This was my first time using Voyant but it felt good to actually use a database especially after reading much about the learning outcomes of using such systems. I’m definitely a more experiential type learner.

In my trial, I used a piece from a Latino Studies class,“Mapping and recontextualizing the evolution of the term Latinx: An environmental scanning in higher education” by Cristobal Salinas Jr. & Adele Lozano. It reflects on the term Latinx and the evolution of it over the years in higher education. I wanted to see what this tool would tell me compared to what I had read.

It allows us to see main terms of the article which highlights key subjects in the essay. The amount of times these  words are used correspond to the effect they hope to make on the reader. Another interesting aspect was the correlation and wordtree tool which in itself revealed the answers laying in the essay.  The wordtree also serves as a visual to trace the root of the main term. Overall the visuals help with identifying certain trends in the writing and help to analyze key questions one may have.

Chatting with Veliza was also interesting. But i didn’t quite understand how it all worked or the main purpose of this tool. I was just “click happy” and clicked away on things until something happened.

Dislikes

As I clicked around trying the different settings, I realized that if you set up a certain setting a certain way, once you leave that setting it reverts back to the default. Bubblelines for example, I could add on the the syntax keywords and click on the option to “separate lines with terms” and then, when I change the setting it goes back to zero.

Next Steps

For the next tests, I will want to use more content to compare and find possible correlations to see how helpful it will be to dump a lot of data onto a system and be left with more data to analyze and reflect back on.

Nancy