Academic Information Associate for Humanities

A version of Aisling’s interview with Ben is available in the DLA Newsletter from April 2021. Ben is part of Macalester’s incredible Academic Technology team and collaborates with faculty, staff, and students on innovative digital projects that incorporate a variety of tools and methods.

Network Analysis: In 2019 I did a project with a class where we mapped out 20th century poetry using this collaborative network mapping tool called Kumu. And that was a reading exercise in a certain way, a way of visualizing relationships and trying to connect the dots. In the final assignment the students put themselves on the map, connecting their own creative writing practice to these historical figures. It’s fun to think about the ways that technology can help us make sense of ourselves as writers or connect us in other ways.

Immersive Macalester: I worked with the philosophy senior seminar in 2021, and the students were figuring out how to present their final papers over Zoom in the weird learning environment that we were all in. And one of the students was writing their senior thesis about Minecraft, and we thought it would be fun to have a class session in Minecraft. So I worked with this student, Katia Sievert, to figure out how to do that. She built a replica of Old Main in Minecraft, and then I figured out the educational licensing and server settings and all that kind of stuff in order to have everyone in the class actually join at once. It was a fun experiment and it was amusing to run around with the students and gaze at this architectural wonder that Katia had created.

Film Trailers: In 2021 partnered with Brooke Schmolke to do work with Matt Burgess’ adaptation class. The final product was making a movie based on a short story and a comic book that the students had previously written. They kind of translated into new genres, like taking a screenplay and turning it into a visual object. Because of the module system, we [Matt and Brooke and I] decided that instead of doing the whole short film that they’d written, we would just do a trailer for that film that didn’t exist. So we spent a lot of time talking about movie trailers and teaching them about WeVideo and thinking through all the weird permutations of things you could do that were socially distant. But also, just in general, thinking about visual language and visual storytelling. It was an ambitious project. But I think it gives them a feeling for technology and certainly you can think of genre as a technology that, you know, you have to take your script or your idea, and you have to slot it into a format, which is very particular, like the movie script. And then you have to do the same thing again with comic books. You storyboard, essentially. And then film, right? I think maybe one of the things that is an interesting outcome is that you learn which form you like the best or which ones your strengths play to.