Abstract

This paper is practice focus, advocating the imminent need to develop inclusive humanities of the digital for schools. It will trace the development of our SSHRC-funded SAGITTARIUS Literature Digitizing Project in the past seven years, especially the section on digitizing the works of George Bernard Shaw for schools in Canada. The project evolved through the digital humanities stage. Developed in collaboration with our industrial partner, the Ontario Research and Innovation Optical Network (ORION), our scholarly partner the International Shaw Society and the Shaw Festival, and other strategic partners in teaching and learning, first, it went through the theoretical framework of big data as we digitized and amassed a huge amount of data. Next, making use of the strategies of e-publishing and e-learning, we prepared the data for schools in Canada in packages according to the play texts complete with textual and contextual materials. We discovered that an “inclusive humanities of the digital” is needed. Our pilot studies in school classrooms with tablet computers proved that we have to design curricular materials with the students and teachers in mind. Instead of focusing on texts, digitized curricular materials have to address the cultural contexts of the diverse students in the classrooms.