Welcome to the DAHL Journal

The Digital Arts and Humanities Lab is based in the Faculty of Arts Building (FAB) at the University of Warwick, in the West Midlands of England. The lab creates learning and development opportunities for our community of researchers, teachers, technology specialists, and students. We research new tools and techniques, as well as methods for developing our capabilities.

This is our online journal of activities, interactions, and ideas. The articles are written with an emphasis on rapidly recording and sharing, rather than peer reviewing and tightly managing knowledge. Robert O’Toole coordinates the DAHL activities, writes, and edits this journal.

DAHL 2024 Programme – theme “memory”

More activities, more tech, more great ideas for enhancing Arts and Humanities (or at least making our lives easier).

For the rest of 2024 we will also be exploring the theme of “memory” – what it means to us and others; individual and collective memory; how it is created, recreated, and sometimes forgotten; how it is affected (good and bad) by technology.

In the Spring term we have a programme of exciting opportunities for staff, students, and alumni. No booking necessary. Just turn up in the room, or (available in many cases) online. We will try to record as much as possible, as well as publishing reports here in the journal.

  • Monday evenings, 5-6 in FAB1.63 (Media Symposium Space), the Virtual Reality club will meet to explore the latest in VR and AR tech and experiences for the Arts and Humanities (we have a range of headsets).
  • Additional VR Club events focussing on specific applications and projects (cultural and academic, as well as fun – including the return of the popular Beat Saber competition in the eSports Centre).
  • Wednesday afternoons, 1-2, we have two DAHL Shorts sessions (in the Teaching Grid, live online, and recorded), covering topics including digital humanities, digital comedy, artificial intelligence, VR, and online museums.
  • Digital Humanities Certification for staff and PGR students – participate in 6 DAHL Shorts sessions, do a project to adopt new tools and techniques into practice, and write/record a short reflective account of your experiences with digital humanities.
  • DAHL Showcase competition for students will reopen in the Easter vacation – see the 2023 winners.

Latest articles

Self-service recording studios at Warwick

This article is about new facilities at Warwick that make it easy for us to record high quality video presentations, interviews, and discussions. There are also plans to add podcasting facilities to these rooms.

Teams as a base for active, engaged, collaborative teaching

This video demonstrates the approach that I am using in January 2024, for our undergraduate Intro to Design Thinking module. Our aim is for the students to feel and behave as if they are members of a design consultancy team, so we use methods and tools used in that kind of organisation. Teams is the ...

Microsoft Class Notebook – overview

A short overview of this free and fully-featured tool for note-taking, journalling, collaboration and assignments. This article is intended for schools, but the same approach may be used in FE and HE (without the parent access).

How Microsoft hopes AI will be its saviour

Why does Microsoft keep making things more complicated than anyone can possibly understand? How is this linked to their techno-utopian belief in the power of AI and digital assistants? Will it all go horribly wrong?

How to make a great podcast, and no-one needs to die

In this article I reflect on the characteristics of successful podcasts and the techniques that great podcasters use. In my experience anyone can make a good podcast, if the right ingredients are there. What are these ingredients and how do you get them together?

The best ways to schedule meetings

Three simple ways to make scheduling meetings simpler and more efficient, integrated with Microsoft Outlook calendars, email, and (if required) Teams.

How AI might kill you today, but not through the cold metal hands of a killer robot 

Remember: the goal of the tech industry isn’t to make the machines as intelligent as smart humans, that’s just too hard, the goal is to make humans as dumb as the machines, and in so doing, to create new billionaires – something it seems to be rather good at.

On the need to be much more precise about the capabilities that we need to achieve the things we strive for – a designerly mentor’s view

By describing our digital capabilities more clearly, we can analyse their fit to our needs, critically evaluate their impacts, and creatively respond with improvements, additions, and alternatives.

How far should we go to adapt teaching to the needs of every student?

In this article I consider how we might respond positively and creatively to one student’s seemingly impossible accessibility challenge. We use this as a way to drive innovation for all, rather than simply hurdling an individual problem.

How can we make learning as accessible as possible without reducing its effectiveness?

The question “should I routinely record my lectures?” is a badly posed proxy for the much more important challenge of accessibility. Lectures are most often messy mixtures of different types of learning activity, each of which is better done (for accessibility and effectiveness) in different formats, media and modes. In this article we consider how ...

See all articles.

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