Designing Literary Apps

The semester’s end is coming up quickly, and much has been accomplished so far. We have gone from learning HTML in the beginning to creating TextScape apps, then to designing projects with ARIS that use QR codes or GPS locations to tell a story.

With our ARIS projects finally completed, we’ve moved on to work with another program. Now we’ve been focusing on Twine, an excellent program for creating interactive stories. It has proven to be somewhat challenging to use as far as coding goes, though. However, working together, we’ve figured out how to make things work, with students sharing some of the HTML codes they’ve found for editing details in their projects.

We looked at examples of different Twine stories, some of which had complex coding and features. While these stories were neat to look at, we were of course reminded that the most important thing is the content; a project could have all kinds of fancy features, or it could be simple and still be well done. But the writing is what matters most.

Two classes remain, and on the last we will present our final projects. I look forward to seeing what everyone has created in Twine!

~Heather Ganiel

With Textscape firmly in the rearview (for better or worse), the class is diligently pushing forward towards the Tuesday due date of our ARIS interactive stories. Though Prof. Tompkins and I were both absent from class Thursday due to illness, I have it on good authority that everyone fared well, or well enough, without us.

I was told that Kinsella introduced the class to Twine, and was assured that it would be far less complicated than Textscape and ARIS due to the fact that it does not require the use of an Apple product to use. The whole class lasted between fifteen minutes and a half hour, but everyone elected to stay later and work on ARIS.

Not all was right in the kingdom, however. Kinsella also informed the class that, collectively, we need better proofreading and writing on our projects (which I know that I personally am guilty of), and that evening, we received our grades for Textscape. I’m sure I speak for almost everyone when I say that being done with it is a huge load off my mind.

We’re on to greener pastures, friends. T-minus three weeks until the semester’s end!

— James Gardner

Due to academic advising, we were unable to have class on Tuesday. However, this allowed time to work on our Textscape and ARIS projects.

During Thursday’s class, Professor Tompkins took the beginning half of the class to go over ARIS once again, and show us how to convert our QR code projects to GPS location one. He also explained the frustrating aspect of having to reset the location from the default of the University of Wisconsin to Stockton University, and having to repeat this for every step. Professor Tompkins also talked a little bit about conversations in ARIS and showed us an example that he had made up. He also mentioned Quests and Items in ARIS, but did not spend a lot of time on that topic, as he hasn’t created any of those yet.

A few of us then presented some of our Textscape projects, which ranged from slightly finished, to almost finished. Both Professor Tompkins and Professor Kinsella explained what each of us could do to improve our projects and also mentioned that the back-end of Textscape was having some fun in rearranging our projects’ layouts. Professor Kinsella then mentioned that both he and Professor Tompkins would view our progress on our Textscape progress next Tuesday.

We all have some work to do this weekend on both Textscape and ARIS. I’m curious to see what everyone’s finished projects look like.

~Sydni Fahringer

Once again, Mother Nature has conjured up a storm, forcing Stockton University to close its doors yet again!  For some students, this means an extended Spring Break, for others it means wondering whether or not school will be open for Friday’s classes.  It hardly feels like it should be Spring Break, what with all of this snow and the freezing temperatures.

At Tuesday’s class, Prof. Tompkins shared an interesting story with the class about William Kempe who was fired from Shakespeare’s troop and decided that he was going to dance a jig from London to Norwich.  This sprung from the Professors’ conference on gamification and the idea of making buttons to hand out in the Shakespeare class.

By the time Thursday’s class was supposed to be held, the proposals were returned to the class via e-mail, and everyone is set to begin the long and arduous task of compiling facts (or writing fiction) and creating HTML pages for TextScape.  With so many great ideas going into TextScape, it will certainly be interesting to see how the students’ apps will turn out!

Hope you all stayed warm during the snow day!  May it have been restful and productive for all!

~Tori Novack