Tie It Together With Twine: March 11, 2022
Non-linear Writing in the Classroom
Twine is a tool for nonlinear storytelling – like the “Choose Your Own Adventure” books – that allows students to create narratives that explore conditional logic, web design, game building, and storytelling. Potential applications include historians writing alternate histories; team-based projects involving “storytellers” and “story designers”; creative renditions of “pseudo-code” for computer science students; and, of course, exploring interactive fiction by creating it. No coding knowledge required, but HTML and CSS can be used to style students’ stories.
In this simulcast workshop we will create a short piece of interactive fiction as an introduction to the platform and an exploration of some of its features. Workshop participants will explore:
- the basic settings for getting started in the Twine interface
- Twine’s grid structure for designing non-linear writing
- tricks for styling elements of your writing using markup, macros, and hooks
- integrating media into your writing
- saving, exporting, and sharing
One can find many examples of interactive fiction made with Twine in the Interactive Fiction Database, though you may want to begin with “With Those We Love Alive” by Porpentine Charity Heartscape, which Dr. Stephanie Merkel (Department of English, OWU) uses as an introductory example in her teaching with Twine. Dr. Merkel will join us in the workshop to share her experiences teaching with Twine. You may also find yourself drawn into “Cactus Blue Motel” by Astrid Dalmady, “Animalia” by Ian Michael Waddell, or “Solarium” by Anya Johanna DeNiro. A project by a group of Dr. Merkel’s students – “The Golden Journey” by Jerrod Ward, Katie Werner, and Annie Vitti – may also be of interest.
The unique design of this virtual Ohio Five workshop presentation brings together participants on their local campuses for a “satellite” workshop experience. A local representative from each of the five colleges will host their colleagues in a convenient location on their own campus, orchestrate the communal viewing of the virtual workshop, and act as a resource in the room for any questions that arise. These local hosts will also be able to maintain all local protocols for safe gatherings. Participants may also register to attend virtually.
If you are interested in participating in this workshop, virtually or in-person, please use this link (also pasted below) to register. Your Local Host will follow-up with details for your meeting.
Registration link: https://forms.gle/opVYmrf2GWZqdnxx7
Seeing Through Your Text With Voyant: December 4, 2021
Low-Barrier Text Analysis in the Classroom
Computing allows us to ask questions of texts at scale: students can now “read” all of Shakespeare’s works, Austen’s novels, or American presidents’ inaugural addresses (to name but three examples). Voyant is a web-based portal that facilitates such textual analysis. Visitors can either use default textual datasets or they can explore their own texts. The expansive interface allows researchers to choose from a suite of textual analysis tools to customize the experience and to explore texts through a variety of lenses. Much of this kind of analysis, however, still requires the discerning eye of the subject specialist — or burgeoning specialists — to contextualize the patterns and “interpretations” revealed by our machines.
In this simulcast workshop we posit Voyant as a low-barrier entry point for teachers and students interested in thinking with and through textual analysis. Workshop participants will:
- examine the settings in the default Voyant interface
- get hands-on experience using different tools within Voyant
- learn from OH5 colleagues’ experiences teaching with Voyant
- discuss pedagogical applications for textual analysis with Voyant
- experiment on small textual datasets (or bring your own to explore!)
The unique design of this virtual Ohio Five workshop presentation brings together participants on their local campuses for a “satellite” workshop experience. A local representative from each of the five colleges will host their colleagues in a convenient location on their own campus, orchestrate the communal viewing of the virtual workshop, and act as a resource in the room for any questions that arise. These local hosts will also be able to maintain all local protocols for safe gatherings.
A lightly edited recording of the Voyant workshop is available here:
Ohio Five ArcGIS StoryMaps Workshop: January 30, 2021
The Five Colleges of Ohio is pleased to offer an introductory workshop on ArcGIS StoryMaps led by Ashley Allen, Visiting Assistant Professor of Geography at Ohio Wesleyan University, on Saturday, January 30 from 10am – Noon. The workshop is intended for anyone interested in incorporating map-based storytelling into their teaching.
ArcGIS StoryMaps is a tool for developing digital projects that incorporates narrative, maps, and multimedia objects in a visually compelling format. The workshop will offer participants an opportunity to make a map and incorporate it into a StoryMap project through guided hands-on breakout sessions. It will also offer examples of student assignments and will discuss some of the pedagogical benefits of making maps. Our agenda for the workshop includes:
- Welcome and Introductions
- Examples of Student Mapping Assignments and Pedagogical Benefits
- Collect and Organize Data for Mapmaking
- Make a StoryMap
- Wrap-up
During the workshop, we will be developing a small dataset together which we will be using to create a map. Those who may already have data of their own, in CSV or other tabular formats, are encouraged to bring them to the workshop. We will also offer sample datasets to work with.
If you are interested in attending the workshop, please register by Thursday, January 28, 2021.
About the Presenter
Ashley Allen, Visiting Assistant Professor of Geography at Ohio Wesleyan University
Ashley is a cultural geographer with teaching and research interests in human geography, qualitative methods, and the sociocultural interactions between humans and their environment. Her current research focuses on tornado stories, both heard and experienced, and how the memories that stem from them impact identity.
Ashley teaches the department’s human geography courses, including cultural, economic, and urban geographies. She encourages undergraduate research and has mentored students in the fields of health geography, qualitative methods, political geography, planning, resource management, and global economic development.
Ohio Five Scalar Workshop: October 17, 2020
The Five Colleges of Ohio Digital Collaborations Group invites you to attend a workshop on Scalar, a robust tool for developing pedagogical and scholarly digital projects. The workshop will be conducted over Zoom on Saturday, October 17 from 10am – Noon.
Scalar is an authoring and publishing platform for creating long-form born-digital projects that juxtapose text with visually rich multimedia content (images, video, interactive visualizations, audio) in both linear and nonlinear forms.
This workshop is intended to provide a hands-on introduction to the platform. It will cover the features that make Scalar unique among publishing platforms and discuss its strengths and weaknesses as they apply to a range of digital pedagogy and scholarship. The workshop will include both instruction and interactive hands-on sessions that will give attendees time to become familiar with Scalar’s interface and begin to build projects of their own.
For a few examples of Scalar projects from Ohio Five faculty, the following offer a good mix of scholarly and pedagogical approaches:
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- Popular Protest in Postwar Japan: The Antiwar Art of Shikoku Gorō, Ann Sherif, Professor of Japanese, Oberlin College. The project was developed as a resource for both general audiences or for courses in history, Asian studies, art, politics, and peace studies
- Frankenstein: A Digital Edition, Jacob Heil, Digital Scholarship Librarian and Director of CoRE, College of Wooster. This project was developed collaboratively by students in a first-year seminar course.
- The Moment Seizes Us: Study Abroad in Turku, Finland. Langyi Ye, ‘20, Denison University. A travelogue created for Denison’s “Home to the Hill” course in which students reflect on time spent studying abroad.
Attendees will be granted access to a Scalar sandbox site hosted by the Five Colleges of Ohio which will allow for practice and experimentation both during and after the workshop. Logins for the sandbox site will remain active for 90 days following the workshop. Sessions will be co-led by Catie Heil, Digital Curation Librarian at the College of Wooster, and Megan Mitchell, Academic Engagement Librarian and Digital Initiatives Coordinator at Oberlin College.
Recordings of the workshop’s modules are available here:
