How Did They Make That? The Video!

After I wrote my original “How Did They Make That?” post, on some common types of DH projects, I got to thinking about whether there might be ways to help people reverse-engineer digital projects on their own. I used a talk I gave at CUNY as an excuse to think of some of these ways. This presentation, a modified version of that talk, is the result.

Special thanks to my all-star cast: Rachel Deblinger, Moya Bailey, and Elijah Meeks; and to Matt Gold at CUNY for inviting me to give the talk.

Incidentally, I propose a drinking game: whenever you see my tiny Skype avatar taking a sip of coffee, take a drink.

Erratum: The Negro Travelers’ Green Book is a project of the University of South Carolina Libraries, not the University of Southern California, as I keep saying. Also, just a note that while I focus on the mapping elements of that project, they’ve also done a beautiful job digitizing the book itself.

Advanced Scroll Kit Techniques: The Parallax Effect

My Digital Labor, Urban Space, and Materiality class will be using the drag-and-drop framework Scroll Kit to create multimedia “device narratives.” Here’s the tutorial I’ve created to teach them to use Scroll Kit. You’re welcome to download these instructions as a PDF or as a Word document, in case you’d like to modify them.

This is my second Scroll Kit tutorial; the first covers Scroll Kit basics.

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Basics of Creating a Scroll Kit Narrative

My Digital Labor, Urban Space, and Materiality class will be using the drag-and-drop framework Scroll Kit to create multimedia “device narratives.” Here’s the tutorial I’ve created to teach them to use Scroll Kit. You’re welcome to download these instructions as a PDF or as a Word document, in case you’d like to modify them. 

This is my first Scroll Kit tutorial; the second covers the parallax effect.

With Scroll Kit, you can create multimedia works in a scrolling format suitable for long-form narratives. It’s easy to drag and drop elements to create interesting effects. Your project will have a unique Scroll Kit URL, so you can share your project widely (or you can export the code).

Some examples of projects created with Scroll Kit:

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Using Mozilla Popcorn Maker to Create an Interactive Video

I’ll be teaching a workshop on Mozilla Popcorn Maker soon and, as is my habit, I created this step-by-step tutorial. Here’s the tutorial in handout form as a PDF, and here it is in Word, in case you’d like to modify it.

Mozilla Popcorn Maker allows you to enrich a video with interactive maps, images, and webpages. Your video could be different every time it’s played, because it pulls in dynamic content and allows your “viewer” to interact with it. Here, we learn how to use it to enhance an archival video.

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Up and Running with Omeka.net

omeka logoYesterday I had fun teaching a beginning Omeka workshop at THATCamp Feminisms West, a really great event at Scripps College. (It deserves a post of its own, but that will have to wait until I have a little more energy. Alex Juhasz has a nice post about it.)

Omeka’s documentation is actually very good, but experience has taught me that students really appreciate handouts. So here’s a digital version of my handout for a beginning Omeka workshop.

I know a lot of people teach these workshops, so feel free to use or modify this material (PDF version, Word version) if it’s useful for you. And here’s a handout that offers a quick Omeka vocabulary lesson and some guidance on whether Omeka’s the right tool for your project.

I also have a post and handout on the next step with Omeka, creating an exhibit.

As an aside, I make these tutorials with Blue Mango’s ScreenSteps software, which I highly recommend.

[Edit: Thanks to Jon Ippolito, who tipped me off to this interactive screencast about building an Omeka exhibition.]

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Make tutorials dead-simple with ScreenSteps

ScreenSteps logoIf you’re wondering how I got so fancy with my instructions on how to make a DVD clip reel, I had a trick up my sleeve. ScreenSteps is an application specifically designed to create software tutorials. It has everything you need packed in: screen capture, image notation, links, and text. Because it’s designed specifically for the purpose of creating tutorials, it’s super easy to use.

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