Category: Uncategorized

Now that I am wrapping up my project, I must say that I am very happy with how things have turned out. Not just for my project, but for how I was able to create something I am truly proud of. I have been able to share information about the topic I am very passionate about, Sport Psychology.

When I was creating the timeline for my project, I realized I was learning a lot of new information about my athletes. I also was able to learn more about how I can use technology to create visuals in order to relay my information. The last stage will be to add some supporting information to my profiles and some theme changes. I’m very excited!

This week, I was able to begin adding my timelines to my case profiles. By the time all of my timelines are added, I will then be able to add some more information about each player. Adding these timelines will allow users to interact with the case profiles and see how they have progressed over time. I originally wanted to be able to create one big timeline with all of the players, but I now feel like that could be pretty confusing.

As of now, my favorite part of my project are the timelines. Being able to add a visual touch to the information I am providing will be a great way to see the overall point of my project. However, I want to also add some explanatory information so that users can fully understand why I created this project and why Sport Psychology is so important. Also, I want to add concrete definitions to what the mental health challenges are so that they are not to be confused with other challenges or disorders.

Now that I’ve been able to see first-hand how Omeka S works, I am pretty intrigued. Currently, I am in the process of adding each player profile to the site. It’s been fun being able to learn about the ways I can bring my idea to life. It was difficult to imagine how the project could turn out during the data collection phase, but it’s beginning to feel more real!

Once all of my data is added, I will begin to start considering ways I can implement a timeline into my website. Until then, I can make sure I have enough data for each case profile.

Right now, I am cleaning my data by making sure I have all right timelines and milestones for each athlete. I am also trying to make sure that the mental health information I can find is accurate and helpful for each case profile. By far, the most enjoyable part of this process has been the learning aspect. For some of the athletes, the news I was learning was quite shocking. Since sport psychology is my career choice, it made trying to find this information even more interesting. However, the most difficult part of this process has been trying to imagine how my data will look as a digital humanities project.

One trend I was able to find was the types of challenges each athlete dealt with. For example, each athlete could account for some sort of pressure they experienced, or being rejected by some while opening up about their challenges. Even though each athlete’s story is different, they each dealt with very real issues that not only affected their sport performance.

Now that we are beginning to transition into the visual process, I imagine having case profiles that will include an overall timeline for each athlete. I believe this will make the data seem appealing and easy to understand. I am also thinking about visualizing the athletes by creating a media gallery, though I am not entirely sure how that would play out at the moment! Each case profile will have some background information first. Then, I want the case profile to expand to the timeline. The last part of the project will have all of the athletes together on one page.

Throughout this semester, I have been able to think about Generative-AI in ways that I’ve never imagined. For a while, we’ve been told not to use certain things, like AI or Wikipedia. Instead of just avoiding Gen-AI as a whole, I appreciate how I’ve been able to think of ways that it can benefit me in my life.

At this point, it is easy to see that Gen-AI isn’t going anywhere. Instead of trying to eliminate it, I think it’s important to realize the ways in which it can be helpful, and the ways in which it can be harmful. With our current project, I have found that AI can be useful for organizing my data for my topic.

At the start, I knew I wanted to focus on Sport Psychology as the main topic of my project. Right now, I have decided to shift my focus a bit to target athletes who have dealt with life-altering challenges. More specifically, I am currently collecting data on athletes who have either attempted or committed suicide. I decided to go this route because I think it will bring more of a real reaction to the importance of sport psychology and mental health counseling.

So far, it’s been pretty interesting looking at how many athletes have come out and shared their mental struggles within their sport. However, the part that I still find difficult is how everything will come together. I think the best strategy for me right now is to just focus on gathering my data!

Based on what I’ve collected so far, many of the athletes that have either committed or attempted suicide has been very young, between the ages of 20-35. This is very alarming, but I hope to use this statistic to remind people how much mental health should be prioritized.

I still have quite a bit of data to collect, but I am very confident that I will have everything I need by the time we reach the second phase of the project. I still want to gain information about more athletes and develop small stories about each of them (sport played, length of career, cause of death, etc.) Throughout this week, I plan to continue with the data collection process and start brainstorming how I can organize the data to make it understandable to users.

Before we started the brainstorming process, for our final project, I knew I wanted to do something specific to my career choice. Now that I’ve had the chance to talk through some ideas I had floating around, I have decided to focus my project on Sport Psychology and Athletes. I want to create career profiles for some key players who have dealt with some kind of emotional challenge during their career. I will add different pieces of information to highlight some similarities and differences between the players.

I also want to add a small section that displays the economic disparities between men and women in sports. I am thinking about implementing each player’s estimated salaries within their profiles. I am already pretty well-educated in the world of sports, so I think this will be a great way to combine my two loves: sports and psychology.

My goal is to get people to understand the not-so-great areas in sports. For example, the amount of pressures athletes deal with can lead to extremely tough long-term issues. I want people to see how much money is getting fueled into sports, but how little many players actually receive. There is still much work I need to do to get my idea started, but I am pretty satisfied with what I have now.

I never thought I would be able to contribute to a Wikipedia page. Now, I’ve been able to add important information to one of my favorite shows, A Different World. Currently, I have added statistical information about the growth of HBCU enrollment, as well as some confirmed details of the new sequel coming out. I feel very good about the information I have added, but I want to add more information about the casting. For example, Netflix confirmed some new cast members that will be a part of the new season, but I am still in the process of adding this information.

Overall, I really enjoyed this project, especially because we were able to focus on a Wikipedia article of our choice. I had no idea that HBCU enrollment sky-rocketed around the time A Different World was on the air. I found it interesting being able to show the difference in enrollment during the course of six years. I now wonder, will HBCU enrollment increase even more, now that there will be a sequel being released?

When it comes to Wikipedia as a whole, I think it is very cool how anyone can put trust-worthy data on an article. I find the research process to be a bit time-consuming in order to find the right sources, but it is definitely worth it. One key aspect this project has taught me is the importance of finding creditable and reliable sources. This can be hard, but it goes a long way. It has also shown me what collaboration looks like. Being able to continuously edit Wikipedia articles shows how education will always evolve.

Within the last few weeks, I have learned a lot about Wikipedia and its stance on Generative-AI. While watching the documentary, I wondered about the ways in which Wikipedia needs to change. I think the original intent of Wikipedia was great, but I also fear that it gave a platform for people to only learn in a traditional manner.

Wikipedia is great, but it seems outdated. It prides itself on its ability to allow anyone to share and edit different articles, but it lacks real engagement. For example, many of the articles I looked through were just so boring. If Wikipedia wanted to provide more activity, then I think a great way to do this would be to create an alternative version, one that allows people to “test” themselves on what they have been learning.

I decided to work on the article focusing on the show, “A Different World.” This is hands-down my favorite show, so I figured there would be much I could add to it. At the moment, Wikipedia has rated this article as a Start – Class article, but when I looked at the article, it honestly had much more information about the topic than I had hoped.

The article is already packed with much information, but it does focus it’s writing on “A Different World” as just being a spin-off to “The Bill Cosby Show.” I think this diminishes the overall feeling of A Different World.

When I looked through the article, I was able to pinpoint some areas that could be more developed, or added completely. For one, the article didn’t talk about the evolution of the theme songs used throughout each season. Another area that is lacking is more discussion surrounding some of the most impactful episodes. For example, I looked around to see what the highest rated episode was, and it was Season 5, Episode 14’s “The Cat’s in the Cradle.” I think this would be a great addition to the article.

Lastly, the article has a section titled, “Impact on African-American Culture,” with just 1 sentence attached to it. My goal is to add more to this section and add new depth to the article as a whole. I want to do more research in order to fill this gap in order to reflect how the TV series affected the population of HBCU students. I also want to add more visual representations to make the article more enjoyable to read.