July 6, 2008
Hyperwords
Here's an interesting Firefox add-on I just found.
http://www.hyperwords.net/index.html
What's interesting is that there's a strong connection with Doug Engelbart's work!
June 18, 2008
Hypertext: Edge-notched cards
The New York Times ran an interesting articleon June 17th, about Paul Otlet, a Belgian library who some claim may have invented one of the first models of a hypertextual system as well as theorized a networked system that bears some resemblance to what we now see as the world wide web. As we delve into some the history of hypertext in Module 4, it is interesting to consider Otlet's work, which dates from the late 19th century.
You may need to have a "free" account with the NYT to view the article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/17/science/17mund.html?pagewanted=1&8dpc&_r=1
May 8, 2008
The Machine is Us/ing Us-Wesch Video
I use this video with Teachers and Teacher Librarians when I am trying to stress the importance of information literacies and our need to understand them. Hope no one has posted it earlier.
Michael Wesch is Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University.
Deb
ANIMOTO
Here is a great little resource that seems to be of great interest in my aggregator these days. ANIMOTO is a web based digital media generator that is quick and easy to use with impressive results.
Deb
May 7, 2008
returning to orality - talking avatars
I thought this was kind of interesting and fun to play with. Sitepal suggests that the speech capability of the avatar keeps customers more engaged and at your site longer. I've been using recordings of sample problems posted onto a moodle site and getting similar feedback from students.
Tris
May 5, 2008
Cool Youtube Video
Ever since I was little I have been fascinated by the shapes and look of the letters of the alphabet. I used to doodle the letters in all different sizes, "fonts" and colours whenever I got a chance. I even taught myself to write with both my right and left hands, just to see how different the letters might look!
One day, I was surfing youtube and came across this video. I think it's great for several reasons. I love the fluidity with which the older brother creates his letters - they look like works of art! I also love watching the younger brothers attemts to recreate the letters. His are equally beautiful but in a different way. I think one of the greatest privileges a primary teacher has is that of watching little people learn these most basic building blocks of our culture.
I hope you all enjoy the video, too!
Cari Wilson
November 3, 2007
Typography is what language looks like
While ETEC 540 is not a course about typography per se, it has indirectly renewed my interest in the art of arranging type. I’ve just started reading Ellen Lupton’s book Thinking With Type.
On literally the first page she introduces the idea, “typography is what language looks like”. To gain a visual sense of what this means and an idea of the concepts covered in the book have a look at the following video from the Vancouver Film School:
October 11, 2007
Wiki and Social Bookmarking
As students of ETEC*540, we have been asked to make use of two online text technologies - the Wiki and Social Bookmarking.
The folks at Common Craft have produced two light and fun videos explaining these two technologies in a very clear way.
First the Wiki:
...and next Social Bookmarking with del.icio.us:
Common Craft has also produced additional videos on RSS, Social Networking, and New Light Bulbs.
October 8, 2007
Tim Bray on Referenced Publishing, Wikipedia, and Authority
I was recently reminded of the online screencast, Heavy Metal Umlaut: The Movie by Jon Udell. The subject of which is Udell’s exploration of the dynamics behind collaborative online authorship. I've always intended to go view the video but never got around to it. The first time that I had heard of it was back in 2006.
In 2006 I attended the Ontario Universities Computing Conference (OUCC) held at the University of Guelph. Tim Bray delivered one of the two keynote speeches that year. Bray discussed, among other things, Wikipedia. He used the Heavy Meltal Umlaut as one example of the process by which publishing and scholarship takes place. The keynote use to be available in podcast form from the 2006 OUCC site, however, someone has gone and removed all existence of it from the web - such is the nature of the Internet, I guess. So that others can listen to it, I have been able to locate the podcast in my files and have made it available for download. I suppose it actually pays to never throw out any podcast downloads.
In this podcast, Bray offers an interesting and poignant commentary on the Internet that speaks to university scholarship, Wikipedia, authority, and the act of being an authority on the web. Perhaps the most interesting subject is the dichotomy between book form referenced publishing and Wikipedia. Bray considers traditional publishing to be a process of kill, cook, and freeze while Wikipedia to be cyclic process that is never ending. Ultimately I feel this holds importance for the future of literacy. It is in this light that Bray delves into the future of books, academic journals and the peer review process.
The audio file is just over one hour in length but is a very enjoyable listen. I would caution, however, that it might encourage you to begin contributing to Wikipedia or even to start your own blog.
September 13, 2007
Hyperland - take two
I'm embedded the Google Video link to Douglas Adam's Hyperland, and the one in the link below does not see active anymore. It is pretty common for links to migrate over the course of time, so it is often a good idea to do searches at the original hosting site (in this case Google Video), when a link goes dead. Let's see how long this one lasts!
Jeff
September 10, 2007
Yet more electronic anachronism
Perhaps inspired by the now-legendary medieval helpdesk video, a riff on 15th Century email:
This is snagged off the Textologies newswire, and the comments added by Print is Dead blogger Jeff Gomez don't pull any punches on the significance of the jokes:
In the "15th Century Email" video, the guy understands the technology enough to use it (when he makes a mistake, he knows to use the DELETE key to correct his mistake), but instead of just correcting the one mistake he then erases the entire letter and starts from scratch, the way you would crumble up a piece of paper and start all over again. And when eBook programs try to keep the experience of "turning" virtual pages, it shows they're reacting the same as the man in the video; they understand (and want to exploit) the idea of electronic reading and digitization, but the fact that they retain the idea of turning "pages" means they're missing out on the bigger experience. Once eBooks and digital reading can get beyond this thinking, the book will then be truly redefined, and the idea of reading will be finally revolutionized. Until then, like "15th Century Email," we're just using new technology in an ancient way.
September 3, 2007
What do you mean books are technology?!
Sometimes it takes a look in the rearview mirror to remind ourselves that a medium as familiar to us as the printed book was once some new-fangled and rather disruptive technology. Take a look at the video below and you'll see a very funny take on a technical support call for the book 1.0.
If the embedded video doesn't work for you, you can view it directly from YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQHX-SjgQvQ
Jeff
September 12, 2006
Douglas Adams's 1990 BBC documentary on hypertext
I haven't had a chance to watch the full movie version of Hyperland closely yet (available as of today on Google Video), but what I've seen convinces me that this will be a nice complement to our study of hypertext later on in the semester for ETEC540. It covers much of the same history we will be reading -- Vannevar Bush, Ted Nelson, Xanadu, the Media Lab... And based on previous iterations of the course, I'm willing to wager we have at least a couple of rabid Douglas Adams fans in our cohort.
Gestating off-screen, adding an ironic sheen to the proceedings, is the yet-to-be-realized World Wide Web, which would both embody and explode the vision of hypertext under consideration.
Update: Oook rightfully points to Hyperland's Wikipedia entry for useful context.
(Via Boing Boing. Cross-posted to Abject Learning.)
"Fitting words for an epitath..." -- an encyclopedic smackdown!
Boing Boing alerts us to this debate between Jimmy Wales (Wikipedia's founder and chairman of the Wikimedia Foundation) and Dale Hoiberg (senior vice president and editor in chief of Encyclopaedia Britannica). There seems to be some legitimate animus bubbling below the surface... which adds some spice to a fairly clear summary of the respective positions, and I'd say both articulate their points quite well. Thinking of Wikipedia as something of a synecdoche for open environments and loosely-structured practices, it's a fun mental exercise to apply these arguments to a broader academic context. Play to win exciting prizes!
Earlier: Jimmy Wales to Beijing: Wikipedia won't censor
(Cross-posted to Abject Learning)
August 29, 2006
Grand Theft Education -- Harper's takes on educational gaming and emergent narrative
I doubt the piece will appear online, but the latest issue of Harper's features a fairly extensive and often compelling discussion on the rise of educational gaming:
Lesson plans are being adjusted accordingly. Last year hundreds of new educational video games were released, on subjects ranging from algebra to U.S. history. In order to assess the video game's pedagogical potential, but also its implications for the English language, Harper's Magazine brought together four experts -- two video-game enthusiasts and two teachers -- and charged them with a task: to dream up video games that might teach, of all things, writing.
Based on the title, and Harper's general editorial bent (glimpsed in the "of all things, writing" quoted above), I was expecting a largely curmudgeonly treatment, but was pleasantly surprised that both of the "teachers" slated to defend the sanctity of the printed word seemed quite excited by the possibilities.
I'll quote a few of my favorite exchanges below, in hopes of nudging a few people closer to the newstand:
RAPH KOSTER: It's long been known that brussels
sprouts are not as much fun as chocolate. As Mark Twain put it, "Work
consists of whatever a body is obliged to do. Play consists of whatever
a body is not obliged to do."JANE AVRICH: Right. Tom Sawyer gets the other kids to paint Aunt Polly's fence by turning it into play.
KOSTER: It's very important to set up that context. In the video-game world, this is called the "magic circle" surrounding games. And it has to be a circle of no consequence: What you're doing in here doesn't matter outside it, so it's okay to fail. You're forgiven. One of the problems with standard pedagogy is that it all matters too much, there's a pressure to succeed. And that turns off a lot of learners. Pressure situations are difficult for some people.
BILL WASIK: So zombies it is. Presumably, as students go along in the game the words will get more difficult? The zombies wilier?
STEVEN JOHNSON: All good games start off relatively simple and they get more and more challenging. The learning is what keeps you roped in: Wow, it got a little bit harder, but I've gotten a little bit better.
I particularly enjoyed the following exchange, if only because it served to reinforce a niggling suspicion I've been harbouring about one of my current guilty pleasures:
AVRICH: My friend Griffin suggested an idea for a game to teach writing. I thought it was very clever, considering that he's ten. He said, "What about a detective game, with questions and real clues?" Such a game would involve finding patterns and discovering evidence. It could be a great way to learn narrative.
WASIK: Could you modify a game like that to include real reading?
AVRICH: Yes, my idea would basically be a hybrid. In order to move to the next phase of the game, you would have to read literary texts and answer questions about them. The questions would grow more difficult, detailed, and arcane, and the answers would create a pattern, a text within a text. The text, a unique story determined by the player, would ultimately lead you to the goal of your quest: the secret scrolls of Atlantis, for example, or the buried wing of the library of Alexandria.
But within this frame mystery would be the mysteries of the English language, everything from basic rules of grammar to the obscure etymology of words-this word is Greek, this is from the old French, this is Arabic, and so on. Our language is full of historical and cultural riddles. Drama too: the conquests that transformed it could provide great visuals. A magician-mentor figure could guide you back in time to show you through the different eras: the Druids and the Romans, the Angles and the Saxons, William the Conqueror and William Shakespeare.
KOSTER: That's a great idea. Have you heard of alternate-reality gaming?
AVRICH: I don't think so, no.
KOSTER: It's a relatively new genre of game, in which the play links up with the real world in some way. The first well-known one was actually made as a promotional campaign for Ai, the Spielberg/Kubrick movie. In the credits at the bottom of the movie poster, a woman was credited as the film's "Sentient Machine Therapist." People who saw it knew that it had to be fake, but when they searched for the woman's name online, they found academic papers by her, websites that cited her. The more they dug, the more they found, and they had to keep up this exercise in close reading. Eventually they found their way to phone numbers, meeting places. In the end, many hundreds of players wound up playing this game to figure out the hidden history. The game you're describing sounds a lot like that. It's an exercise in a form of literacy.
AVRICH: That's the idea-to create a really great mystery story within the game, but where the reading supplements would be bits of actual literature.
KOSTER: I hate to make the analogy, but I also think the appeal would be very similar to that of The Da Vinci Code. Which is a very gamelike book, right?
AVRICH: Yes, that's true. The protagonists solve a series of riddles in order to move from level to level.
JOHNSON: One of the signs of how important gaming is now, I think, is that video games have started to influence our ideas of narrative, as opposed to the other way around. The best example of this is the television show Lost, this huge hit that is in some ways trying to build a television show structured like a video game. The show has all these little clues that you can only see if you freeze-frame on your TiVo.
KOSTER: Lost has run its own alternate-reality game, in fact. During its first season, in 2004, the show ran television commercials for a fictitious airline-what was it, Oceanic?
JOHNSON: Oceanic Airlines, yes.
KOSTER: And viewers could visit this airline's website and find hidden details about the show.
JOHNSON: As with video games, there are hint guides to Lost that have been created by fans online, all these fans with way too much time on their hands.
AVRICH: I have to admit, I love Lost. I've actually had conversations about Lost with my students that have turned into discussions of reading skills.
None of the preceding will be too mind-blowing to a regular reader of Infocult, but speaking for myself this relatively simplified treatment helped me to get a tighter grip on some conceptual strands that are ceaselessly pulling apart in my own thoughts.
And at the risk of busting all manner of good faith fair use limits on quotation, I can't resist pointing at the concluding thoughts:
AVRICH: My concern, really, is for language. Which I fear is becoming more uniform, more practical, less grammatical, less edited, and more bland.
KOSTER: What we mean by literacy is changing. If you look at books like The Da Vinci Code, a lot of what it does is appropriation-of a painting, or a historical text-and annotation, with this whole cottage industry of providing the footnotes: the TV specials, the books. To me, there's a question hanging over our conversation, which is: What kind of writing do we hope to teach? We might like to teach kids to write like Proust, but no one writes like Proust anymore. Appropriation and annotation are becoming our new forms of literacy. Think of blogs, for example: most blog posts are reblogs, they're parasitic on things other people have written. It's a democratized writing, a democratized literacy.
THOMAS ZENGOTITA: This plays into the virtual revolution I was describing earlier. Everyone in the overdeveloped world will have the took they need to create this amazing stuff, whether it be blogs or films or games. None of it will rise to the peaks that we associate with names like Joyce or Proust, but a great deal of it will be fantastic. And there will be so much of it that it will inevitably divide into niches, into small groups devoted to the art that they are making. In a way it's the fulfillment of an ancient dream. Everyone can have a creative life and a meaningful dialogue with the culture. Everyone will be an artist, but the price is that no one will be a great artist. There will no longer be a place for such a being.
I mostly agree with these conclusions, though remain unconvinced that new media precludes the rise of genius. It all seems a little too mathematically tight to satisfy me. Elsewhere, the participants seem to find consensus around the notion that new media forms are fine for iterative plot development, but that they can't do interiority as well as traditional literature. In Koster's words "All nuance is lost in games. They are intrinsically and irredeemably formal in nature."
I suppose he oughta know. But aren't we in a very early stage in the development of these forms? Maybe somewhere -- either within an individual of Shakespearean scope and power or in a hive of complementary souls -- there lurks a transformative creative act that will transcend such limits?
