Prototyping a Dual-Display e-Reader in the Literature Classroom
Speakers
This semester, the Computer Science Department and the English Department at UMD teamed up to provide Honors students in Book 2.0: The History of the Book and the Future of Reading with a prototype electronic reading device. The deployment is part of a longitudinal study to understand how electronic reading devices are used in an academic setting. One of the goals this semester is also to determine how the introduction of a second device---wirelessly linked to the first---affects the reading experience. In this Digital Dialogues talk, Chen will describe the devices being used by Kraus and her students, their design rationale, and some of the more unique aspects of the study being conducted. Kraus will preview an upcoming assignment that has students reading a 20th-century avant-garde novel on the dual-display e-readers, a novel originally published in unbound sheaves that the reader is encouraged to assemble in any order. The presenters will conclude with some of the more surprising results gathered so far, at the halfway point of this study.
Speaker Bios
Nicholas Chen is a doctoral candidate in the department of Computer Science at the University of Maryland and is affiliated with the Human Computer Interaction Lab (HCIL) at UMD. He is advised by Professor Francois Guimbretiere in the Cornell University Information Science Department. His research is on electronic reading devices, pen-based user interfaces, and interactions for supporting simultaneous use of multiple devices. Previously, he performed the first-ever evaluation of a dual-display electronic reading device.
Kari Kraus is an Assistant Professor in the iSchool and the Department of English at the University of Maryland. Her research and teaching interests focus on new media and the digital humanities, textual scholarship and print culture, digital preservation, transmedia storytelling, and game studies. Kraus is a local Co-PI on an Institute of Museum and Library Services grant for preserving virtual worlds; the PI on an IMLS Digital Humanities Internship grant; and, with Derek Hansen (iSchool), the Co-Principal Investigator of the NSF grant underwriting the design of AGOG. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in The Cambridge Companion to Textual Scholarship; Digital Humanities Quarterly; Digital Media: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on History, Preservation, and Ontology; The Journal of Visual Culture; and_ Studies in Romanticism_. She first became interested in ARGs when Marc Ruppel, a PhD student in the Department of English, introduced her to Cathy’s Book, billed as the first alternate reality game developed specifically for the publishing industry. In 2008, in conjunction with the University of Maryland’s Mobility Initiative, she and her graduate students designed a mobile scavenger hunt that they playtested with a group of undergraduate students who had received free iPhones and iPod Touches as part of the Provost’s pilot project. Inspired by ARGs, the on-campus hunt made use of the technological affordances of the iPhone and iTouch – e.g., camera, phone, texting, and GPS functionality – to enhance interactivity and integrate the offline and online worlds in creative ways. The narrative framework was designed to teach students about University of Maryland history, particularly the Great Fire of 1912.
Media
A continuously updated schedule of talks is also available on the Digital Dialogues page.
Unable to attend the events in person? Archived podcasts can be found on the MITH website, and you can follow our Digital Dialogues Twitter account @digdialog as well as the Twitter hashtag #mithdd to keep up with live tweets from our sessions. Viewers can watch the live stream as well.
All talks free and open to the public. Attendees are welcome to bring their own lunches.
Contact: MITH (mith.umd.edu, mith@umd.edu, 301.405.8927).