So what have I learned thus far?

I have never heard of the digital humanities before the Literary Kinds course and I soon discovered the transformative nature of digital writing and its evolution across media. I have taken for granted the opportunities for self-learning from the infinite sources of information that are available through the Internet. The Digital Humanities Manifesto was empowering as it pushed me to take advantage of the open-source culture that is available in this time and age and to get my hands dirty as I partake in the “democratization of culture and scholarship”. For my first web paper, I explored science writing by examining how it transforms across platforms: from laboratory journal to popular science magazine to headline news. I looked into several pieces of writing in each stage but did not seek to examine the interface between the audience/readers and the scientists. I remained at the surface. It is a gift economy, where knowledge is readily accessible to all of us at no cost, but I had to make the connections inside the network in order to extract the most out of it. I had to give back, provide my perspective to hear the echo of others. In examining the Ten Principles for the Future of Learning Institutions in this digital age presented by Davidson and Goldberg, it was clear that I have not yet reached out “horizontally”. I did not consider approaching neither peers nor bloggers who explored the topic to better understand the changes in science writing. I should have been blogging about it, sharing my perspectives and waiting patiently for the online community to respond back to my claim. My web paper remained a conventional academic essay happening to be available online that unfortunately did not explore the endless opportunities as digital writing should have. I am glad that Anne Dalke pointed that out in response to my web paper for I did believe that I was on the right track in the digital humanities sphere. The past month has been an enjoyable journey in digital writing but I remain a tourist in the field. I hope to eventually  break free from convention and into the digital humanities in order to be a proud participant of a world of information abundance and access.