Category Archives: digital humanities

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National Day on Writing Success!

  October 26, 2014 , ,

In case you didn’t hear, this past Tuesday was the National Day on Writing. And thanks to a bunch of people in the English Department, the Linguistics department, and some other organizations (I think there was a sorority involved somewhere), it went off really well. I’ve talked before about the Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives, and the project I’ve been working on to find an easy, low amount of hardware way to record using iPad. I blogged a little about it a few weeks ago, and it turns out that the simplest result was the best result. Here is a picture of the ultimate set up we decided to go with: As you can see, it is very minimal in its hardware involvement. We ended up investing in the adapter I mentioned in an earlier entry, which I linked above. The adapter is called the iPad Camera Connector and runs about $30. The snowball you can see in the picture plugs right into the adapter and then it just works. It took me a while to figure out that it needs no other software or authorization on the part of the iPad user – it simply plugs in and works with all the already installed iPad software. We were at our National Day on Writing table from 10AM until just before 2PM and managed to collect 20 narratives ranging from ‘the first books I read’ to ‘When I learned to read music’ – each one was interesting and wonderful. Here … Continue reading

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Updates from the Hoccleve Archives

  October 20, 2014 ,

There has been a lot of activity over the Hoccleve Archives projects over the last few weeks, mostly relating to a series of computer files known as the HOCCLEX files. These files, which date from the 1980’s, were originally developed by a team of researchers, led by D.C. Greetham, working on a critical edition of Hoccleve’s magnus opus, the Regiment of Princes. They are careful transcriptions of three holograph manuscripts that contain about three dozen poems. Holograph manuscripts are those written by their author, and one of the things that makes Hoccleve so interesting is these three holograph manuscripts, because very few examples of works actually written by their authors survive from this period (most extant manuscripts were produced by scribes, but Hoccleve was a scribe, so he produced his own manuscripts). The HOCCLEX files took the holograph manuscripts and used an early and now mysterious, computer language to mark the transcripts for grammar and spelling. The original idea was that the HOCCLEX files would provide a lexicon of Hoccleve’s usage, so that editors of the Regiment, which survives in many manuscripts, but none by Hoccleve himself, could use the HOCCLEX files to make editorial decisions about spelling variants and similar discrepancies between manuscripts. Unfortunately Greetham’s proposed edition never materialized, though they were used by Charles Blyth in his 1999 edition of the Regiment. Since that time, the HOCCLEX files, and the treasure-trove of information they contain about Hoccleve’s Middle English, have not been easily accessible to scholars. Not only … Continue reading

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DALN 2 – Researching to Innovate

  October 12, 2014 ,

As part of the project I’m working on for the Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives, I have been researching free apps for the iPad 2 that might help innovate the current recording process of the DALN. Let me explain in more detail: Representatives from the DALN go to conferences, usually rhetoric and composition, or other English studies related conferences, and collect live literacy narratives. I have volunteered for DALN more than once, and usually have a fun time doing it. the task involves roping people in to come and sit in front of a computer (always a mac) and record a short narrative about literacy. It can be anything – reading, writing, digital – whatever. They talk into the recording device, which takes video and audio, and then when they are finished, we save and upload the recordings, along with a release form participants fill out. As part of the project, I am looking at streamlining this project – innovating it, if you will. So instead of using MacBooks, I am looking at using iPads. So far, I’m sort of stumbling around in the dark, but I have found one fun, if not confusing tool: Stage: An Interactive Whiteboard and Document Camera – And while this program will not likely work for innovating the DALN recording process, it may be useful for something similar. The biggest difficulty I find myself having at the moment is the “free apps” part of the task. On iPad, movie maker is $4.99. This is problematic, and … Continue reading

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Learning the basics of mapping and further updates

  October 12, 2014 , , ,

This week has been another one of those informational weeks. I was recently recruited to be a part of the Atlanta transit project. This project is geared towards focusing on Atlanta’s public transportation history, particularly MARTA’s planned transit lines as well as existing ones. With this being said our plans are to create one all inclusive map of how MARTA’s transit lines were originally planned to extend to and where they actually ended up being today. With Atlanta’s new street car being prepared for release in the next upcoming months, we can see how public transit has impacted life downtown and how public transportation remains as an important issue for large cities like Atlanta. When analyzing the “game plan” for the project I was taught how to search for archival maps of Atlanta’s MARTA plans through GSU’s libraries resources. With these maps we can therefore sift through all the maps and record all of our findings to avoid overlapping and duplicates.These maps are then used in a large and very resourceful software called Arcmaps where we can over lay these old transit plans over another realistic map that places it to be geographically accurate. All this information was very enlightening and interesting when learning how all the mapping processes work. This project is going to be an exciting and educational experience for myself who is a computer science major in order  to obtain some hands on experience with mapping. I am glad to be what you call a rookie introduced … Continue reading

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3D Reconstruction of 81 Decatur Street Project

  October 2, 2014 , , ,

Hey Guys! Just wanted to talk a little this week about the project some of the SIFs and I are working on! It’s been a rough week due to a stagnant cold that’s been ailing me, but we’ve managed to accumulate a lot of good data to throw at this project. What is it you ask? Well–every time you happen to walk by Classroom South on Decatur St, there is actually a rich history swept underneath the building that now stands there, namely 81 Theatre. It started as a Vaudeville stage and slowly evolved into a popular African American theatre in the 30s onward. The street was bustling with activity–pool halls, barber shops, clubs…it was an extension of the Auburn Avenue community’s spark. So our team wants to rebuild this block of Decatur St as an interactive environment–a game of sorts. If you’ve been reading my blog up until this point, you’ll know how into gamifying experiences I am. By adding a layer of engaging interactivity to this historical environment–we hope to promote education through engaging experiences that reflect what the different departments we represent do best: English and Literature, Anthropology, Geography, and Computer Science. It’s one thing to build a historically accurate 3D environment through maps and computing–it’s another thing entirely to fill it with narrative and meaningful culture that grabs attention and keeps it engaged. Can someone interact with this small microcosm and leave that interaction knowing more about the past than they realize? It’s hard to say, … Continue reading