The StoryPlaces Authoring Tool: Pattern Centric Authoring

Building authoring environments for constraint-based inter- active narratives (sculptural hypertexts) is challenging, as dealing di- rectly with functions and variables is alien to many authors and requires them to think at a lower level than story structure. We propose an ap- proach that uses higher level constructs based on common structural patterns, which are then translated behind the scenes into a set of con- straints for a sculptural engine. We present the StoryPlaces authoring tool that applies this idea with the patterns of Locking and Phasing and allows for the creation of constraint-based locative hypertext ction. Our work shows how the poetics of interactive narratives can be used in the software design process to create more accessible authoring tools

Tiree Tales: A Co-operative Inquiry into the Poetics of Location-Based Narratives

In a location-based story a reader's movement through physical space is translated into movement through narrative space, typically by presenting them with text fragments on a smart device triggered by location changes. Despite the increasing popularity of such systems their poetics are poorly understood, meaning limited guidance for authors, and few authoring tools. To explore these poetics we present a co-operative inquiry into the authoring of an interactive location-based narrative, `The Isle of Brine', set on the island of Tiree. Our inquiry reveals both pragmatic and aesthetic considerations driven by the locations themselves, that affect the design of both the Story (narrative structure) and Fabula (events within the story). These include the importance of paths, bottlenecks, and junctions as a physical manifestation of calligraphic patterns, the need for coherent narrative areas, and the requirement to use evocative places and to manage thematic and tonal discord between the landscape and the narrative

Scoping a vision for formative e-assessment: a project report for JISC

Assessment is an integral part of teaching and learning. If the relationship between teaching and learning were causal, i. e. if students always mastered the intended learning outcomes of a particular sequence of instruction, assessment would be superfluous. Experience and research suggest this is not the case: what is learnt can often be quite different from what is taught. Formative assessment is motivated by a concern with the elicitation of relevant information about student understanding and / or achievement, its interpretation and an exploration of how it can lead to actions that result in better learning. In the context of a policy drive towards technology-enhanced approaches to teaching and learning, the question of the role of digital technologies is key and it is the latter on which this project particularly focuses. The project and its deliverables have been informed by recent and relevant literature, in particular recent work by Black andIn this work, they put forward a framework which suggests that assessment for learning their term for formative assessment can be conceptualised as consisting of a number of aspects and five keystrategies. The key aspects revolve around the where the learner is going, where the learner is right now and how she can get there and examines the role played by the teacher, peers and the learner. Language: English Keywords: assessments, case studies, design patterns, e-assessmen

Player agency in interactive narrative: audience, actor & author

The question motivating this review paper is, how can computer-based interactive narrative be used as a constructivist learn- ing activity? The paper proposes that player agency can be used to link interactive narrative to learner agency in constructivist theory, and to classify approaches to interactive narrative. The traditional question driving research in interactive narrative is, ‘how can an in- teractive narrative deal with a high degree of player agency, while maintaining a coherent and well-formed narrative?’ This question derives from an Aristotelian approach to interactive narrative that, as the question shows, is inherently antagonistic to player agency. Within this approach, player agency must be restricted and manip- ulated to maintain the narrative. Two alternative approaches based on Brecht’s Epic Theatre and Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed are reviewed. If a Boalian approach to interactive narrative is taken the conflict between narrative and player agency dissolves. The question that emerges from this approach is quite different from the traditional question above, and presents a more useful approach to applying in- teractive narrative as a constructivist learning activity

FAVORing the part-time language teacher: the experience and impact of sharing open educational resources through a community-based repository

The resourcefulness of part-time language teachers is often overlooked,despite the large numbers of such staff teaching in language departments across higher education. Part-time teachers typically juggle life work commitments and experience far fewer opportunities for professional development than their full-time colleagues. They frequently work in relative isolation, yet carry out their teaching duties enthusiastically and conscientiously, striving to provide as rich a learning experience as possible for their students, often spending a considerable amount of time in lesson and resource preparation. The aim of the JISC-funded FAVOR (Find a Voice through Open Resources) Project was to bring more part-time teachers into the open content movement, drawing on their wealth of resourcefulness and offering them something back for all their, often unrecognised, hard work. This case study will describe one participating institution’s experience on the FAVOR Project, including an initial investigation into its impact on the post project practices of part-time teachers. It will draw on a range of qualitative data gathered from individual and group meetings, teacher interviews, and reflective notes made by the institutional coordinator to present a picture of the experience from the part-time teachers’ perspectiv

Education vs. Entertainment: A Cultural History of Children's Software

Part of the Volume on the Ecology of Games: Connecting Youth, Games, and Learning This chapter draws on ethnographic material to consider the cultural politics and recent history of children's software and reflects on how this past can inform our current efforts to mobilize games for learning. The analysis uses a concept of genre as a way of making linkages across the distributed but interconnected circuit of everyday play, software content, and industry context. Organized through three genres in children's software -- academic, entertainment, and construction -- the body of the chapter describes how these genres play out within a production and advertising context, in the design of particular software titles, and at sites of play in after-school computer centers where the fieldwork was conducted

Supporting Story Synthesis: Bridging the Gap between Visual Analytics and Storytelling

Visual analytics usually deals with complex data and uses sophisticated algorithmic, visual, and interactive techniques. Findings of the analysis often need to be communicated to an audience that lacks visual analytics expertise. This requires analysis outcomes to be presented in simpler ways than that are typically used in visual analytics systems. However, not only analytical visualizations may be too complex for target audience but also the information that needs to be presented. Hence, there exists a gap on the path from obtaining analysis findings to communicating them, which involves two aspects: information and display complexity. We propose a general framework where data analysis and result presentation are linked by story synthesis, in which the analyst creates and organizes story contents. Differently, from the previous research, where analytic findings are represented by stored display states, we treat findings as data constructs. In story synthesis, findings are selected, assembled, and arranged in views using meaningful layouts that take into account the structure of information and inherent properties of its components. We propose a workflow for applying the proposed framework in designing visual analytics systems and demonstrate the generality of the approach by applying it to two domains, social media, and movement analysis