Category: programming

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Links and slides for 'Learning to play like a programmer: Web mash-ups and scripting for beginners'

Workshop abstract: Learning to play like a programmer: web mash-ups and scripting for beginners.

Slides (pdf): Play Like A Programmer workshop DH2012

Links for the Digital Humanities pre-conference workshop 'Learning to play like a programmer: Web mash-ups and scripting for beginners'

My contact details

Twitter: @mia_out, blog openobjects.org.uk, homepage miaridge.com

Text editors

Online javascript console

Data to play with

Visualisation tools

Resources to keep learning

About learning to code

On hack days

Going further with debugging

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Workshop: Learning to play like a programmer: web mash-ups and scripting for beginners

Half day tutorial for the pre-conference workshops for Digital Humanities 2012: Learning to play like a programmer: web mash-ups and scripting for beginners.

Abstract:

Have you ever wanted to be able to express your ideas for digital humanities data-based projects more clearly, or wanted to know more about hack days and coding but been too afraid to ask?

In this hands-on tutorial led by an experienced web programmer, attendees will learn how to use online tools to create visualisations to explore humanities data sets while learning how computer scripts interact with data in digital applications.

Attendees will learn the basic principles of programming by playing with small snippets of code in a fun and supportive environment. The instructor will use accessible analogies to help participants understand and remember technical concepts. Working in pairs, participants will undertake short exercises and put into practice the scripting concepts they are learning about. The tutorial structure encourages attendees to reflect on their experiences and consolidate what they have learned from the exercises with the goal of providing deeper insight into computational thinking.

The tutorial aims to help humanists without a technical background understand more about the creation and delivery of digital humanities data resources. In doing so, this tutorial is designed to support greater diversity in the ‘digital’ part of the digital humanities community.

This tutorial is aimed at people who want to learn enough to get started playing with simple code to manipulate data, or gain an insight into how programming works. No technical knowledge is assumed. Attendees are asked to bring their own laptops or net books.

The tutorial will include:

  • what a humanities data set is and how to access one
  • how web scripting languages work (using JavaScript as an example)
  • how to sketch out your ideas in pseudo-code
  • the value of visualisation tools in understanding the shape of a data set
  • prepared exercises: ‘hello world’, using script libraries for mash-ups, creating your first mash-up using a live cultural dataset (e.g. a timeline or map),
  • how to find further resources and keep learning

Related link: Links and slides for ‘Learning to play like a programmer: Web mash-ups and scripting for beginners’

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Workshop: Hacking and mash-ups for beginners at MCN2011

I ran a three and a half hour pre-conference workshop (abstract below) at MCN2011 on Hacking and mash-ups for beginners at MCN2011 – slides below, and I'm happy to share the exercises on request.

Have you ever wanted to be able to express your ideas for digital collections more clearly, or thought that a hack day sounds like fun but need a way to get started with basic web scripting? In this hands-on workshop you will learn how to use online tools to create interesting visualisations to explore a cultural dataset and create your own simple 'mash-up'.

The workshop will be a fun, supportive environment where you will learn by playing with small snippets of code. No scripting knowledge is assumed.

Hacking and mash-ups for beginners at MCN2011

View more presentations from Mia

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Hack4Europe! UK Winner in the category 'Audience award'

Screenshot of adding an object to a blog post with 'Share What You See'

Owen Stephens and I won the 'Audience Award' for our 'Share What You See' hack at Europeana's Hack4Europe! UK held at the British Library in June 2011. Not bad, considering we'd met for the first time the day before and managed to make a new WordPress plugin in about six hours.

I blogged about the hackday and our project at 'Share What You See' at hack4europe London.

'Share What You See' is a WordPress plugin designed to make a museum and gallery visit more personal, memorable and sociable.  There's always that one object that made you laugh, reminded you of friends or family, or was just really striking.  The plugin lets you search for the object in the Europeana collection (by title, and hopefully by venue or accession number), and instantly create a blog post about it (screenshot below) to share it with others. Once you've found your object, the plugin automatically inserts an image of it, plus the title, description and venue name. You can then add your own text and whatever other media you like.