Later this week—Feb 27-28, 2015—a cast of leaders and innovators in digital archaeology will meet in snowy Boston to discuss the potential of mobile technologies for advancing research. The Mobilizing the Past for a Digital Future workshop, supported by a Digital Humanities Start-Up grant from the NEH, aims to synthesize current practices in the “use, creation, and implementation of mobile technology in advancing digital archaeology.” This is just the kind of work that should be funded and just the way it should be done—highlighting the diversity of approaches to digital archaeology, bringing people together to learn from each other and to build collaborations, and that are broadcasting these discussions openly and widely (this workshop will be live-streamed by the Wentworth Institute of Technology).
AAI’s Eric Kansa will lead a session on “Pedagogy, Data Curation, & Reflection,” which begins at 2:15 Eastern on Feb 28. Eric will also present a paper in this session, where he will challenge the status quo and ask us to think outside the (academic) box about improving data creation through a better understanding of data reuse. He highlights that “garbage in, garbage out” applies to digital archaeology if we do not give more careful thought to the what, why, and how of our field documentation techniques. Other talks will highlight innovative work in digital archaeology from across the globe (including underwater).