Text Analysis with Google Books Ngram Viewer

The Google Books Ngram Viewer is one of the easiest and immediately rewarding ways to begin humanities work that has a digital component. Created with the Cultural Observatory at Harvard, the Ngram viewer provides statistical data on occurrences of words or strings of words in the Google Books corpus (currently over 30 million texts).

Occurrences (percentage) of above words in US English, 1840-2008

Above is an example of a Google Ngram from one of my conference presentations on the influence of Dante’s Inferno in US visual culture. This data was used as background to get into my analytic discussion regarding the clustering of Inferno adaptations (there being a surge in the earlier 20th century, and again in the early 21st century). The graph shows that there is increased activity of the word “Dante,”  for instance, at the turn of the 20th century, and an uptick of the word “hell” after 2000.

This data is presented without context and without the entire corpus of the written word, but it does provide some interesting trends, and is not unlike similar work that has been done on statistical text analysis without the aid of computers and the big data set currently available.

Because this data is open source, there are a number of other tools available to work with the data.

Bookworm was developed by Culturomics and offers an interface tool based on the digitized texts at OpenLibrary.org, which include books with full title, author, etc. information. This enables users to query specific bodies of work, but presents a smaller data set.

Culturomics have also provided open source Python code to retrieve data from Google Ngram in a tsv format. Google provides the complete data set for personal use so you don’t overrun their servers if you need to pull a lot of data.

BYU Google Books Viewer also provides an interface to interact with Google Books that accepts larger strings of words and links to books where the data is pulled from.

When I presented the above graph at the conference I was actually met with some hostility, even though the graph was only used as a sort of visual aside to my actual analysis. In the Boston Review, Claude S. Fischer provides background of relevant issues, and of course there is no perfect data set. However, it is increasingly important to try to situate the humanities within a larger technological environment, and Google Ngrams are a good first step for those who do not want to venture too far into the digital humanities right away, while also providing options for those interested in doing so.

Additionally, this can be a fun tool to use in the humanities classroom to get students thinking about word usage over time. This can easily turn into a discussion board assignment, as was done here.

Ultimately, the Ngram visual representation provides the humanities scholar with an additional tool to approach text and the history of words.

Games as Addiction?

In a recent New York Times article, journalist Nick Bilton reports on “Using Addictive Games to Build Better Brains.” Neuroscientists at UC San Francisco are working on unpacking the qualities that make a game addictive in hopes of building addictive games that have educational benefit.

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Although I will say that addiction is beyond the scope of this blog, I would like to reframe the words that we use for gaming that is intended to be educational, and suggest that a word that refers to a positive dynamic, such as Csíkszentmihályi’s flow, would foster a more beneficial discussion of gaming for learning.

Flow describes the mental state of a person fully and enjoyably immersed in an activity, expending complete focus and energy on the task. Usually these conditions come about when a person is challenged in a way to match her skill level – such as an athlete who may have met a well-suited opponent, or a programmer working on something new and exciting (and a bit difficult).

As the NYT article points out, researchers and developers have been working on games such as NeuroRacer (also at UCSF) to deliberately target and improve memory and attention in players. However, it is also noted that first-person shooters (often under attack for their violent content) and Tetris also increase cognitive skills.

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Games may not all be created equal, and games could certainly be developed with the intention to specifically aid in spatial reasoning or learning trigonometry, for example, but most games can be argued to have a brain-enhancing element. It is important to point this information out when we try to bring games into the educational community, and it is also important to frame our argument in a positive light by using words like “flow” over “addiction,” so that gaming is more readily accepted as the addition that it is (rather than a “disruption” as the article’s full title suggests) to other methods of learning.

Minecraft as a Model of Intrinsic Learning

Designed as a sandbox or open world game, Mojang’s Minecraft offers players with extensive choices in a nonlinear gameplay. Minecraft also provides users with two major modes of play — survival and creative. Players can build environments and constructions, explore, craft, engage in combat, gather resources and maintain health (if in the survival mode).

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Minecraft employs the flow mechanisms of user control, providing feedback, and matching difficulty with the player. Though there is an optional achievement system, Minecraft does not require achieving goals (there are no requirements that the player must accomplish — she has complete freedom in choosing how to play).

Although it lacks goals, Minecraft has been purchased 20 million times across all platforms, has an estimated 40 million users, has had an annual sold-out convention since 2011, and boasts over 2 million members participating in its very active forums. Based on these figures that demonstrate a lively community despite a rather retro graphical style, the gameplay design and game mechanics behind Minecraft are particularly adept at cultivating the intrinsic motivation of its players.

This motivation and the experience of flow that Minecraft produces has also fostered an understanding of electrical engineering in some of its players who choose to interact with the game’s Red Stone feature, or architectural and landscape design. In fact, Cody Sumter of MIT has stated that the creator of Minecraft “hasn’t just built a game — he’s tricked 40 million people into learning”.

Video game teaching advocate Stephen Reid notes that Minecraft also encourages the understanding of physics, population displacement and geography, the growth of life, collaborative learning and even language skills when players (many of whom are children) from many nations interact with each other.

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Minecraft is also letting its users enact real change in the world through its Block by Block project with UN-Habitat to improve a settlement in Nairobi, Kenya through urban planning via Minecraft. Therefore, Minecraft is also helping its players experience positive feedback within the global community.

In fact, many schools have recognized the educational opportunities presented by Minecraft, and there are several projects that have been started to bring modified versions of the game into school to teach concepts such as electrical engineering through MinecraftEDU and Middle School Minecraft, for example.

Discussion Board or Blog Assignment for Literature Courses

Here is an example of a low-stakes Discussion Board (as through Blackboard) or Blog assignment that can really address the meat of the material without becoming a mini-essay, while allowing students to learn from each other and engage in Digital Writing.

                                                                                                                                (click image to enlarge)

Start the Discussion Board (or the Blog entry) with a quote from the material you are reading in class (here it is Act II of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet):

Had she affections and warm youthful blood,
She’d be as swift in motion as a ball;
My words would bandy her to my sweet love,
And his to me:
But old folks, many feign as they were dead;
Unwieldy, slow, heavy and pale as lead.
(2.4.12-17)

The first student to Reply to the Discussion Board, or post a Comment to the Blog entry will identify (speaker, context) and analyze the quote (what does the quote mean? what is the quote doing?), and then offer a second quote from the material for the next student to respond to (like a game of telephone):

This is Juliet alone speaking about her nurse out loud while she waits for her to come back with news about Romeo. Juliet basically is talking about how slowly the nurse is because of her old age, and if she had been younger she would be able to bring the news faster. Although the nurse helps Juliet throughout her affair with Romeo, Juliet still becomes frustrated with her companion at times, and is allowed to show her irritation because of her higher rank. When the nurse returns to Juliet with news of Romeo, despite Juliet being very eager to hear the news, the nurse is out of breath and teases about her own old age, making Juliet wait even longer. The nurse character is more of a maternal and friendly character to Juliet than Juliet’s own parents are, and she would never speak to her parents in the candid way that she speaks to and about the nurse. 

Next quote: 

“O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon,
That monthly changes in her circled orb,
Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.
(2.2.109-111)

And, likewise, the third student would interpret the quote and then add a quote of his own (see image above for a fuller example).

In this way, students can learn from each other, can connect main themes between quotes, and will have to read the previous work of students in order to not repeat a quote.

The chain can end with a student selecting a quote from Act III (if this assignment will be used again), or can link the last quote back to the first quote in some way (perhaps the last quote also reveals something about Juliet’s rank, or the nurse’s maternal role as a messenger).

This assignment can easily be modified based on existing Discussion Board requirements (such as a minimum sentence requirement, or responding to x number of students by name in response), and offers a way for online or hybrid classes to foster dialogue between students without too much guidance from instructors.

Technology in the Foreign Language Classroom

Technology offers much to teaching foreign languages, especially for those of us who are teaching in an environment that offers no immersive experiences outside of the classroom. Even incorporating videos and audio into the classroom is easier than ever, and we can provide students with popular music videos from the target language in just a few clicks through YouTube.

 

I personally liked even bringing in PowerPoint presentations with interactive text (for doing drills), and slides of just pictures coupled with words in the target language (Italian) so as to avoid using our common English (I also had many non-native speakers). It was also fun to include memorable, funny images to hopefully help the information sink-in, as in the infamous color vocabulary section:

An example of my in-class vocabulary slides (shown to students one at a time).

Although mobile devices are often a distraction, I tried to find a balance as sometimes allowing them in the classroom proved to be very useful on occasion. During pair and group work, the devices were used to look up words from dictionary sites or apps such as WordReference.com, which also provides verb conjugations, phrase information and forums. I am quite interested in expanding the use of mobile devices within the classroom, and believe that they can be a valuable resource.

An example assignment that makes good use of technology involves doing direction drills through podcasts. A student would play or download an audio file onto their phone or iPod and then leave the classroom to navigate the school via the in-ear instructions. Following these directions, they will come upon an end point, which they would report back to their instructors. For example, the audio file may provide these directions if we are teaching English language:

Exit room 209 and turn left. Follow the hallway until the end and then turn right. At the first hallway, turn right and then go until you reach the library. Go into the library and then down the stairs and look for the first hallway on the left. At the end of this hallway turn to your right, and what you are looking for will be in front of you.

The student following these instructions may find Room 115 at the end of this hallway, and would tell the instructor that that is what she found. Here are audio examples used in a high school Italian classroom. This assignment really ties spatial reasoning into the target language in a practical way, and is certainly useful for anyone hoping to use the language in their future travels.

At home, my students would often use technology, not just to check our class’s Blackboard and to review my online materials, but also to find relevant study aids, revealing their interest in using technology as a means to learn, understand, and commit key concepts to memory.

A popular language-learning app such as Duolingo can also offer support to students of foreign languages. Although it is marketed as a complete course in language, and has the noble mission of translating the Internet, I find that it is not a replacement for in-person language instruction. I have found the app to be a bit nitpicky with spelling and grammar (though this may not be too different from human instructors), as well as vocabulary (it did not allow for synonyms in writing exercises, suggesting a less-than-robust dictionary). I also found the speaker of transcription exercises — though not a typical computer voice — to be very difficult to understand, making the tasks difficult. Although it utilizes gamification, it does not quite feel like a game (more like discreet quizzes), but it could prove to be a great tool for my own students to use at home.

If you are interested in technology for teaching foreign language, the journal Language Learning and Technology offers studies of additional pedagogic techniques in language acquisition, and its articles explore mobile technology, podcasts, and emerging technologies.

Free Online Programming Tutorials

For those of us who would like to introduce students, or ourselves, to programming, there are many resources available online that are suitable to a spectrum of learners.

The New Boston Tutorials, also available via thenewboston YouTube channel are among my favorites as Bucky Roberts offers clear, step-by-step instructions with humor. His videos offer various programming languages, including Java and Ruby, and he also offers additional Computer Science courses and Adobe tutorials.

For a more traditional college experience, iTunes U, available through the Apple App Store, offers many free courses complete with university lectures, readings and assignments (although without grading). Among its offerings is Stanford’s Programming Methodology course is another resource for learning the basics of algorithms and Java.

There is even the very low-tech option of reading a book, available for free online, such as Invent with Python, which can also be purchased in paper form through the site. Your local or school library may also have programming books available for loan.

Codeacademy, which was mentioned in the last post is another popular option which teaches people online through an interactive website. Codeacademy offers tutorials in Python, Ruby and JavaScript, among others.

Although many of the above resources can also be used as a teaching tool, code.org does have a focused Educators Resource page. Although many resources here and elsewhere are targeting the K-12 age group, many tutorials are compatible with undergraduate learners as well.

Additionally, you can look through TED’s list of 10 places where anyone can learn to code and TNW’s round-up of 27 ways to learn online.

Happy coding!

Technology Across the Curriculum

In my last post, I mentioned Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) and how digital writing can be incorporated into a program such as this. Now I would like to suggest that a technological literacy — which can include a foundation in computer science, but may also include learning programming languages, web development, etc. — should also be a focus of 21st-century learning, and should be incorporated into learning at an early stage and in a cross-curricular manner.

In the essay “Why We Teach Writing in the First Place,” Toby Fulwiler writes:

“Schools exist to teach people to think in some systematic way. At the early grades ‘reading’ and 'writing’ and 'arithmetic’ are called basic — what they are basic to, is thinking. … But the basics which the public always want to "get back to” are really the primary language skills which make systematic articulate thought possible. Reading provides us access to information and ideas. Writing and arithmetic provide general tools for manipulating and expressing ideas and information.“

Although the computer sciences are a relatively young field, I would like to argue that engaging with technology in a deep manner (that is, in understanding algorithms and working out new ones) is an extension of these basic skills.

As Fulwiler continues, "writing is basic to thinking about, and learning knowledge in all fields as well as to communicating that knowledge,” and similarly knowing how to effectively deliver instructions to computers, or at least the thought process behind that, can enable students to think critically about interacting with machines and other humans, as well as communicating with people on a truly global scale.

Too often, as in writing classes, technology or computer classes are tedious and are more concerned with using Microsoft Word (in both cases!) than actually engaging and challenging students.

Certainly, learning to work effectively with program suites such as Microsoft Office and Adobe Creative Suite is useful, as is developing the ability to navigate social media platforms, but we can give students more.

Jaron Lanier, a writer and computer scientist, explains in a video that “in a world created by hackers those who can’t hack are the underclass,” and believes that a literacy in computer science is probably on par with the fundamentals that Fulwiler mentions. A general computer science course “would empower a lot of people because then you’re sort of learning all the programming languages at once and you can learn to think like the people who made them up.” This, he thinks, would offer the most opportunity as new programming languages are frequently replacing older ones. This is also particularly astute for our present moment of increasingly superior hardware being under-utilized by current programming languages or the methods we are using.

However, I believe there is something to be said for learning computer science by getting your hands dirty in code. If students can learn the underlying theory and logic behind a programming language that is interesting to them, they should be able to transfer that foundational knowledge to learn new programming languages in the future.

Douglas Rushkoff, a writer and digital thinker, does think that learning specifically to program will be good for individuals and for society as a whole. In an article he explains that in a world filled with text (road signs, newspapers, etc.) no one questions why children should learn to read, and now that we are increasingly surrounded by technology such as apps, we should also be seeking out literacy in programming. He likens the free Codeacademy tutorials to Gutenberg’s printing press, and writes that by learning to code, “[y]ou will understand more about how the world works, and become a participating member in the digital society unfolding before us.”

Learning the fundamentals of computer science is in-line with the “access to information and ideas” that Fulwiler states that reading is, and learning programming is learning to “manipulate and express ideas and information” (like writing and arithmetic). Coding is a form of writing, too, and is a means to communicate directly with a machine so that that machine, and the network it is connected to, may proliferate your ideas to many other people. We need to think about technology in the classroom in bigger ways than just enrolling students in MOOC courses and scanning their papers through plagiarism software. We need to support them in critical thinking and a digital writing that can include coding.

Digital Writing

Digital writing is an increasingly hot buzzword in writing pedagogy, especially in Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) and Writing in the Disciplines (WID). It is rather loosely defined, and a broad working definition can be taken from the Introduction to Because Digital Writing Matters :

“… compositions created with, and oftentimes for reading or viewing on, a computer or other device that is connected to the Internet." 

Although "composition” can also be a vague term, if it is also used loosely, it can comprise any textual production done on a computer or mobile device that has the possibility of being transmitted to others.

As undergraduates are increasingly reliant on smart phone technology, and are very likely to engage in some form of text-based communication on a daily basis, they are arguably writing more than ever before.

Employing new technologies for digital writing, and allowing for short twitter-style micro-essays and multimedia expressions of writing (including digital storytelling) can both tap into a more natural style of writing for students, as well as revive tired writing prompts.

Blogging and discussion forums (through Blackboard, etc.) are obvious venues for digital writing, but encouraging students to interact with social media platforms they already use may add a layer of intrinsic motivation. This need not be done in a public forum, but can be through private Facebook groups, or locked Twitter accounts, for example. Students could also mimic Facebook status updates, as in this funny example of a Facebook history of World War II.

Prezi, video essays through a user-friendly application like iMovie, or an animation web tool like GoAnimate can provide alternatives to tired digital slide show presentations during class time, while still developing public speaking skills (whether live or recorded).

Even for people in courses that typically have less writing, such as those in the computer sciences, writing in clean and carefully commented code can be assigned and assessed separately from the function of the code itself (as form rather than content), and funny comments can be encouraged with examples.

While I know there is a lot of distress among educators surrounding txtspk, I would like to remind anyone who has studied Latin paleography that textual abbreviations are very old indeed. Some examples:

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Sometimes I think older adults are more likely to use txtspk than my students, but it may be worthwhile to be a bit generous, dust off the old Cappelli's Elements of abbreviation in medieval Latin paleography and let students write and think critically as much as possible, with emphasis on grammar and style only on those high stakes assignments that really require it.