Tuesday, February 7, 2017

ARIS

Project: things that are broken.

Location: Central Cemetery, places the have broken tree.

In our group, we are doing the things that are broken, we are going to write a fiction story, and fiction history about the broken things that are easily found. I am writing some fiction story of the grave stone in Central Cemetery, the fiction story will be created on on some true information from the online sources.

ARIS

PROJECT: Ghost Writers
LOCATION: Central Cemetery, Beverly, MA
OBJECTIVE: Player must follow the guided walk through/tour, pick up flowers/series of flowers, and drop at the grave sites of the persons of interest within 'game'.

PEOPLE:
1.  Francis Ellingwood Abbot (jax)
                                                              Katherine Fearing (Loring) Abbot
                                                              wife of Francis Ellingwood Abbot--buried at central cemetery
link to his book--scientific theology 

book of poems, letters to his wife -- requested through Noble 2/6



http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/11/nyregion/harvard-student-s-love-story-endures-beyond-grave-and-archives.html?_r=0


3. Rev. Wenonah Stevens Abbot
poem: A Soul's Soliloquy

Today the journey is ended,
  I have worked out the mandates of fate;
Naked, alone, undefended,
  I knock at the Uttermost Gate.
Behind is life and its longing,
  Its trial, its trouble, its sorrow,
Beyond is the Infinite Morning
  Of a day without a tomorrow.

        Wenonah Stevens Abbott—A Soul’s Soliloquy.

4. John Alden Carpenter (kelven)

-song entitled 'rest' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jds84Oadh2w (jax)

                see kelven's blog post

5. Lucy Larcom (emma)
-poems
                see emma's blog post

items that need to be created:
-digital art---flower/series of flowers for player to find, pick up, drop at graves

I am working on setting up a meeting with Thomas Scully, someone whom knows the history/cemetery well. I created a joint account on ARIS for the team. See email for details. 

Monday, February 6, 2017

ARIS project (WILL UPDATE AS NEEDED)

Title: "Ghost Writers"

Basis: A scavenger-hunt styled game in which the players learn about certain writers/composers found in the Beverly, MA Central Cemetery. The player will have to hunt for a flower/series of flowers with information about said writer/composer and be able to find, pick up/drop at the graves.

Below I have included some information from www.poetryfoundation.org's website about one of the poets that will be in our game.

GHOST:

Lucy Larcom

Poet Details

1824–1893
Poet, abolitionist, and teacher Lucy Larcom was born in 1824 in Beverly, Massachusetts. Larcom’s father, a sea captain, died when she was young, and her mother moved the family to Lowell, where she ran a boarding house. Larcom began working in the Lowell textile mills with her sisters when she was just eleven years old. During this time, her poems and stories began appearing in periodicals such as the Lowell Offering, and she first met the poet John Greenleaf Whittier, who became an early supporter of her work. When she was 22, Larcom moved west with her sisters and became a teacher, first in Illinois and later at Wheaton Seminary in Norton, Massachusetts.

Larcom’s poetry was first included in the anthology Female Poets of America (1849), and her collections of poetry include Similitudes, from the Ocean and Prairie (1853), Poems (1868), and Wild Roses of Cape Ann, and Other Poems (1881), among others. Her poems appeared in prestigious journals and magazines such as Harpers,  the Atlantic Monthly, and the New England Magazine; her poem encouraging fellow abolitionists to settle in Kansas, “Call to Kansas,” won the New England Emigrant Aid Company prize and was printed in newspapers across the nation. As Whittier’s long-time friend and correspondent, she also anonymously edited three volumes of his work.

Larcom’s most enduring work, however, is generally considered to be her autobiography, A New England Girlhood, Outlined from Memory (1889). Recollecting her years in Beverly and Lowell, Larcom’s narrative is a richly detailed account of gender, labor, and class in mid-nineteenth century New England.

Larcom died in 1893 in Boston, and was buried in Beverly. Larcom Hall on the Wheaton College Campus is named for her.

Specific Poem on flower (that I'd like to use):

The Nineteenth of April

Related Poem Content Details

This year, till late in April, the snow fell thick and light:
Thy truce-flag, friendly Nature, in clinging drifts of white,
Hung over field and city: now everywhere is seen,
In place of that white quietness, a sudden glow of green.
The verdure climbs the Common, beneath the leafless trees,
To where the glorious Stars and Stripes are floating on the breeze.
There, suddenly as Spring awoke from Winter’s snow-draped gloom,
The Passion-Flower of Seventy-six is bursting into bloom.
Dear is the time of roses, when earth to joy is wed,
And garden-plot and meadow wear one generous flush of red;
But now in dearer beauty, to her ancient colors true,
Blooms the old town of Boston in red and white and blue.
Along the whole awakening North are those bright emblems spread;
A summer noon of patriotism is burning overhead:
No party badges flaunting now, no word of clique or clan;
But “Up for God and Union!” is the shout of every man.
Oh, peace is dear to Northern hearts; our hard-earned homes more dear;
But freedom is beyond the price of any earthly cheer;
And freedom’s flag is sacred; he who would work it harm,
Let him, although a brother, beware our strong right arm!
A brother! ah, the sorrow, the anguish of that word!
The fratricidal strife begun, when will its end be heard?
Not this the boon that patriot hearts have prayed and waited for;—
We loved them, and we longed for peace: but they would have it war.
Yes; war! on this memorial day, the day of Lexington,
A lightning-thrill along the wires from heart to heart has run.
Brave men we gazed on yesterday, to-day for us have bled:
Again is Massachusetts blood the first for Freedom shed.
To war,—and with our brethren, then,—if only this can be!
Life hangs as nothing in the scale against dear Liberty!
Though hearts be torn asunder, for Freedom we will fight:
Our blood may seal the victory, but God will shield the Right!
Source: “Words for the Hour”: A New Anthology of American Civil War Poetry, edited by Faith Barrett and Cristanne Miller (University of Massachusetts Press, 2005)
Larcom's Work:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/lucy-larcom

Larcom's headstone is located in Plot Larch Avenue, Subdivision 8, lot 229, and is towards the front (the part that the player will be walking on) of the lot.

Some more info from https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=larcom&GSfn=lucy&GSiman=1&GScid=90861&GRid=94842456&
"It is strange that the spot of earth where we were born should make such a difference to us… If I had opened my eyes upon this planet elsewhere than in this northeast corner of Massachusetts, elsewhere than on this green rocky strip of shore between Beverly Bridge and the Misery Islands, it seems to me as if I must have been somebody else, and not myself."
In this quote from the autobiography of her childhood, A NEW ENGLAND GIRLHOOD, Lucy Larcom remembers the town of Beverly, Massachusetts, where she was born, May 15, 1824. Her father, Benjamin, was a sea captain who died when Lucy was 11 years old. Lucy's mother Lois, moved the family to the mill city of Lowell, Massachusetts, where Lucy got a job in the Lowell textile mills. Lucy and her sisters wrote for and co-edited the Lowell Offering, a literary magazine by and for the mill workers. At age 22, she moved to St. Louis with her sister Emeline Larcom Spaulding and her husband Rev. George Spaulding. Lucy took a teaching job in Illinois, and after graduating in 1852 from the Monticello Female Seminary in Godfrey, Illinois, she returned to Massachusetts and took a position teaching English literature at Wheaton College, in Norton, Massachusetts. She began publishing her poems, and was a protégé of John Greenleaf Whittier. She died in Boston, Massachusetts, April 17, 1893 and was buried in her home town of Beverly.

ARIS online manual

Can be found here, includes video and documentation of the demo we did today in class.

Sunday, February 5, 2017

the week ahead

 
Monday 6 February

We work through a tutorial on ARIS — a user-friendly, open-source platform for creating and playing mobile games, tours and interactive stories.

Access the ARIS authoring tool here.

We will also discuss our respective team's projects for the second (ARIS-based) project.

Jack (JD) and Li Yun — things that are broken
Alexandra and Sarah — things that are broken
Emma, Jax and Kelven — things that are lost (Central Cemetery)

We will also meet with librarian Cheri Coe to get a sense of where useful resources might be found.

 
Wednesday 8 February

Our guest on this day Andrew Sliwinski, a Research Scientist in the LEGO Learning Laboratory at the MIT Media Lab where he explores the intersections between learning, creativity, and technology. From what I (John) have seen of his work, Andrew is interested in the creation of means by which people, of all ages, can engage with content in a significant and meaningful way.

Among his active research projects is Scratch – an online community and tool for kids to explore their creativity through computing which reaches over one hundred million children every year. Prior to joining MIT, Andrew served as the Director of Learning Research at the Mozilla Foundation and co-founded DIY.org. He has served as an advisor to the Chicago Public Library, LEGO Foundation, and The Aspen Institute.

An advocate of open design and engineering practices, Andrew contributes to various open source projects and has released over 40 individual software libraries. Most notable amongst his contributions have been projects related to natural language processing (NLP), machine learning, signal processing, and computational creativity.

As a designer and engineer, Andrew has worked with various organizations during his career including: General Electric, Adidas, Hewlett-Packard, Toyota, Universal Music Group, and JetBlue. His work as a creative technologist has been displayed in The Museum of Science & Industry in Chicago, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, and Carnegie Hall.

andrewsliwinski.com
 

Wednesday, February 1, 2017

Central Cemetery Plantings


I have obtained Central Cemetery's planting records for team use, see me for full size files.

Android Version of ARIS


It appears there is a beta version of ARIS for Android that we can test out in class: https://fielddaylab.wisc.edu/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=49

Sounds like it's still a bit buggy, but I will be setting it up on my Android device for testing to see if it is usable for those of you in class who don't have an iOS device.