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The purpose of my project was to improve Seafarer (described in detail below) to make the program more truly interactive as well as easier to use and more appealing to students (by including sounds and images). I also wanted to work out a few of the minor bugs in the program and make a it a bit more user friendly. I was successful in adding digital recordings of readings in Old English to the Texts section of Seafarer. I also added a set of full-color images to the Rank module and augmented other modules with a few color images each. Most significantly, I added a "self-test" feature to the program using Test Pilot, allowing students to take a brief (not graded, though both the students and I knew their scores) quiz about the module they had just read. I also developed errata sheets that students used to record errors or problems that they found while using the program.
Seafarer, which can be accessed on Wheaton's web at http://acunix/~mdrout/www/AllSeafarer/Welcome.html, is a hypertextual mini-encyclopedia of the Middle Ages. Its purpose is to provide students with information on the contexts (material culture, social organization, historical background) necessary for understanding medieval literature. Unfortunately, there is to my knowledge no small, general, encyclopedic text suitable for students in a 200 level course on medieval literature. Seafarer fills this gap, presenting students with coherent narratives on such topics as Labor, Rank, Navigation, Medicine, Magic, The Monastery, Penance, The Book, and Monastic Life. The narratives are interlinked with bibliographies, definitions, illustrative images, and "link" assignments that combine library research with reading in Seafarer. Seafarer also includes a set of primary texts (The Dream of the Rood, the Scriftboc, and the Life of Ceolfrith, among others) that students can view in a variety of forms: a diplomatic edition in the original language, a translation in verse or prose, a commentary on the manuscripts, a digitized recording of the Old English, etc.
Background:
Seafarer, which can be accessed on Wheaton's web at http://acunix/~mdrout/www/AllSeafarer/Welcome.html,
is a hypertextual mini-encyclopedia of the Middle Ages. Its purpose
is to provide students with information on the contexts (material
culture, social organization, historical background) necessary
for understanding medieval literature. Seafarer was developed
as a Hypercard program by Allen J. Frantzen and John Ruffing at
Loyola University Chicago. With assistance from Suzanne Lima ('98),
whose work was subsidized by an internship grant from the Filene
Center, I spent this past winter break re-programming Seafarer
into html to mimic the functionality of the Hypercard program.
There is to my knowledge no small, general, encyclopedic text
suitable for students in a 200 level course on medieval literature.
Seafarer fills this gap, presenting students with coherent narratives
on such topics as Labor, Rank, Navigation, Medicine, Magic, The
Monastery, Penance, The Book, and Monastic Life. The narratives
are interlinked with bibliographies, definitions, illustrative
images, and "link" assignments that combine library
research with reading in Seafarer. Seafarer also includes a set
of primary texts (The Dream of the Rood, the Scriftboc, and the
Life of Ceolfrith, among others) that students can view in a variety
of forms: a diplomatic edition in the original language, a translation
in verse or prose, a commentary on the manuscripts, a digitized
recording of the Old English, etc.
A.
Pedagogical Goals:
1). Improve the Images in the program to make them both more informative
and more visually attractive: Seafarer's original images were
scanned under the constraints of an antiquated version of Hypercard.
Full-color, detailed images will not only be more aesthetically
appealing: they will also provide additional information for students
to use in developing a more detailed picture of the culture of
medieval England.
2). Add digitized Sounds Although this feature will be more useful
for English 208 (Anglo-Saxon Literature) than for English 207
(Early Narratives), it is nevertheless an important part of understanding
medieval literary culture to understand how Old English sounded
so as to appreciate how much it differs from Modern English speech
and to better understand Anglo-Saxon poetry as an oral as well
as a written medium.
3). On-line note taking: At this point I have an empty html form
that opens up when a hyperlink is clicked, allowing students to
copy and paste sections from the Seafarer text into the form to
which they can add their own notes. However, I have not figured
out how to let students directly print their work from the form.
Instead, they have to copy and paste the contents of the form
to a word processing program. This practice is somewhat awkward
and could certainly be improved.
4). On-line objective quizzes: On-line quizzes attached directly
to the program would allow students to immediately test their
comprehension of a module. Since one of my major purposes in using
Seafarer is to provide students with background material outside
of class time, it is at times difficult to gauge how thoroughly
students are reading the program and how well the program is communicating
important information. With a self-test feature, students would
be able to see immediately (and I would be able to tell from their
results) how well they were comprehending the on-line material.
C.
Technological Strategies:
1). After instruction by sophomore Ken Aspeslagh I was able to
learn how to scan and edit images. I scanned a complete set of
images for the Rank module, and augmented other modules with various
full-color images.
2). With help from Ken Davignon and freshmen David Dudek, I was
able to use SoundEdit to digitize my readings of Old English texts.
I read approximately one line at a time and linked each digitize
reading to a transcription of the line in both Old and Modern
English.
3). I did not have success reprogramming the TakeNotes form for
on-line note taking. My attempts led to additional problems with
the entire program and eventually gave up on this part of the
project, leaving Seafarer with a rather awkward method of on-line
note-taking.
4). With much help from Shaoping Moss, I wrote TestPilot quizzes
for the Penance module. I mounted these quizzes on the server
and linked them to the program. I also wrote links to TestPilot
for each of the other modules, and though I have not yet written
all of the quizzes for them, it will now be a simple process to
mount the quizzes on the server since the relevant sections of
Seafarer are already linked to them.
D.
Assessment plan:
Assessment
by Me: I
would call Seafarer as a whole (including the improvements I was
able to make thanks to the LLTC) a qualified success. Students
seemed to learn the material, they did not complain too much about
the program (though see below for legitimate complaints), and
I was able to spend more class time on literature itself and less
on background. However, I still am not sure how much learning
was only on a superficial level and how much made some lasting
impression on the students. There are also some technical problems
with Seafarer that still should be fixed: because I don't know
how to call two frames to two different sources with one link,
it is possible to have one interface in the main window another
in the side window; the TakeNotes form still isn't very elegant;
and there need to be more full-color images. Nevertheless, I believe
that Seafarer served its purpose this semester.
Assessment by Students: When we first began using Seafarer
I distributed "Errata Sheets" to students so that they
could keep me abreast of errors in and difficulties with the program.
Each errata sheet was worth a small bonus for the class participation
grade. I was happy to receive approximately 25 errata sheets over
the course of semester. Most noted typos in Seafarer, but a few
were more technical in nature. I was able to fix a significant
printing problem because a student notices that white letters
on a purple background will not print (the printer discounts and
purple background and prints white on white - difficult to read.
With their course evaluations I asked students to fill out a seven
question form that asked:
1. How often did you use the program?
2. What difficulties did you encounter?
3. How could those difficulties be eliminated?
4. What was the most valuable thing you learned from the program?
5. Which part of the program was the least valuable?
6. If you could improve one thing about Seafarer, what would it
be?
7. Do you think Seafarer should be used in future English 207:
Early Narratives classes? Why or why not?
I was gratified that 15 out of 16 students who answered the evaluation
thought that Seafarer should be used in future 207 classes. The
one student who did not said that the program was "not interesting,"
but he or she did not give detailed reasons.
Student responses were in general quite positive. Nearly all saw
the program as "nice addition" to the course, not really
replacing other material, but augmenting the readings. Only a
very few used the program beyond the requirements, however, though
two did make use of the bibliography for their papers. The only
significant difficulties noted were those with printing (which
were fixed half-way through the semester) and with jumping back
and forth from Lexicon to Narrative (a problem only for students
using versions of Netscape before 3.0).
Suggestions for improvement were nearly all image-related. Students
wanted more visuals or audio-visuals, but they wanted them to
remained linked to the texts. One student wrote "LESS FRAMES!",
presumably suggesting that a non-frame interface be developed
for the program.
E.
Dissemination plan:
I was happy to present Seafarer to the faculty at the May 21-22
Technology Workshop and found the responses and comments very
helpful. Several faculty suggested that they might help me produce
additional modules on subjects like medieval Judaism or Islam
and other aspects of culture currently neglected by Seafarer.
I truly welcome such approaches and think they would help to disseminate
Seafarer beyond my classes (any colleague at Wheaton is welcome
to use the program is his or her classes and I will be glad to
work to customize self-tests and bibliographies. The text of Seafarer
and the logical structure of the program is copyrighted by Allen
J. Frantzen and John Ruffing. The html version of the program
and any subsequent improvements are mine. Determining who gets
credit for what is difficult and precludes (at this time) wide-spread
advertising or dissemination on the web of Seafarer itself. However,
Frantzen and Ruffing now both have copies of the html version
of Seafarer and there is some hope that everything can be worked
out for the best. I hope, therefore, to present the "new
and improved" Seafarer with Prof. Frantzen at the 1999 MLA
conference in San Francisco and the 2000 International Congress
of Medieval Studies at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo,
Michigan.
Last updated
on 1/26/99; 1:43:28 PM
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