Digital Zombies

Digital Zombies is a hybrid research experience that leads students through digital and physical collections in libraries while teaching them the basics of scholarly historical research. The sequence of tasks constitute a meaningful play activity – not a video game or even a gamification – but it is firmly a digital experience, as students learn to navigate digital collections, learn to search online for books that are in the library, and develop digital literacy around search engines, file submissions and file formats. Digital Zombies engages users on multiple platforms, and provokes students to think differently about history depending on which platform they are using.

The experiecne is embedded in a course curriculum, which unfolds with participation of librarians, who aid students in the tasks of Digital Zombies. Studenst currently upload their finished tasks to the course LMS, where they are graded with the help of rubric, peer reviewed or shared on a digital discussion board.