Final Essay-Tyler Nigro

For my final essay titled "Video Games and Historical Scholarship" I chose to write about how video games can augment the way history is taught to students in classrooms. Video games are continuously advancing and offering us new methods of educating and engaging students.

Artificial Intelligence In Education

My final on Artificial Intelligence In Education is a topic that is very interesting to me. As an education major at UPJ it is interesting to explore how students learn. Studying artificial intelligence in digital humanities has shown me how teachers can use AI as a tool to improve education.

Kendall Mahony Final Paper

My final paper "Emoji's in our Day to Day Lives" is based on the different uses of emoji's. In this paper, I will discuss different forms of literacy that relate back to emoji's, while also going in depth about the different uses through texting and social media.

Exhibit Blog

I chose to write about Jack Shirk and Devan Orr's exhibits. Jack's exhibit consisted of explaining and giving examples of different celebrities who got their fame from social media. One example that he used was the Paul Brothers, who started their fame from the app "Vine". These two brothers made short videos which were so stupid that they were hilarious, and became famous for them. Jack explained how companies use people such as the Paul Brothers to expand the name of their company.
These companies send them products and have them post of picture of them using the product on their social media; the best part is that if you are ever as lucky as the Paul brothers to have millions of followers, you will get paid... yes, you get paid just for posting a picture on your Instagram account. One example that I know of through my own social media experiences if Diff Eyewear. Diff Eyewear is a sunglasses company, which is also a charitable organization. For every pair of sunglasses sold, Diff Eyewear donates a pair of reading glasses to children in need. I follow many people from MTV, The Bachelorette, etc. on instagram, and several of them are ambassadors for Diff Eyewear. The picture to the left is a picture of Mikala Thomas from MTV's Are You the One? season 4 (133k followers on Instagram), posting a picture to promote Diff Eyewear.

Devan's PowerPoint exhibit was based on data mining by using the M-gram and Google Trends. The M-gram shows you how often words appear in books, while Google Trends shows you how many times a word is typed into Google. Devan was researching Vampires, Zombies and Witches, and how often they were seen in literature throughout different time periods. Devan had a graph of a time line which showed how often the word "witches"
was stated in books; the interesting thing is that this time line included the time of the Salem witch trials where the use of the word "witch" in literature was practically nonexistent. Between the three monsters which were displayed in her presentation, witches was most commonly used in books, while zombies was the most searched word on Google worldwide. I believe that the word "witches" is popular because of books such as Harry Potter, while Zombies could be searched more because of shows such as The Walking Dead.

Kendall Mahony

Exhibit Blog - Tyler Nigro

The final essay exhibits were an interesting alternative to the traditional presentation style in college. Rather than nervously standing in front of the class to present our work, exhibiting it the way we did encouraged more personal connection with the person presenting their exhibit. I believe that presenting to a smaller group allows more time for questions and feedback.

I found it to be helpful to present the work we had done for our final project in the way we did. The feedback I had received helped me build on to my final paper. Connecting with the other students about the projects is nice because you can see how other people are doing it, which helped me find my footing in beginning this project.

All of the presentations were interesting and unique in their own way. Dom’s presentation about narratives in video-games provided a unique argument on the way we view the stories being told in video games. After discussing arguments on why video-games can’t have narrative story line, he established a counter argument, attempting to prove that video-games can have narrative development. After providing several examples of games that include a narrative tale, he continued his argument by discussing how people look forward to sequels to games not only for the gameplay itself, but for the continuation of the story. In my opinion, this proved the point that video-games can be narrative.

Another presentation that interested me was Brendan’s presentation which discussed how video games can help people. He made interesting points by explaining how video-games can improve/teach teamwork strategies. He continued by explaining how they can help us connect with others, and even create friendships. Brendan also discussed how video-games can create more beneficial teaching strategies. His exhibit interested me because I am also writing my paper about how video-games can enhance or augment the way history is taught.

Zerbee Final Paper

For my final I decided to research about the implementation for VR and AI. In my paper I discuss what improvements their can be on VR to make it beneficial to the everyday user.

Evolving Virtual Reality

Exhibit Blog

In the last weeks of class, everyone presented an exhibit on what their final papers would be about. This was a eye opening experience to learn about all sorts of technical and cultural experiences. There were exhibits from video game studies, archiving, data mining, and many more. The one I am going to be focusing on is Devin’s on the correlation of Vampires, Witches, and Zombies from the the 1500’s to today. The other one is Brendan’s video games and how they can help us.

Devin’s exhibited the correlation of the words Witches, Vampires and Zombies using Google's Ngram Viewer. This stuck me as interesting because of how far back in history you could see when the most words were used. You can see a large spike in the word, “Witches” and you can see times when there was no mention of this word at all. If you use the word, “Zombies”, there was no mention of it until recent years. She also used Google Trends to distinguish what words were the most popular in certain areas around the world. These two tools can show you how people thought and lived their lives back then and now. Since it shows which words are used the most often, you can tell what people were worried about in a certain time period.

The next exhibit I thought was very intriguing was Brendans exhibit on how videogames can help us. In his essay he talk about how video games can be used as a way to help teach but also be about bringing people closer together and teaching them teamwork strategies. This essay topic interested me because in my paper I was using virtual reality in a way to help people overcome many problems. I had not thought of Virtual Reality as a way to help people come closer together.

Thoughts on Exhibits

As the last way to really grasp the field of digital humanities Devin Orr and Sean McLaughlin have proposed interesting topics and research to explore.  Devin is exploring the rise of witches, vampires, and zombies in literature. Sean has found research on how social media is affecting people.

This is some of the data Devin was able to come up with on how these words have been used in literature. This is a good representation because when the lines are on their on scale they increase greatly at 2000 but when they are all on the same graph Its easy to see witches are the most talked about. 

Sean was able to take a different route in exploring the field of digital humanities. He studied how social media effects teenager and adults. This was interesting because it focused on both groups not just one. What he found is that social media has an impact on both groups. It is usually painted as only effecting teens but it effects adults just as much if not more. Adults use social media at work just like teens use social media at school.

Both of these topics embrace the field of digital humanities and how it works. Sean is looking how it effects people and Devin is looking through the words used in literature to see how society has changed and how the words have change. Both topics have a lot of use in the field of digital humanities because DHers are interested on how people interact with technology such as the posts on social media. DHers are also interested in how media interacts with the people and how the choose the words the use and  what to write about. Both topics are very different but they only begin to scratch the surface of the very broad field of digital humanities.

Convergence

What if all media was seamlessly streamed through one device? What kind of impacts could this have on everyone's daily life? The idea of all media streaming through one place is the idea known as Technological Convergence. Convergence is the process of everything moving forward to be uniform or one. Convergence is the thought that everyone knows something but no one knows everything.

Technological Convergence is where we come up with the idea of all forms of media and technology reaching us in one way. One example of convergence today could be the smartphone. The smartphone inscapes all forms of technology in one. Technological systems like Television, Communication systems, Gaming, internet and wide variety of other media as well. All of these tasks could take a long time to complete, and require usage of many different equipment. However, because of technological convergence, we are able to perform all of these tasks through just one system. Many people have become reliant on their smartphones for daily tasks along with checking their social media. Technological Convergence is strongly displayed through smartphones with the amount of services that are available through them.

Another example of modern day technological convergence comes from Smart TV’s. Smart TV’s come with internet, along with Netflix, Hulu, etc. With TV’s also come gaming devices, such as Xbox, Playstation, Nintendo Switch, etc. Allowing us to use all these entertainment devices through one device.

In other words, technological convergence allows technological systems to evolve towards performing the same or similar tasks as technology continues to  advance. Technological convergence creates a unique combination of existing media and devices by merging these different technologies together into new forms. Having several different uses on one device has become the most popular and modern way of technology. People rarely buy technological devices that only have one use for them, so technological convergence is becoming more and more popular as the years go on.

Archives

Archives are a way to preserve a collection of work that is hard to find and will be disappearing. Archives serve as a purpose to share with the world so they have access to disappearing works of art. Our idea of an archive is an archival collection of the theme music of shows that were popular in the 90’s.  They would be categorized by network then genre. The theme songs from shows on Fox, MTV, Nickelodeon, Cartoon-Network, Comedy Central, Disney, TV-Land, etc. would be gathered and categorized by the network they are aired on. The home-page of the archive will display the different networks, from there you would be able to click on a network which would take you a list of popular 90’s shows that aired on that station. After clicking on the show of your choice, you will be able to either listen to and download a downloadable audio file of the theme song. There will also be the video of the intro in which the theme song plays. For example, after clicking on MTV, you would see a list of shows that were on MTV in the 90’s. If you were to click on Beavis and Butthead you would then see the audio-file of the theme, which you could also download, and you would also see the video (via YouTube) of the opening sequence of Beavis and Butthead there as well, giving you the option to just listen to the song or to actually see the opening sequence that plays the song.

The reason why this archive can be an important one is because the loss of air time these shows have. More and more shows are being introduced into these networks and are drowning out the older classic TV shows that people still enjoy. Giving the chance to access the intro and theme music can let someone relive childhood memories of sitting down to watch their favorite TV show. This archive also serves as a purpose to demonstrate how TV programming has changed through the years.

Data Mining

What is data mining? How can it be useful to us? Well, data mining is the process of taking large amounts of data from a database and examine it to introduce a new set of information. There are many tools you can use to conclude such information. Google’s Ngram Viewer compares is a data mining tool then can search for the frequencies of words used in books. Ngram Viewer searches through the hundreds of millions books from the 1500s to 2008 that were digitized into Google books.

Before we ran the chart for the frequencies of words used we determined what words we would use from our Previous blog spot “The Power of Digitizing”. To determine this we used another type of a data mining tool called Voyant. Voyant is a web based text reader that can determine common words used, linkages between words, and many other features about a text. Voyant provides new and unique ways to further analyze text. In other words, Voyant gives you a more in-depth look of your text. This tool can also be very helpful in the terms of allowing you to grasp the concept/idea of the text more quickly because it pulls out the most used words in the text and the connections between them and the words that were used less frequently.

Our words of most use did  not come as a surprise to us. Consciousness, humans, life, intelligence are all things we talk a lot about in our blog. These words are used to describe the pieces of literature we read, and the field of digital humanities itself. What did come as a surprise is how the words human and life don’t seem to have any correlation.

Data mining is very useful and helpful. These online tools can help people conduct more thorough research and also make research easier. They also can make reading much more simplistic and dynamic. Data mining is providing us with new and easier ways to conduct research and analyze text.

Frankenstein: Creation of a Monster

This link is to my original piece of electronic literature. The piece is titled "Frankenstein: Creation of a Monster" and is fictional story about a man who attempts to resurrect his father and drives himself crazy in the process of doing so.

Frankenstein: Creation of a Monster

Tyler Nigro

Chris Carder-My First Trip To Disney World

It has always been a dream to travel on a family vacation. This is a google map representation of my first day spent at Dinsey World. You can view my story here. 

Justin Zerbee- E-Lit Project

This is the story of road trip gone bad. In this story you are going to make choices that will effect what your character outcomes will be, along with what will happen to other characters. How long can you survive on Murder Lane?

Play Murder Lane!

Kendall Mahony: Original E-Lit

This is the link to my original work of electronic literature. It is about the main places I traveled while playing volleyball.

My Volleyball Journey

Kendall Mahony

The Power Of Digitizing

Did you ever think what life could be like when computers are smarter than all of mankind? Technological Singularity is the belief the computer artificial intelligence will become more and more advanced and that computers themselves will begin to create better and better forms of artificial intelligence. The results in this type of intelligence explosion could have major effects on someone's everyday life. If computers are able to grow and build on to the information they all already have the forms of AI they can create can have major consequences on human civilization, but will it be for the good or bad?

One man believes in what the future has at stake for mankind and that it will all be for the better. Ray Kurzweil is an author, computer scientist, inventor and a futurist. Futurists are scientists that have a specialty in futurology and try to predicts outcomes for the future. Ray Kurzweil is one of the leaders in this field of study in which he was able to many things in store for the future with very good accuracy.

Is it possible to digitize the human consciousness? This is a question in which is arguable among many. Some scientists believe that by the year 2045, we will be able to store our consciousness to a cloud. Storing your consciousness to a cloud means that you'll be able to create a digital version of your human consciousness, stored in a synthetic brain and an artificial host. One can see why there could be so much debate between if it is possible or not. Technology has advanced so much just in the past 30 years, that there is a possibility that something such as storing your consciousness to a cloud could eventually become possible.

Being able to digitize human consciousness is a technological breakthrough, it will allow people to “live” forever inside the cloud. The problem is what about all the physical aspects and interactions that make humans. Think about what makes you, you. Now I am sure you are made up of more than your thoughts; life experiences, physical interactions, and earthly tragedies are also part of what makes you. Digitizing consciousness ruins other ways humans experience life and can ultimately take who you really are away from you.

Video Games Today

     In today's society, video games tend to get a bad rep. Video games are always blamed for younger child being violent, obese, lazy, and even illiterate, but this is not always the case. Games can actually help younger children and even the elderly. First, let's define what a video game is. A video game is “a game played by electronically manipulating images produced by a computer program on a television screen or other display screen.” Adding on to this definition, video games can be on a rewards based system, which gets the player hooked making them want to play more.


     The ways that video games can help everyone is in how the game is presented. Strategic games have been proven to increase cognitive flexibility in the brain, like the game “Starcraft”. Fast paced games can help younger children that have an issue with dyslexia. In other cases games have proven to be a help to the elderly, in cases with stroke victims, as a pain reliever, and even slowing the aging process. These aren't the only benefits video games provide us.

     The Narratological perspective is that games should be looked at for their stories, like movies or novels, while the ludological perspective says that games are not like these other mediums due to the fact that a player is actively taking part in the experience and should therefore be understood on their own terms; there is a third party however that says separating scholars into different camps is not a good idea and can hurt the field as a whole.The idea that a video game is "radically different to narratives as a cognitive and communicative structure" has led the development of new approaches to criticism that are focused on video games as well as adapting, repurposing and proposing new ways of studying and theorizing about video games

     “That Dragon, Cancer” is designed to have the player experience the low and high moments of this period in the style of a point-and-click adventure game, using the medium's interactivity and immersion to relate the tale in ways that a film cannot. It was initially developed to relate Ryan and Amy's personal experience with Joel when they were uncertain of his health, but following his death, they reworked much of the game to memorialize and personalize their time and interactions with Joel for the player. What makes this game good is the emotional responses it draws from the people who play the game and the connections the players form with it.

     In conclusion, video games are far more positive than how they are commonly perceived. The use of video games can be very beneficial in many different aspects. Video games can also offer new methods and topics of study. Their interactivity, different perspectives, and design can positively impact health issues, mental disorders, and cognitive flexibility.

Uncreative Writing

Most would see uncreative writing as just plagiarism, but uncreative writing could be a way to actually recreative and make something totally new. Like the example of Transcribing an episode from TV. You can create a collaborative poem just by everyone contributing to a group chat. This can be a way to take create something very beautiful just by using phrases that did not have a purpose to become a creative work of literature. Here is an example of a collaborative poem made from random youtube clips.

Uncreative Writing Assignment

Uncreative Writing in the Classroom is an article written by Kenneth Goldsmith. Goldsmith is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and teaches a course called “Uncreative Writing”. In this course, Goldsmith aims to teach students the possibilities of creating something of your own and expressing yourself in other ways than just through literary contexts. He gives his students assignments which are not of the “norm” to give college students. Some of the assignments include reusing, copying, or repurposing information that has already been published.  For example in reusing, he has his students “re-type five pages” and that was all of the instruction they got on how to complete the assignment. In this exercise most students would re-type things such as menus or short stories, and then further critiquing by asking what kind of paper was used. Asking this question triggered a meaning or interpretation of who you actually were. Goldsmith was trying to get his students to think outside the box, and interpret this assignment in any way they wanted to. Some other examples of assignments he has given involves things such as transcribing an audio tape, or creating “retro graffiti” within the school grounds, or anywhere they wanted to. His course is designed to get students thinking and creating things past the average student. Uncreative writing is a good way to prepare students for life after college, because thinking creatively and thinking “outside-the-box” is what lands jobs and sets you aside from everyone else.

Justin Zerbee
Kendall Mahony
Chris Carder
Tyler Nigro

Bot/Self Generating Poems

A bot is software that is designed to automate the kinds of tasks you would usually do on your own, like making a dinner reservation, adding an appointment to your calendar or fetching and displaying information. The increasingly common form of bots, chatbots, simulate conversation. A little know fact is that chatbots where perfected by the porn industry to lure in customers.  A lot of people interact with bots daily, sometimes when they don't even realize it. Siri is a well known bot. Siri is able to write things in your calendar and look up any information you tell Siri too. As bot technology improves, the thinking is that bots will be able to automate all kinds of things; perhaps even something as complex as your taxes. Other bots that have been found to be popular are “Twitter Bots”. Twitter bots have many purposes, same would be considered as spam, others have a more comedic approach, and a lot present real time facts. Twitter bots are programs set to run in a certain time frame you want them to. Twitter Bots can collect information, respond to users, and even post images.

Along with twitter bots, there is other forms of AI, like self generating poems, that can make some meaning for literature. When it comes to online works of literature and AI, people tend to be a bit hesitant on the actual meaning of things. Some believe that something which is self-generated is unable to produce anything with meaning behind it. This leads us to the question, what does it mean for something to have meaning? This open us up to a wide variety of possible definitions when, in reality, the word “meaning” means something different to everyone. The actual definition of the word “meaning” is, the intent to communicate something that is not directly expressed. There are many computer-generated works of literature which have meaning behind them; for example, in Taroko Gorge there is a line that reads, “The forest lines the basins”. This is a form of poetry, and proves that coded messages can have meaning to them instead of just being a bunch of random words thrown together.

Corrupted Pictures

Chris Carder:

Before

After

Justin Zerbee:

Before

After

Kendall Mahony

Before

After

Tyler Nigro:

Before

After

Response to E-literature

         There are many different examples of electronic literature; online poems, visual and interactive pieces, auditory elements and many more.  Electronic literature is defined as several forms and threads of practice, some of which are: Hypertext fiction and poetry, on and off the Web. Computer art installations which ask viewers to read them or otherwise have literary aspects. E-literature is meant to take you on an adventure of some sort, whether it is through interaction or telling a story using visuals. It is meant for you to be able to fully picture in your mind the words that are being portrayed to you. 
         Pieces of Herself is an interactive form of e-literature where the reader uses the computer mouse to travel through a house and town picking up pieces and dragging them to a woman’s body. It is almost seen as a dress up doll, which allows the reader to customize their experience. You cannot remove any of the animations from the body once they are placed there, which is a good example of how the world designs and shapes a women as a whole. The voices heard in the background are actual women who have been interviewed about a particular situation that matches the story of the piece. Many women see themselves in a different light than everyone else does, and this story does a good job of showing that. This is “an exploration of feminine embodiment and identity in relationship to public and private space.”
         Everyone views things differently; which means that we all learn, see, interact and appreciate things differently. Just because someone understands and appreciates the work of Juliet Davis in Pieces of Herself, doesn’t necessiarly mean that others will view it in the same way. Others may connect to a less interactive piece and find themselves caught up in the words versus auditory pieces and visual versions of electronic literature.

An Adventure of Digital Poetry

When we explore e-poetry we first must define e-poetry. E-poetry is poetry that arises from an engagement with the possibilities offered by digital media.  Digital poetry is a poetic practice made possible by digital media and technologies. Digital poetry is created using technologies and meant to be read using technologies.

The Sweet Old Etcetera is an interactive piece of e-poetry using the works of e.e Cummings. E.E Cummings words are brought to life through the use of technology. The Sweet Old Etcetera gives new meaning to e.e. Cummings poetry through motions, graphics, and sound. “The Sweet Old Etcetera” is a personal response to the poet’s work, aiming to capture the poem’s playful spirit in an interactive, experiential, and highly visual way. As a reader exploring this e-literature piece the interactive text generates more feelings for the poetry as you watch the poetry fall off the tree like the actual leaves in the poem. The motion of the leaves falling gives real life to the poem

The words of The Sweet Old Etcetera form a vivid background of a picturesque landscape. The landscape paints a picture for the reader to actually see through the poem. The poem connects to reader though its pictures, sounds, and the words of e.e. Cummings.

Other works of e-poetry use moving words to actually act out the poem. They also use sounds to make the reader feel certain emotions. Using technology writers can create e-poetry the constantly changes depending on the reader and what the reader wants to actually experience from the poem.

Digital poetry allows the reader to interact and connect with the poems they are reading. When the reader interacts with the poetry they are able to get different feelings and meanings from the poem. When creating e-poetry authors try and use the sounds and motions of the words to convey their message to the reader.

What is Digital Humanities?

There are different forms of Digital Humanities one can look at. Electronic literature refers works with important literary aspects that take advantage of the capabilities and contexts provided by the stand-alone or networked computer. In these types of interactive fiction, the story has already been created and the reader must just click through to see the ending. Some types of electronic literature are, Mr. Plimpton’s Revenge, The Sweet Old Etcetera, and My Body a Wunderkammer.

Mr. Plimpton’s Revenge was created as a google map essay and is a funny and easy to follow piece. This piece of e-literature was written by Dinty Moore that has a visual of where each new location the story takes place. It makes it easier to visualize where you are rather than the regular literature pieces that is all text based. This one in particular is non interactive piece with a lot of quirky ideas involved. For example, Moore was on too many drugs to have a real conversation and he didn’t remember his encounter with Mr. Plimpton except when Moore made a fool of himself. What I think makes this piece stand out is the way the user has to interact with the piece and the visuals you get out of it.

The Sweet Old Etcetera is an interactive piece of e-poetry using the works of e.e Cummings. The Sweet Old Etcetera adds new layers and meaning to e.e. Cummings poetry through motions, graphics, and sound. “The Sweet Old Etcetera” is a personal response to the poet’s work, aiming to capture the poem’s playful spirit in an interactive, experiential, and highly visual way. As a reader exploring this e-literature piece the interactive text generates more feelings for the poetry as you watch the poetry fall off the tree like the actual leaves in the poem.

My Body a Wunderkammer is a piece of hypertext fiction written by Shelley Jackson, where the story progresses by clicking on certain part the author has written about. Within those pieces of text there are more links that you can click on to take you farther in exploring the stories. What's interesting about this piece is the ‘Wunderkammer’ translate to “cabinets of curiosities”, so continuing through the story you are able to get a greater sense of the story.  The author of this piece intends to focus on the relationship between human identity and the body's constituent organs, fluids, connective tissues, and other parts.

All three of these electronic literature pieces can not explain e-literature on their own.. Mr. Plimpton's Revenge; a google map essay, The Sweet Old Etcetera; e-poetry, and My Body a Wunderkammer; a semi-autobiographical hypertext are all pieces of electronic literature. These pieces are all constructed differently using a wide range of technologies to tell their stories. The one thing they all have in common is that they are pieces of e-literature meant to be viewed using technology.

Chris Carder
Tyler Nigro
Kendal Mahony
Justin Zerbee

Response to E-poetry

E-Poetry is poetry that arises from an engagement with the possibilities offered by digital media. E-poetry is not your regular form of poetry, it takes time and some understanding to decipher what the piece is really about. Most pieces of E-poetry have a deeper meaning or you need to have a understanding for the piece itself. For example, in class we looked at a variety of pieces and no two were the same. We interacted with My Body a Wunderkammer, Tailspin, and Public Secrets just to name a few. After reviewing these pieces, you start to get a better understanding of the meanings behind e-poetry as a whole. All the pieces we have covered in class, have had some type of message to convey to the reader. In Public Secrets by Sharon Daniel and Erik Loyer, the author takes us inside a massive women's prison called the CCWF or Central California Women's Facility. While interacting with Public Secrets, you are able to listen to testimonies of women from inside the facility. In these testimonies, the women tell you about their experience from inside the prison. As you progress through the piece, you can listen and follow along with each testimony from the women. What this piece does is bring to the attention of the reader of all the wrong that is being done. It is titled with the name, “Public Secrets” because the public is aware of all the wrongdoing that is going on, but they just choose to do nothing about it.

Not all e-poetry has a deeper meaning like Public Secrets, but most do make you think. Two other examples, with not such a deep meaning, would be “Puddle” and “Paddle” by Neil Hennesy. Neil uses words in a way that represents the formation of a puddle, but the animation is so minimal. To best see how this piece is demonstrate visit the following hyperlink Puddle. Finally, Paddle, is along the same principle Puddle follows. Where by the changing simple letters the words will take on a entirely new meaning. Best represented in this hyperlink Paddle. In all, E-poetry can have an interesting impact to catch the eye of a lot of people. It takes some time to get used to how to interpret e-poetry, but once you get the hang of it they are pretty interesting to read.