Lab Activity: Digital Humanities

This thought provoking tasks on Moral Machine Activity and A Pedagogical Shift from Text to Hypertext were given by Dr. Dilip Barad. Click here to visit this assignment.

1. My experience and learning outcome of Moral Machine Activity: 

Learning Experience:

While using the Moral Machine, I had to face different situations where a self-driving car had to choose who to save. I had to decide quickly between passengers or people on the road, following the law or breaking it, and saving young, old, fit, or important people. This made me think about my own values, and the feedback showed me how my choices compared with others.

Learning Outcome:

From the results, I found that I mostly preferred saving more lives, protecting passengers, and following the law. I also gave more importance to saving younger, healthier, and socially valued people than older, heavier people or animals. At the same time, my choices about gender and whether to act or not were more balanced. This helped me understand my own hidden preferences and how difficult moral decisions can be.

2. Here are the screenshots and Result of My Moral Machine activity:

3. Summary of the presentation in three parts along with video recording:

Part 1:  A Pedagogical Shift from Text to Hypertext

 

Slide 1 – Introduction 
I learned that modern teaching is not just about delivering content. The main goal is to connect traditional knowledge with digital tools so that students can understand and engage with literature in ways that feel natural to them.

Slide 2 – Defining Hypertext

I realized that simply moving classes online is not enough. The real challenge is to keep students actively involved while still preserving the essence of literature and language studies. It’s about creating meaningful engagement, not just sharing materials online.

Slide 3 – Understanding Hypertext

I now understand the basics of how online learning works:

• Hypertext: Connects texts, images, videos, and other resources in a non-linear way.

• HTML: The code that structures these resources in a web browser.

• HTTP: The system that allows these resources to be shared and accessed online.
  This helped me see how online courses are built and why interactivity is important.

Slide 4 – Theoretical Shift: Decentering
I learned that in digital media, the reader is no longer passive. Students can explore, interpret, and create knowledge themselves. Also, the idea of a single “authoritative voice” is changing, so I need to design my courses to allow students to actively participate in learning.

Slide 5 – Pedagogy in the Digital Era
I realized that the teacher’s role is no longer just to deliver knowledge. Teachers now act as guides who support students in exploring ideas. This reinforces the importance of using models like Blended Learning or Flipped Classrooms where students take responsibility for part of their learning.

Slide 6 – Digital Pedagogy Models
I learned that teaching can be like a “Salad Bowl”: using multiple approaches together instead of sticking to one. For example:

• Flipped classrooms help students explore ideas before class.

• Mixed Mode combines online and face-to-face learning efficiently.
  This showed me how flexible teaching can be to suit different needs.

Slide 7 – Tools and Techniques
I now understand that a strong digital infrastructure is essential. Tools like LMS/CMS and digital portfolios help track student progress, organize content, and give students feedback in ways traditional classrooms cannot.

Slide 8 – Lightboard/Glass Board Introduction & Application
I learned that the Lightboard is a powerful way to make lessons visually clear. Teachers can write or draw while looking at the camera, making explanations more engaging. I can use this for teaching formats like Business Letters or abstract literary theory, keeping students focused and visually involved.

Slide 9 – OBS + Lightboard: Teaching Plays
I realized how OBS software can record and combine Lightboard teaching with multimedia. This allows complex plays or literary texts to be explained clearly, while adding images, videos, or animations to enhance understanding.

Slide 10 – OBS: Teaching Poem with Pictures
I learned that poetry lessons can be enriched with visuals and sound. For example, combining Simon Armitage’s pandemic poem with classical texts like Kalidasa’s Meghaduta helps students see connections between different literary cultures.

Slide 11 – Deconstructive Reading Example
I understood that using Lightboard for Deconstructive Reading makes abstract literary theory visible and easier to follow. Students can see annotations, diagrams, and examples in real time, which helps them grasp difficult concepts.

Slide 12 – Integrated Learning Platform (TED-Ed)
I learned to organize lessons in a structured sequence:

• Watch the video lecture

• Think by reflecting or answering questions

• Discuss online or in class
  This ensures students engage with content actively rather than passively watching.

Slide 13 – Flipped Learning Example
I learned that pre-class preparation allows class time to focus on discussion and problem-solving. This “In Search of Questions” approach ensures students come ready to participate and think critically.

Slide 14 – Mixed Mode Teaching 
I now feel confident that even complex literary theories like Derrida’s Deconstruction can be taught effectively using a mixed approach. Live discussions and Q&A sessions encourage students to actively interpret and engage with challenging content.

Part 2: A Pedagogical Shift from Text to Hypertext

 

Pedagogical Shift from Text to Hypertext 

The second part of the presentation, “Hypertext Pedagogical Shift from Text to Hypertext: Language & Literature to the Digital Natives,” focuses on the challenges of teaching language and literature in digital environments and offers practical solutions using hypertext and digital tools.

Challenges and Solutions for Language Instruction

One major challenge highlighted is the difficulty students face in understanding spoken language, including pronunciation, stress, and modulation, which are essential for effective learning. To address this, the presentation introduced several digital tools:

• Live Caption in Chrome: Provides real-time text for videos and online media, helping students follow spoken language more easily.

• Google Meet Transcription Extensions (Meet Transcript, Tactiq): Allows hands-free note-taking by transcribing online discussions into text automatically.

• Google Docs Voice Typing: Converts speech into text for drafting notes, transcriptions, or exercises, making language tasks easier and more interactive.

• Exporting Notes to Google Sheets: Organizes transcribed content for easy review and reference, making learning more structured and manageable.

These tools ensure that students can interact with language more effectively, even in online or hybrid learning environments.

Challenges and Hypertextual Solutions for Literature Instruction

Teaching literature, especially foreign or culturally distant texts, presents unique challenges. Students often struggle due to cultural anonymity, historical or geographical distance, and unfamiliar imagery. The presentation demonstrated hypertext-based strategies to overcome these barriers.

Visualizing Literary Texts

One example was a poem line:

“Hawthorns smile like milk splashed down / From Noon’s blue pitcher over mead and hill.”

To make this line comprehensible:

• Visualizing Nature: A photograph of hawthorn shrubs in bloom helped students connect the poetic metaphor (“splashed milk”) to the real-world appearance of the plant.

• Identifying References: Using Google Image Search, the phrase “Noon’s blue pitcher” was linked to Susan Noon’s painting Blue Pitcher With Flowers. This visual explanation helped students understand the metaphor, linking literature with visual culture.

This approach allows students to bridge the gap between text and context, making abstract imagery meaningful.

Using Hypertext as a Teaching Resource

The presentation emphasized the importance of hypertextual platforms, especially Google Arts & Culture, for teaching literature.

• Example Lesson – Mythology: The myth of Icarus and Daedalus was explored using a Webquest approach, encouraging students to search and interact with digital content.

• Learning Goals: Students not only understand the myth but also learn the concept of ‘decentring the centre’, a key idea in Deconstructive reading.

Hypertext allows students to actively interact with multiple sources, including:

• Online exhibits like Landscape with the Fall of Icarus

• Interdisciplinary texts such as 7 Poems About Famous Artworks

• Multimedia resources like Watch Icarus Falling!

By linking text, images, and cultural context, hypertext provides the historical, geographical, and visual depth often missing in online literature teaching. It allows learners to engage in critical, deconstructive thinking and connect abstract ideas with real-world examples.

Key Learning Outcomes from Part 2

1. Language tools like live captions and speech-to-text make online language learning more accessible and interactive.

2. Visual aids help students understand distant or abstract literary imagery.

3. Hypertext platforms encourage students to explore, interact, and construct knowledge rather than passively consume content.

4. Integrating artworks, images, and online exhibits enhances comprehension and critical engagement.

5. Overall, hypertext allows teachers to create deeper, meaningful learning experiences that suit the needs of digital-native learners.

Conclusion

Part 2 of the presentation reinforced the idea that digital tools and hypertext are not just supplementary aids; they are essential for modern teaching. By combining visual, textual, and interactive resources, teachers can overcome challenges in language and literature instruction and make learning more engaging, meaningful, and relevant for digital-native students. Hypertext enables a learner-centered, deconstructive, and immersive approach, ensuring that students actively participate in constructing knowledge, rather than just receiving it passively. This approach prepares students to think critically, analyze deeply, and connect literature with broader cultural contexts, making pedagogy in the digital era truly effective

Part 3:  A Pedagogical Shift from Text to Hypertext

 

Generative Literature, Digital Humanities, and Digital Assessment:

The third part of the presentation explores how the digital era is transforming literature, literary analysis, and pedagogy. It highlights new creative practices, analytical methods, and assessment strategies that are shaping the way we read, teach, and evaluate learning in the 21st century.

I. The Rise of Generative Literature:

Generative literature, as defined by Jean-Pierre Balpe, is a form of digital literature where computers produce continuously changing texts using dictionaries, sets of rules, and algorithms.

• Significance: Unlike traditional literature, generative texts are not created by human authors. This challenges conventional ideas of authorship and reading, as the texts are dynamic, fluid, and temporal. Readers need to interpret them differently, understanding that the work evolves over time.

• Example: Poem Generator Machines are practical demonstrations of generative literature. They can automatically produce Haikus, Sonnets, or Song Lyrics, showing how algorithms can be applied creatively in writing.

This concept opened my mind to new ways of thinking about creativity, where machines and humans can collaborate in the production of literature.

II. Digital Humanities: New Analytical Methods:

The presentation also explored how digital methods enhance literary study, providing tools for both close and large-scale analysis.

• Matthew Jockers – Microanalysis and Macroanalysis:

  • Microanalysis focuses on close reading, examining individual texts in depth.

  • Macroanalysis uses computational tools to study large literary corpora, revealing patterns and trends across vast bodies of work. This allows scholars to understand literary history on a large scale.

• Culturomics (Aiden & Michel):
  Culturomics applies quantitative analysis to culture, using Ngram data to track linguistic and cultural changes over time. Their work, Uncharted: Big Data as a Lens on Human Culture, demonstrates how Big Data can uncover hidden patterns that traditional reading alone cannot detect.

• Corpus Linguistics in Context (CLiC):
  The CLiC web application allows students and researchers to study literature computationally. It focuses on 19th-century literature, particularly Dickens, using tools like Key Word In Context (KWIC). This approach helps users see how characters are perceived and supports computer-assisted literary analysis.

From this, I learned that digital tools allow literature to be studied at multiple scales, combining the traditional close reading with powerful computational insights.

III. Digital Assessment and Pedagogical Shift

The presentation also introduced digital portfolios as a modern form of assessment.

• Digital Portfolio: Student work is collected and hyperlinked on personal websites, creating a dynamic, interconnected record of learning achievements.

• Rationale (Holly Clark): Digital portfolios encourage students to curate, archive, and expand their work, while also building digital citizenship and literacy skills. Students can share their learning purposefully, creating a permanent, evolving record rather than submitting work that is forgotten.

This approach reshapes assessment, making it more interactive, long-term, and meaningful, while giving students ownership over their learning journey.

Key Learning Outcomes from Part 3:

1. Generative Literature: Machines can create endlessly new texts, raising fresh questions about authorship, creativity, and interpretation.

2. Digital Humanities Methods: Tools like macroanalysis, culturomics, and corpus linguistics reveal cultural and literary trends that individual readers could never detect alone.

3. Digital Portfolios: Assessment is no longer static; it becomes a permanent, evolving digital presence, allowing students to showcase their learning meaningfully.

4. Overall Insight: Moving from text to hypertext is not just a technological shift; it fundamentally transforms how we read, interpret, and learn literature, preparing students for the digital age.

Conclusion:

Part 3 of the presentation showed me that the digital era is revolutionizing literature and pedagogy. Generative literature challenges traditional authorship, Digital Humanities offers powerful analytical tools, and digital portfolios transform assessment. Together, these changes empower both teachers and students to engage with texts in more dynamic, interactive, and meaningful ways. By embracing hypertext and digital tools, literature teaching can become more creative, analytical, and student-centered, preparing digital-native learners for a future where learning is continuous, interactive, and globally connected.

Summary of Video Recording: 

Summary: 

The keynote lecture by Professor Dilip Barad, Head of the English Department at MK Bhavnagar University, focused on the transformative shift from traditional text-based pedagogy to the pedagogy of hypertext in English language and literature teaching, especially in the digital age accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. He began by introducing the concept of hypertext—digital, interactive text embedded with multimedia and links—and emphasized its relevance for digital natives and 21st-century educators. The session included deep reflections on the challenges and opportunities of online and blended learning environments, tools and platforms to support digital pedagogy, and innovative approaches such as flipped classrooms, mixed-mode teaching, and digital portfolios for assessment.

Professor Barad highlighted the digital divide among educators, noting the low percentage of teachers maintaining personal blogs or websites while many have embraced platforms like YouTube and Google Classroom. He underscored the importance for teachers to own digital spaces to share and manage content independently. The lecture also addressed challenges like lack of student engagement, limited interactivity, and the loss of crucial non-verbal cues in online teaching.

Technological solutions such as glass boards for real-time writing, use of Google Docs for collaborative language activities, and captioning/transcription tools to overcome linguistic and network issues were demonstrated. The session further explored hypertext’s role in enriching literature teaching by enabling students to connect textual references to digital resources like images, artworks, and mythological backgrounds, thereby bridging cultural gaps inherent in English literature.

Moreover, Professor Barad discussed the emergent field of generative literature, where artificial intelligence creates literary texts, blurring the lines between human and machine creativity. This development calls for new pedagogical models and critical approaches. The session concluded by emphasizing the critical role of digital portfolios in documenting and assessing student work authentically in the hypertext era.

 Highlights:

  

-  Shift from traditional text to hypertext pedagogy essential for digital natives.  

-  Majority of teachers lack personal blogs/websites but widely use YouTube and Google Classroom.  

-  Innovative tools like glass boards and Google Docs enhance online engagement and interactivity.  

-  Combining synchronous and asynchronous teaching addresses connectivity and learning challenges.  

-  Hypertext enables deeper understanding of literature through multimedia and linked resources.  

-  Emergence of generative literature (AI-created texts) challenges traditional literary notions.  

-  Digital portfolios are vital for authentic student assessment and showcasing digital literacy.

 Key Insights:

-  Defining Hypertext in Pedagogy: Hypertext integrates text, images, audio, and links into a dynamic, accessible form of content essential for engaging digital-native students. Professor Barad stresses that hypertext is not just a technology but a pedagogical shift demanding educators redefine teaching and learning strategies to embrace interactivity and decentralization of knowledge.

-  Digital Presence as Pedagogical Necessity: Despite the proliferation of digital tools, many educators lack personal digital footprints like blogs or websites. Owning digital spaces empowers teachers to promptly share resources, foster engagement, and adapt content flexibly. Institutional platforms often impose delays and restrictions, thus personal digital domains become critical for agility in hypertext pedagogy.

-  Tool Selection and User-Friendliness: The session advocates for simple, free, ad-free tools compatible with learners’ devices, primarily Android phones. Google’s suite (Drive, Classroom, Meet, Sites, Docs, YouTube) is preferred for its integration and accessibility. Teachers should focus on mastering a limited set of tools that maximize teaching effectiveness without overwhelming themselves or students.

-  Blended, Flipped, and Mixed-Mode Teaching Models: The pandemic exposed the limitations of traditional face-to-face pedagogy and highlighted the need for blended learning models combining synchronous (live video classes) and asynchronous (recorded lectures, shared materials) approaches. Flipped classrooms encourage student-generated questions and active learning, while mixed-mode teaching accommodates both in-person and online students simultaneously, despite the logistical challenges.

-  Engagement and Interaction Challenges: Online teaching disrupts the natural flow of communication where teachers read students’ body language and facial expressions. This “faceless” environment requires innovative strategies to maintain involvement, such as collaborative Google Docs activities, live chats, and interactive quizzes. Captioning and transcription tools help overcome language comprehension issues exacerbated by poor internet connectivity.

-  Hypertext Enhances Literature Comprehension: English literature teaching benefits immensely from hypertext by linking textual references to relevant multimedia—images of artworks, mythological contexts, and digital archives. This bridges cultural distances, especially for Indian students grappling with Western literary allusions, enabling richer interpretation and critical thinking.

-  Generative Literature and AI in Education: The rise of AI-generated poetry and prose challenges traditional literary authority and pedagogy. Teachers must prepare to engage with generative texts critically, and incorporate new assessment rubrics that consider human-machine collaboration. This evolving landscape invites educators to rethink authorship, creativity, and authenticity in literary studies.

-  Digital Portfolios as Authentic Assessment: Rather than relying solely on traditional exams, digital portfolios compile students’ multimedia assignments, blogs, presentations, and projects, reflecting their learning journey authentically. Portfolios foster digital citizenship, personal responsibility, and provide comprehensive evidence of skills and knowledge acquisition in the hypertext era.

-  Privacy and Ethical Considerations in Digital Communication: Use of group emails (e.g., Google Groups) is recommended over WhatsApp or open social media groups to protect learner privacy by limiting exposure of personal emails and phone numbers. This ethical dimension is crucial in designing respectful and secure digital learning environments.

-  Pedagogical Autonomy and Innovation: Given the fragmented, decentralized nature of hypertext pedagogy, there is no one-size-fits-all model. Each teacher must experiment and develop personalized pedagogical approaches, blending technological tools and teaching strategies suited to their learners’ context and needs.

-  Need for Ongoing Professional Development: The rapid digital transformation demands continual upskilling of teachers in ICT tools, digital content creation, and new pedagogical methodologies. Faculty development programs like this one are critical for equipping educators to navigate and thrive in the digital teaching landscape.

-  Hypertext as a Living Text: Unlike static printed books, hypertext is dynamic and interactive, allowing learners to explore content non-linearly through links, multimedia, and embedded resources. This aligns with contemporary cognitive habits and learning preferences, promoting deeper engagement and knowledge construction.

-  Collaborative Learning through Digital Platforms: Platforms like Google Docs enable synchronous and asynchronous collaboration, peer feedback, and co-construction of knowledge, which are difficult to replicate in traditional classrooms. Such collaboration fosters communication skills and critical thinking.

-  Technological Innovations to Mimic Classroom Interactions: Tools like glass boards provide a solution for live, interactive teaching that preserves eye contact and board work, vital for subjects requiring stepwise explanation like grammar or literature analysis. Technical adaptations like flipping camera images ensure smooth delivery of such innovations.

-  Integration of Multimedia in Literature Teaching: Use of platforms like ed.ted.com and artsandculture.google.com exemplifies how curated hypertext resources can support thematic exploration, cultural context, and critical theories (e.g., deconstruction, decentering), enriching students’ literary appreciation.

-  Student-Centered, Question-Driven Learning: Flipped classrooms emphasize student inquiry by encouraging learners to generate questions after engaging with video materials, fostering active participation and deeper learning, which is especially challenging but essential in online settings.

- Decentering and Margins in Digital Literary Analysis: Hypertext allows students to explore peripheral details and marginalia in texts and artworks, promoting critical perspectives like postmodern decentering, which traditional linear reading often overlooks.

-  Blurring Boundaries Between Texts and Media: Hypertext pedagogy fosters intertextuality and multimodality, where literary texts, visual arts, videos, and digital media interact, reflecting the complexities of contemporary communication and cognition.

 Conclusion:

Professor Dilip Barad’s session offers a comprehensive roadmap for transitioning from conventional text-based teaching to dynamic hypertext pedagogy, essential for engaging today’s digital-native learners. It underlines the importance of digital literacy, adaptive teaching models, and innovative tools to overcome pandemic-induced challenges and beyond. The integration of technology with pedagogy not only enhances language and literature education but also prepares teachers and students for a digitally interconnected future where knowledge is interactive, collaborative, and continuously evolving.