Will Kent’s visit to our classroom was extremely helpful. His presentation was on the basics of Wikidata. He explained what the aim of the platform was, how the platform worked, and gave us the tools to be able to edit the platform. He also gave us an introduction to SPARQL. This reminded of chapter about visualization in the DH Coursebook. The page of Wikidata itself is considered a visualization, though not the usual one we think of, like a graph or tree. However, when SPARQL allows us to make an actual visualization. When I think of a lot of digital platforms like Wikidata or Wikipedia, I know it’s all community-based so it’s hard for me to conceptualize that people do a lot of work on the backend of it. Also, when we first started learning about it I thought it was all very confusing and inaccessible, as I think most coding is. His job as an educator on the platform made me realize they do make an effort to make it as easy and accessible for everyone, which I appreciate. Wikidata definitely needs more community engagement because, especially compared to Wikipedia, it seems lacking in much-needed data.
Zoom is groundbreaking in that it allows professionals to communicate on a wider scale. Though I’m not sure why it blew up when Skype has always been an option, I think because it was marketed toward professionals but accessible to everyone and new it became the defining platform during the Pandemic. I will always prefer in-person teaching just because it forces me to engage with the material more, but Zoom offers new opportunities and makes communication miles more accessible.