Blog Post # 11: My Electronic Literature Showcase

I finally did my Project 3 love poem! It took a lot of work to do but I am happy that I created a website in which I feel accomplished. It's been a long semester but taking this class where I learned so many new things about Electronic Literature made me be more into technology but in a creative way. I decided to use the software "Prezi."  I hope you will enjoy watching my love poem. :)

Here's my link:

http://prezi.com/oahvgbifa7vz/untitled-prezi/?kw=view-oahvgbifa7vz&rc=ref-38051291

Blog # 10: E-Lit Review

English: "E-Lit Review"

Inanimate Alice: Episode 1

Through my exploration of "Inanimate Alice, Episode 1: China” by Kate Pullinger and Babel I have seen how technology has been evolving more in our everyday lives.  Technology is a place where many people can adapt and learn new things.  Have we ever thought that technology could be a creative or fun way to learn?  Well, I am here to tell you that technology has many web pages where one can find it be amusing and entertaining by the electronic literature that’s being incorporated online.  There are many genres in electronic literature such as poetry, young adult fiction, games, hypertext creative non-fiction/fiction, music, and many more. 

Therefore, from all these genres of electronic literature, one that struck my attention was a piece of children/young adult literature with art work called, “Inanimate Alice Episode 1: China.”  This piece of electronic literature is an interactive hypertext fiction that set in the 21st century.  Inanimate Alice tells a story about a young girl (Alice) whose life is surrounded by technology.  She goes on a journey with her mother in the middle of nowhere where she is concerned and worried about finding her father.  Alice lives on a base and is home schooled because her father being in the army.  She doesn’t associate with any friends, whereas, her only friend is “Brad” a boy who she drew and moves around with a skateboard on her baxi, a technological device. 

In my exploration to Inanimate Alice I’ve realized that the story takes place in China, (where her dad was drafted).  The digital storytelling starts off with giving you directions on how to navigate through the website (which is clicking the arrow in order to proceed to the next page).  Each page contains a sentence more, but one can see that in each page there’s significance symbols on the right hand side.  The symbol is shaped as a square and represents what the page was about (indicating as if the symbols are chapters of the story).  Throughout the whole story there are many sound effects but one that I noticed a lot was a sound that’s like an old dial-up Internet connection, in which it plays throughout the whole story.  Even though, the sound effect fits right into the story where it takes place as Alice is living in the middle of a desert where wires surround her at all times.  There also comes a point in time where the website contains a special sound effect as if the reader can imagine they are in China while reading the story.  The sound is like a shaolin monk where people in China go to meditate. 

Through the story there are moments where the navigator has a chance to interact with the story.  For example, when Alice is on the journey to look for her father she decides to take a picture of flowers as she’s in the car with her mother.  By taking the pictures the navigator can click on the flowers that pop out and each click makes a flash sound effect.  After the flowers have been photographed there is movement where images are displayed and motion occurs where you see Alice’s technological device going through the process of sending a picture message to her father.  While Alice is staying at the base camp the only thing that seems to make her happy is her “baxi” (technological device).  Her baxi is a device that keeps her entertained and prevents her from being scared because she is searching to find her father late at night.

On the other hand, Inanimate Alice is a piece of electronic literature that took me on a journey where I felt that I was a child all over again encountering a new invention that was incorporated in technology. Alice was a digital piece that seemed user friendly.  There were moments where I found myself being amazed on how a piece of electronic children’s literature can be highly interactive for the child.  Even though, this story is linear and not complex like many other pieces of electronic literature are, by means this hypertext fiction is a great story to gear children and young adults’ attention to technology.

Reviews/Critics:

In a review by Kotlon Smith, she discuses that Inanimate Alice was a piece of literature where she felt it was something that didn’t connect her into a childhood’s experience.  She also indicated that it was a piece that didn’t fall into the category of children’s literature.  One of the things that grabbed her attention was that in order for the navigator to read the digital story the website needed Flash to operate the interactive story correctly.  Kotlon also states that the story was displayed in a linear fashion, but at the same time this makes the navigator more engaged and attentive throughout the entire story. 

On the other hand, Kotlin states that one of the negative things about the story is that the reader is not able to click forward (chapter menu that’s displayed on the side of the page) to keep on reading towards the end, whereas, the only thing the reader is able to do is to proceed backwards from the story.  Although, Kotlon mentions that she found the story to be entertaining, it also made her to pay attention in order to maintain interest within the story. Overall, Kotlon states that one problem she has for the story is that she feels its, “highly compressed” making it “easy to miss information that the author thinks is important,” but in the future she hopes to encounter more types that in some way are related to the one like “Inanimate Alice.”

Here’s a link to my E-lit review: 

http://culturenet.wordpress.com/2009/10/21/inanimate-alice-episode-1-china-2/

Blog # 9: Ideas Flowing for Project 3

Blog # 9: Ideas Flowing for Project 3

So, my plan for project 3 is to incorporate a love Poem called, “A Love Too Late.”  I’m deciding to do my poem in “Prezi,” but the idea that I have won’t function for “Prezi.”  Due to the fact that Prezi is a website where one cannot include animation for the website.  On the other had, “PowerPoint” is a software where one can incorporate so many animations that the software provides.  So, for that to be said I still don’t know which software to pick, but I may just end up choosing Prezi for my Project 3.

Ideas: What I want to do for my poem is to have a black and white picture with a red rose.  The navigator will have to click each pedal from the rose.  As a pedal is clicked on it will then float around the air and a word or two will appear (the words are from the poem).  I’m thinking to the words different colors so it will attract the reader to keep on reading.  Also, background music will be playing throughout my poem and most of all, in the last sentence of the poem I want it to start raining and at the same time you can hear the sound effects of the rain.  Well, that’s all I have in mind to do so far.  Hopefully, my ideas will come out the way I want it to be.  Lets see what happens! :) 

Blog Post # 8: E-Lit "Prezi"

Blog Post: Please post the link to your project on your blog, along with your "abstract" and any instructions to your readers.

         I created a young adult hypertext fiction story called, “I Screwed Up.”  My website contains lexia, audio, and images.  Doing this project was a lot of time consuming, since I thought it wasn’t going to take me forever to do, but then again creating a website was difficult to do.  Although, creating my own website did take a lot of practice. There were some moments where the website (prezi) was making me aggravated because there were some things that I felt wasn’t working out the way I wanted it to be. Technology is being more complicated than ever!  Even though, after all I feel accomplished that my website came out to be successful and creative!

“I Screwed Up,” is about a teenage girl named Marissa who ends up falling in love with a college FRAT boy.  She’s a rich, smart, honor roll high school student who is innocent and never had a boyfriend.  Marissa opens her heart to the college boy, knowing that he will never leave her, but that all changes when she makes one of the biggest mistakes of her life.  Will Marissa ever move on forward in life?

Instructions:

Website is pretty self-explanatory.  All you have to do is press the arrow on the bottom of the website and start reading the story.  Make sure you have your audio on in order to hear the sound effects throughout the story.  So, here's my piece of electronic literature fiction story:

Link: http://prezi.com/it5itzsoxwfk/untitled-prezi/?kw=view-it5itzsoxwfk&rc=ref-38051291
Hope you enjoy! :)

E-Lit Review Assignment:

Link:

1.  http://collection.eliterature.org/1/works/pullinger_babel__inanimate_alice_episode_1_china.html

2. http://www.inanimatealice.com

3. http://www.katepullinger.com

4. http://www.inanimatealice.com/languages.html

5.http://www.prometheanplanet.com/en-gb/Resources/Item/145712/inanimate-alice-episode-1-china-lrs/#.UWRs36UpvIr

Enjoy! :)

Blog Post # 7

This was after all a fun experience to do. 

My own Spine Poetry! :)

Blog Post # 6

Blog Post:

Please write a reflection - your thoughts/questions resulting from reading Amanda Gould's article on Electronic Literature.

After reading, “A Bibliographic Overview of Electronic Literature” I have realized that electronic literature is important more than ever as being the new element for education.  It amused me when I first came across that “electronic literature is born-digital literary art that exploits.  This makes me question about, when exactly was electronic literature born? Who started it? Where did it come from? Electronic literature has been evolving throughout the media more than ever, but at times an individual may think that e-lit at times is not an easy task to navigate.  For example, when I first read “Twelve Blue” I didn’t even know where to start.  I would click any link that would get me to the next page but after a while I started noticing that the stories weren’t in a sequential order.  Therefore, I needed to think of a method or task to find out how an exactly does one find to read Twelve Blue (which I still haven’t found the answer). Therefore, “E-lit provides students new objects to think with and new ways to think the objects (the text) we think we know.”  Even though, one needs to understand that when reading any type of genre that is related to e-lit there will be many new ways to read it but an individual needs to be open-minded and just have fun while reading a piece of art work. 

Further on, in the article Francisco Ricardo indicates that he believes “a digital work is fundamentally different form and more complex than a material or printed work.” I agree with this statement because ever since I attended Zamora’s class I believe that electronic literature is multifaceted in many ways such as images, text (ex: hypertext links), audio and many more.  Even though, from all of the interconnected parts that take place in any work of e-lit comes out to be something out of the ordinary that captivates the reader to be more highly engaged and entertained.

Overall, electronic literature is not just about e-books, or written work, it’s about doing beyond the dimensions of creativity. As Ricardo mention, “the first purpose that digital work serves is an act of creative expression.” Without creativity people would find that e-lit is too boring to read, therefore, by incorporating art work in any piece of digital work will attract many people into being part of the social discourse of electronic literature.  Although, when students encounter electronic literature Simanowski suggest that when one offers skills to students “and critical readers rather than offering them knowledge” it “teaches them how to produce their own knowledge.”  Therefore, when students are able to use their critical thinking skills that’s related to electronic literature, they will then be able to understand the fundamental concept when reading any type of digital work.  After all, electronic literature has become the new element of education in today’s generation of technology. Even though, as Wardrip-Fruin states, "I believe there remains more I need to learn to read, in order to read digital literature."