Reflection on a Visit from Will Kent!
The visit from Wikidata Education Specialist, Will Kent, was quite informative on the complex tool that is Wikidata. Will presented several different ways on how one can utilize Wikidata as well as craft it with code. I personally took away the different types of code that definitely assisted in my creative piece surrounding manga. Will Kent really showed that Wikidata has little to no limits in terms of gathering data. Will coming into our class to show such things really highlighted the importance of data as well showing how data points are interconnected. The idea of Wikidata is something that definitely improved my way of thinking about digital humanities as a study, and Will’s visit only added to that. Having a community expert join our virtual classroom was both a unique and engaging experience. Will’s insights and expertise was sort of a real world application to our learning, which allowed for questions and concerns surrounding the tool as a whole. The insight and the interactive opportunity made me feel as if I am semi-professional with Wikidata. A connection to a reading could be that of the data visualization chapter. As we know, visualization is crucial as to understanding sets of data and information which is why it can be considered a powerful tool for learning and problem-solving. This chapter focused on the idea of visualization which are common productions from Wikidata queries. Will’s visit was both fun and insightful as it really delved into what we know as Wikidata. I am really excited for future visits from other professionals.