparing the success of these respected players. When I say ethnicities, I mean which country they were from. Up until around the 1990’s, the sport was mostly dominated by North Americans, so I believe my study would be most effective if I begin my research from 1990.
Within the analysis and database, I could include the amount and percentage of players from certain countries (Canada, United States, Russia, Sweden etc.), and analyze the growth or decline of these countries in how they were represneted in the NHL over the past 20+ years.
On top of analyzing this proportionality, I could possibly gauge the success of these countries within the NHL. I could do so by looking at first round draft picks, statistics in the NHL (points, games, etc.) as well as recent Stanley Cup champions in the NHL, and which country was best represented on eahch respected team.
This is just a preliminary idea, let me know what you guys think!
When beginning this assignment, I had a tough time understanding what I was really looking for. However, when I looked deeper into the ariel photos project, I had a better idea. Using digital humanities to map geographical histories was what I was looking for.
The project that I researched is the Don River Valley Historical Mapping Project. This project was done through thte UNiversity of Toronto, and uses GIS to map historical changes in the landscape of the Don RIver in Toronto, focussed between the 1880s and the 1930s. On a side note, I find it remarkable, that we have the tehcnology to map changes that occuured almost centuries ago.
The project looked at three broad topics, the industrial development of River Valley, the changes of the physical landscape, and the sights of interest. This is an example of a map that they used in their research of the rivers landscape.
The project also drew upon a wide variety of geographical information, including historical maps, geological maps, fire insurance plans, planning documents and city directories. A full lise of resources can be found here.
The website also gives many points of interests of study, and gives a historical background into that particular point of interest. Here is an example of Ashbridges Bay.
In conclusion, I believe GIS is a very innovative and interesting digital humanity. As I stated before, it is remarkable at what we can accomplish studying centuries before us. It could be useful in many historical contexts, as it could help us to analyze whats helping and what is hurting out environment, as well it could also help us to get a better understanding of particular events that occurred, ie, the Knowles reading.
As a rookie using Orlando, I am going to be honest, I find all of the options, and different search engines and keywords a little bit confusing. However, I think this initial confusion should be expected when a “textbase” covers such a wide variety of sources. Saying this, I do believe that “textbase” is an interesting word used by the creator’s of Orlando, based on the fact that it comprises a variety of readable text in an electronic base.
Saying this, I believe once I can get a handle on how the whole textbase works, I feel that this would be an extremely valuable research tool for the topic of women writers. The number of search engines, and the different ways that the researcher can modify their search contribute greatly to this value, helping researchers locate exactly what they want.
In our first seminar this semester, we discussed how we have been affected by digital tools out studies here at University. For the most part, many of us had the same idea of how they have been affected. Online data base has been basically my only source of research over these four years. It raises the question of what would it have been like 10 or 15 years ago, when a library system like ours did not exist, or a database to locate countless journal articles or newspaper articles. Prof. Ross said it best in class, it is basically hellish to think about. Powerpoints is another addition to studies here at The University of Guelph. Not only do they help in my own personal presentations, but the majority of Professors I have had experience with have used power-points and other digital tools to make their lectures more comprehensive.
It would be silly not to mention the online components of class work as well. For the most part up until now at least, the online components of coursework have been through courselink or D2L. This includes complete distant education courses, with no in class learning whatsoever, something that I have experience in, and am personally not a fan of. On these pages we can also blog, chat with students or instructors, take quizzes, review the course material, review grades, and submit online assignments.
Basically anything that is important on the administrative side is also done online at UofG (webadvisor). On this portion of the UoG website, we can also pay our massive tuition bills, as well as pick our classes, and find out anything we need to about or program etc.
In the future, it is tough to predict what will come next. Susan Hockey does a great job picking about the history of digital humanities, which started in 1949, with an Italian priests dream of a digital index. The technological advancements that have been made are clearly monumental. Given this, I am sure that there are advancements to be made, however, given with what we have now, it would be tough to predict what could come next, because I do not know what we need to come next.
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