Johnaiken.org

I’m still up in the air if I will decide to blog or not now that the semester is pretty much over with. (Class forced a captive auidence) However, I felt it is my duty to post this for John. I was reading the Economist on the train yesterday and I came across  this awesome digital archive for the Old Bailey. 

For all of those who may not know the Old Bailey is London’s largest and most famous criminal court.  This archive is a massive collection of court records transcripts and pleadings. I searched on some trial documents for Oscar Wilde and found some interesting docs. The court stopped publishing records in 1913 because the local papers picked up the trials and the cost was too great for the city.  Anyway, for anyone looking for a great collection of Brit “Hot Docs” this isn’t a bad place to start.  

Just as an aside I spent some time today correcting some of the really embarrassing grammatical errors. I think I caought most of them but if anyone sees them let me know. It won’t hurt my feelings.

Well here it is. My finished site.  I’ve made considerable changes to it since last week. I’ve added tabbed navigation (which I’m a bit worried about on different screens because its absolutely positioned) and I redid the slide show. Also, the baby harp has been replaced by a mama harp. All in all I’m pretty happy.

Here is the point I will get a bit sappy to the class. I really have enjoyed this course and will miss the blog discussions (Thanks John, Jerry, Carl, & Jeff) and the creativity of everyone else. (I personally think our class did an excellent job and was amazed at the sites I saw last week) I will also miss the support of my group members who have blossomed into excellent designers. (Thanks Jared and Elara)

Well with that being said I hope everyone has a great summer!

Ok it’s done or should I say the draft is. (See Here) I still have some edits to make. However, the code is all valid and it is viewable cross browser. Dare I say the hard part may be done?

Despite my hard lined position on Monday of “not one step back” on the slide show issue, I’ve decided it was all talk. I’ve received some gentle / explicit prodding about my “dissent” to use a term from my site. (Thanks Jared and Elara) So this weekend I will redo the slide show so the images are larger and the text isn’t blended in. However, I’m leaving up the other show so you can see where I’m going with it. Oh also, I will be redoing the about page as well so the screwed up image alignment you see now will be gone as well.

Good luck everyone!!

After a weekend of working endlessly on my website, I figure I would post my first caveat as to why I’m not going to do any more work on my slide show. I downloaded a great slide show creator program and spent all day Sat putting together a functional slide show. However,  today I noticed I wanted to make changes  to the font color and image sizes. (per my group members request) Some how a gremlin came overnight and corrupted the file I was working from. (I spent another half day messing with this) I can’t seem to make these changes without recreating the entire project, which was very hard and time consuming. Also, I would have to go back and resize every image I’ve included in the show which appears strange after I did it the first time.  In sum, I’m going for effect. In my mind the slideshow, minus the design issues I think is pretty straight forward.

Therefore I’m coming right out and saying two things. 1.) I know the images need to fill the frame and that white is not a great contrast. Next time I create a slide show I will certainly take these things into account. 2.) Despite the Gremlin, the app I used is pretty good and easy to learn. The time consuming part of course is deciding how to present your information and repeadtly testing it to ensure a good look. You can find a free version here.

After another week of gaming I’m going to have to agree with John and Jeff that efforts spent on gaming (at least in this course) should be spent somewhere else. As I’ve declared in the past, I was (before grad school) a video game enthusiast. I enjoy gaming for the challenge aspect as Jeff notes, not the historical relevancy. However, as far as advocating gaming as a medium for historical experience, I’m going to have to conclude strongly that this not the best way to teach history despite putting you in the drivers seat. Summarized below is my manifesto:   

1.) Gaming needs to create an impossible set of circumstances in order to gain users: Gaming in my experience, needs to create a challenge that will keep someone at the machine for hours. In order to do this, they need to create situations that seem impossible at first glance. For instance, in Call of Duty I recall playing as a soldier in Stalingrad. In the first mission a Commissar states recounts with sharp warning the Soviet policy of “NOT ONE STEP BACK”. (The bastard will actually shoot you if you retreat) Later on in the mission you have to charge an impossible machine gun nest in open view and single handedly take out a platoon of German soldiers. While this notion is enjoyable, especially as you lay punish to enemy after enemy, it’s not the best way to project a narrative of history. Stalingrad (Or any other event) can’t be conceived in terms of “good and bad” nor should an experience be defined by doing impossible things such as gunning down 200 hundred Germans. Generalizations occur in all mediums, however, when your user is immersed totally into an environment with a separate task and for entertainment purposes, they aren’t likely to take the time to analyze these normally overstated assertions.    

2.) Gaming needs to establish contours so the user doesn’t get lost: This is a byproduct of the first statement of oversimplification. Video games need to establish boundaries because of the natural limitations of the levels. User boundaries force the player to stay within the walls of the program.  For instance, a video game must end nicely wrapped up. Historical events don’t lead themselves to package wrapped conclusions.    

3.) Gaming limits forms of analysis: Generalizations and finite boundaries place a user inside of a box. Furthermore, users interact with video games differently then other forms of media. When a user plays a game they aren’t examining evidence in the same way individuals examine it in the analog world. Take a game near and dear to my heart, Resident Evil. In Resident Evil you’re aim is to basically escape some environment (normally Raccoon City but this has changed game to game) where flesh eating zombies chase after you. In the process you have to solve puzzle after puzzle to navigate your way from place to place. I enjoy the gunning part and the thrill of being  frightened by the games horror movie like sequence. I hate the puzzle part. In fact, whenever I see a puzzle in the game I press pause, go to my computer and download a solution so I can go back to my zombie slaying. My point is that when it’s my off time, I don’t want to think about evidence in a game like I do in other aspects of my life. I just want to do my part in making the world a zombie free environment. Even if you create a game that demands you scrutinize historical evidence in a proper way you’re user wants to and almost always finds a way to navigate around it.    

I had never played Myst before despite hearing of its cult following. When I finally did play it this past week, I found myself asking is this the best way to interact and learn? After two hours of navigating my way through the realm of puzzles, I gave up. Sorry to say but I’m reversing my position on Gee.   

Well tonight’s an early night for me. Here is my design assignment. I switched last minute and think I’ve decided on this topic.  See you all tommorow!

Who says you can’t apply what you’ve learned on the job? For months I’ve had photoshop installed on my computer and I hadn’t done much with besides resizing images. That of course has changed with Clio wired. My boss came storming into my office this morning in a spazz about the summer associates coming and the fact we had nothing to give them. Traditionally we do mousepads and this year our graphics person was on leave. Then she remembered I’m taking a web design class. Forget the billable work. We have mousepads to make! 

I managed to come up with a mock up. I figure I’d mention what we do in the class room has use in the office.  (at least mine) Although I’m personally not keen on the gradient, I do think the overall design is clean. Feel free to make suggestions.

I will write something more substantive later on the Computers in Libraries Conference I was at on Monday, but I figured I might share this list of alt research tools with the class.  (The list was annotated by Nicole Engard who runs a pretty extensive blog for people who love Open Source) 

The presentation given by Mary Ellen Bates was designed for indviduals who do a lot of research. Anyway, the tools she lists are great alt search engines for us digital media folks. Let me know if you want a copy of the handouts or slides.

Like Jeff, I thought the Gee book was great but was unsure whether the thesis held up or not. Also, like Jeff, prior to starting grad school I played a lot of Call of Duty. When I read Gee’s book all I could think about is how interactivity is going to drive a generation. My generation grew up playing Mario Brothers and Mortal Kombat. I have years of memories staying up late trying to save Raccoon City from flesh eating zombies, or betting money on whether or not Donkey Kong would beat Wario in Mario Kart. I’ve also been sidelined with the very painful “Nintendo thumb” caused by hours of playing and with no solution but to soldier on. All in all I would consider myself a hardened veteran of gaming up until I entered college. (Ok maybe a year after I graduated)  That is why I believe there is much to be said in Gee’s argument. I decided to break out my old PS2 to see if this was true. I fired up Resident Evil and found myself back in the company of old friends. (Granted they were villagers wielding chainsaws but hey who really cares)? What I found surprised me. Within 10 minutes I was back to my old self. I was able to remember the controls, and fire my weapon and slay the jerk with the chainsaw. What surprised me as I tinkered around again after 10 minutes (mind you I haven’t played PS2 in about 3 years) I remembered the controls automatically. Recalling Gee’s semantic environment in which a user is immersed into the visual as well as experiential realm (I realize I’m crudely paraphrasing here) there seems to be quite a bit of educational value from memorizing controls. Gaming as I rediscovered, is an excellent medium for recall. Ideally, we can use it to recall facts and arguments about a piece of history. How then should we do it? 

The trick is of course finding a balance between drawing in the user and not over stimulating them I would argue. I was unconvinced this happened when I played with the lost museum. It was almost like reading a choose your own adventure book. I did however, enjoy the exhibit by the British Library. I felt engaged that it kept my attention and I enjoyed the facts. The real question is however, would the intended audience feel the same?    One other possibility may come with virtual worlds. I was at a conference this past week which talked about Second Life and how it relates to the library. For all of those who may not have heard of second life, its basically a virtual world where you can assume an identity and interact with others. Librarians love it because they can connect with a generation that uses this medium to interact with their surrounding and post their reference questions online. In fact one library in North Carolina actually is accepting second life money to pay over due library fines.  I won’t lie, I probably won’t partake in Second Life. Nor am I convinced that it’s the answer either. (User stats have dropped since its roll out according to my notes) However, I do think we’re approaching a generation that’s going to want more than web pages which means we have to think of interactivity in terms reinforcement of information.