The Scout Report -- Volume 24, Number 42

The Scout Report -- Volume 24, Number 42
October 19, 2018
Volume 24, Number 42

Research and Education

General Interest

Network Tools

Revisited

In the News

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Research and Education

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Words & Pictures: Literacy, Art and Common Core Together
Language Arts

Words & Pictures: Literacy, Art and Common Core Together is a robust suite of teaching materials primarily focused on English Language arts and visual arts for K-2 students. This collection was developed and tested during the 2012-2013 school year by Duke University's Nasher Museum of Art in collaboration with classroom teachers from six elementary schools in the Durham, NC, public school system. Here, readers will find eighteen activities and more than forty lesson plans along with over thirty artworks from the Nasher Museum's permanent collection. These materials were all designed and curated to "teach English Language Arts and visual literacy" and to incorporate visual thinking strategies, which are "a facilitated discussion about a work of art" that encourages students to "practice careful observation, learn to support their statements with evidence, and consider the viewpoints of others." Lessons can be browsed by subject, grade level, or academic standard. [JDC]

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Library Workflow Exchange
Science

Librarians interested in workflows, digital archiving, and digital preservation should pay a visit to the Library Workflow Exchange. The knowledgebase, which was created by Liz Woolcott and Anna Neatrour, is a "site [that] is designed to help librarians share workflows and best practices across institutions." This site would be especially useful to those who are reevaluating existing documentation or writing new policies at their home institutions. Some recent workflows that have been added include, "Metadata 2020: Metadata Best Practices," "Born-Digital University Archives Workflows," and "ALMA to HathiTrust Metadata Institutions." All workflows include a permalink to the workflow and are tagged according to category. For those interested in submitting a workflow to the exchange, the link at the top of the page entitled "Submit your workflows," brings users to an easy web page submit form. Interested visitors can subscribe to the knowledgebase to receive updates via email. [JLB]

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CK-12
Educational Technology

CK-12 is comprised of free, open access resources for both teachers and students including online textbooks, lesson plans, worksheets, and much more. The site has both a student and teacher view, and on the homepage, subjects are broken down by category. For example, if visiting the probability category under the math subject, lessons plans for counting sets, theoretical and experimental probability, and probability and statistics are available for use in teacher or student view. Lesson plans include activities, videos, practice worksheets, and many include study aids with flashcards. One of the highlights of the site is PLIX, which stands for Play, Learn, Interact, Xplore. PLIX includes interactive activities and is available for all subjects on the site, though using this option does require a free account with CK-12. Also available on CK-12 are its FlexBooks, which are free online textbooks that include text, interactive lessons, worksheets, and embedded PLIX lessons. CK-12 is accessible via a web browser but is also available as an app on iOS and Android devices. [JLB]

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Storybench: For educators
Language Arts

Educators and readers interested in digital storytelling may want to check out this collection of resources from Storybench, a project of Northeastern University's Media Innovation program which describes itself as "[providing] an 'under the hood' look at the most invigorating and inspiring projects in digital storytelling around the world." Visitors to Storybench's For Educators page will find step-by-step tutorials and tips on data analysis, data visualization, and audio storytelling. The data analysis articles focus on the open-source software R and RStudio and begin with "Getting Started with R in RStudio Notebooks," which includes easy-to-follow instructions for novices. The data visualization topics are more varied and include how-to guides for building maps with Google My Maps and CartoDB, creating clustered bubble charts, and using StoryMapJS for digital storytelling. These tutorials were largely created as instructor-led classroom workshops, but they could easily be followed by an interested individual as well. [JDC]

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The Physics of Baseball
Science

The Physics of Baseball is an extensive resource created and maintained by Alan M. Nathan, Professor Emeritus of Physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. This long-running site catalogs Nathan's own teaching and research on "the physics of the baseball-bat collision and the flight of the baseball" and also "attempts to provide links to much of the high-quality work done over the past decade or so on various aspects of the physics of baseball." Recent additions to The Physics of Baseball's almost twenty-year history include a 2018 article by Nathan in The Hardball Times on spin efficiency analysis techniques, a collection of links to articles about the 2015-2017 home run surge, and articles about the MLB tracking system Statcast. Other topics include information on aerodynamics of the baseball, the acoustics of baseball, fast-pitch softball, and wood versus non-wood bats. This authoritative and interesting resource is perfect for physics students and interested baseball fans alike. [JDC]

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All About Mary
Religion

All About Mary is a digital encyclopedia that includes a wealth of information relating to the study of Mary and Catholicism. The introduction to the site reads: "Designed for everyone from expert theologians to those simply exploring, this tool, created and maintained by the International Marian Research Institute in partnership with the Marian Library at the University of Dayton, is the online destination for resources on the subject of the Blessed Virgin Mary and related topics." The site is keyword searchable, which will render results from the University of Dayton website. The thesaurus on the left-hand side of the page includes sections dedicated to film, literature, Marian symbols, theater, and much more. Those interested in the Marian Library should visit the link on the homepage. The library (also located at the University of Dayton) maintains an extensive digital collection of "digitized archival photographs, holy cards, stamps, ephemera, and other unique Marian materials," in addition to a collection of Marian art and a creche collection. [JLB]

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Why Can Only 24% Solve Bayesian Reasoning Problems in Natural Frequencies: Frequency Phobia in Spite of Probability Blindness
Mathematics

This empirical research study published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology in October 2018 examined why approximately three-quarters of people (on average) reached incorrect answers when presented with statistical reasoning problems using natural frequencies, despite this format being ostensibly more intuitive than probability format. Through their experimental study focusing on cognitive processes, the researchers found that the majority of their 180 participants chose to translate natural frequencies into probabilities before attempting to solve the problem, therefore "reveal[ing] the Einstellung effect in Bayesian reasoning situations," in which "people often rigidly apply a previously learnt solution strategy while neglecting possibly important information that would allow an easier solution." The authors note that since "[m]any professionals, such as medical doctors and judges in court, are expected to make momentous decisions based on statistical information," the real-world consequences of the Einstellung effect in this type of scenario can be severe, such as misdiagnoses or false convictions. The lead author of this study is Patrick Weber, a doctoral student in mathematics education at the University of Regensburg (Germany), and the full study, written in accessible language, is publicly available. [JDC]

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Reading the First Books: Multilingual, Early-Modern OCR for Primeros Libros
Language Arts

Reading the First Books: Multilingual, Early-Modern OCR for Primeros Libros was a "two-year, multi-university effort to develop tools for the automatic transcription of early modern printed books." This project used an optical character recognition (OCR) tool called Ocular to transcribe texts from the Primeros Libros de las Americas (First Books of the Americas) collection, which is an impressive feat considering the texts from the Primeros Libros collection were printed on hand presses in the fifteenth-seventeenth centuries. The goal of the project is to provide more access to scholars, students, and the general public by providing high-quality digital surrogates of these historic texts. The digital collection of Primeros Libros de las Americas is available via a link from the homepage of the site. Those interested in finding material published about Reading the First Books should visit the publications section, where academic publications, workflow documentation, and presentations about the project have been made available. Ocular, which is open-source OCR software, is explained more in-depth on the Ocular FAQ page. Also available in that section is a link to Ocular's GitHub repository. [JLB]

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General Interest

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A Map of Every Building in America
Social studies

As the authors of this October 2018 article point out, not too many years ago, the maps we used for planning driving routes were the large fold-out kind that gave us the bigger picture and "connected us to the places" we were traveling to and through. Reminiscent of that once common birds' eye view, The New York Times published "A Map of Every Building in America." This interactive map and its accompanying text were created by Tim Wallace, Derek Watkins, and John Schwartz, who used a large database of building footprints in all 50 US states that Microsoft released to the public earlier this year. Here, readers can explore "the built legacy of the United States" by typing any US city or ZIP code into the map's search bar. To reach a more specific view, users can drag the map and click or tap the on-screen zoom tools. Below the interactive map, the authors highlight seven views that exemplify "what the map reveals about the structures that surround us," such as "The Imprint of Geology" in Appalachia and "A Nation of Suburbs" in Mesa, Arizona. [JDC]

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Louisa May Alcott is My Passion
Language Arts

Admirers of any of Louisa May Alcott's novels, or fans of nineteenth-century literature, would do well to explore the blog that has been lovingly curated by Susan Bailey. Louisa May Alcott is My Passion contains a wealth of information about the life of the author, which includes biographies of Alcott for both children and adults, journals and letters, Alcott's ideas on feminism and transcendentalism, and so much more. The blog features contributing authors, highlights from related blogs, and posts that highlight related events, such as the 150th anniversary of the publishing of Little Women. The most recent blog post is a question-and-answer interview with Australian author Trix Wilkins, who wrote, "Why Jo Says No (and Why We Care)," included in the anthology Alcott's Imaginary Heroes: The Little Women Legacy. In addition to numerous resources about the life of Alcott and the time period in which she lived and wrote, Bailey provides links under the resources tab to related subjects. Included in this section is a link to the Fruitlands Museum, which is a National Historic Landmark and was the site of the experimental "utopian" community co-founded by Bronson Alcott, Louisa's father. [JLB]

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British Library: LGBTQ Histories
Social studies

The British Library has created this excellent resource that "charts the struggles for love, identity and legislative change faced by LGBTQ communities in the UK" going all the way back to the 1500s. Here, readers will find a well-organized selection of articles, items from the library's collection, people, a timeline, and works of literature, all relevant to British LGBTQ history. Visitors can browse these materials via the tabs at the top, or they can use the search tab to explore all the items in the LGBTQ Histories site by keyword or by fields such as theme, date range, format, and occupation. One of the featured items is the original manuscript of "De Profundis," Oscar Wilde's famous letter to his lover Lord Alfred Douglas, written during 1896-1897 while Wilde was imprisoned. A more recent example is a 36-minute sound recording of a January 2018 conversation and interview between three transgender activists and Steven Dryden, the British Library's Broadcast Recordings Curator. Four of the British Library's recent blog posts relating to LGBTQ history are also featured at the bottom of this site's main page. [JDC]

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Forest Hill Cemetery: A Guide
Social studies

In many places, cemeteries can be taken for granted as a ubiquitous part of the landscape, but for those who look deeper, they also offer a valuable avenue for examining the societies that use them as well as the landscape itself. Forest Hill Cemetery: A Guide was created in this frame of mind. This resource offers visitors in-depth explorations of multiple perspectives on Forest Hill Cemetery in Madison, WI, "an iconic example of a Romantic rural cemetery of the kind that became popular across the United States during the middle decades of the nineteenth century." Here, readers can learn about the cemetery's cultural aspects, such as its diverse traditions, rituals, and symbols, as well as the Native American effigy mounds that existed "long before Forest Hill itself was laid out." This resource also examines Forest Hill's landscape, such as the plants within it and the aesthetic roots of its design, and looks at how cemeteries operate from a practical perspective. The lengthy list of resources under the learn more tab provides helpful direction for curious readers. Forest Hill Cemetery: A Guide was created in 2015 by a team of University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate students led by Bill Cronon, Professor of History, Geography, and Environmental Studies. [JDC]

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Asia Art Archive
Arts

Visual arts scholars, educators, and aficionados will likely find much to interest them in the Asia Art Archive (AAA). Based in Hong Kong, this resource focuses on primary and secondary materials about contemporary Asian art with most of its collection being from the mid-1990s and the 2000s. Visitors to the AAA's website, newly launched in 2017, will find a wealth of resources to explore. The ideas section features essays, conversations, collection spotlights, and notes on contemporary art and art history that are published on a regular basis. The collection section is organized into research and library items, with the former containing (at the time of this writing) over 28,000 searchable items in 37 focused collections of primary material, most of which have been digitized, and the latter containing over 44,000 items, of which more than 7,000 can be accessed online. Educators and scholars will also want to explore the resources section, where they will find videos, scholarly papers, datasets, bibliographies, and more. An independent nonprofit, the Asia Art Archive was founded in 2000 by Claire Hsu and Johnson Chang "to document and make accessible the multiple recent histories of art in the region." [JDC]

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The Pudding: An Interactive Visualization of Every Line in Hamilton
Arts

The visual essay "An Interactive Visualization of Every Line in Hamilton" was created by freelance software engineer Shirley Wu for the online magazine The Pudding. In her essay, Wu explores the relationships between the Broadway musical's characters, as well as themes that emerged when she examined patterns of lines repeated across songs, such as contentment and Eliza Schuyler's character development. As the reader scrolls slowly through the animated essay, Wu explains her motivation for creating this data visualization, as well as how the reader can explore the data themselves by filtering the color-coded data "by any combination of characters, conversations, or themes." She crafted this essay using a raw dataset that she created manually based on the musical's libretto, which she then visualized using D3.js and Canvas to create the mesmerizing animations seen here. Wu's essay is sure to appeal to fans of Hamilton or of data visualization in general. It should be noted that this essay is optimized for Chrome with a resolution higher than 1280x800, so mobile users may not have the best experience. [JDC]

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Unobscured
Social studies

Aaron Mahnke, the creator of the podcast Lore released a new spinoff, Unobscured, in early October 2018. Unlike Lore, which explores eerie tales every episode, Unobscured delves into a historic event as a theme for its entire season. The first season of Unobscured is about the 1692 Salem witch trials, and Mahnke includes interviews with researchers and historians in his narrative. In the first episode, listeners learn about the origin of Salem Town and Salem Village, and how the tension between the two communities becomes the "dry kindling [in which] the match is about the be struck." Unobscured's haunting soundtrack is composed by Chad Lawson, with lead research being performed by Carl Nellis, and Matt Frederick and Alex Williams serving as producers and engineers. A list of sources for each show is listed on Unobscured's website, along with short bios of each interviewed historian. Interested visitors can listen to Unobscured via the main site or on various podcast platforms, such as Apple Podcasts and Stitcher. Unobscured is slated to release new episodes throughout autumn 2018, so stay tuned. [JLB]

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History is Served
Social studies

History is Served, subtitled "18th-century recipes for the 21st-century kitchen" is the blog and recipe index for the Historic Foodways program at Colonial Williamsburg. Current posts include the first in a new series called "What's cooking in the kitchen," which is featuring fall recipes: pea soup and mutton. Another recent post features a 1781 recipe for Oeufs en Caises, or Eggs in Paper-Cases. This post features a scan of the original recipe (which appeared in George Dalrymple's The Practice of Modern Cookery) as well as a modern adaptation of this recipe accompanied by a digital image. Other posts include an announcement for a beer history event called Ales Through the Ages and a post comparing yams to sweet potatoes by outlining the difference with recipes. It's only possible to go as far back as December 2017 by scrolling through blog posts but readers can check out previously posted recipes (which date back to 2011) in the recipe index. Recipes can be browsed by category, such as beverages, main dishes, desserts, or research and Foodways news, and there's also an alphabetical listing. Users should note that this blog will not load if visiting from a mobile device. [DS]

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Network Tools

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BitlBee
Science

BitlBee is an IRC to Instant Messaging gateway that allows users to access a variety of IM services from inside their IRC client. Currently, BitlBee includes built-in support for XMPP/Jabber (including Google Talk and Hipchat), ICQ, and Twitter. Plugins are available to add support for Facebook, Steam, Discord, and Mastodon. Users may opt to run BitlBee on their own computer or may use one of the servers listed in the public servers directory. After connecting their IRC client to an instance of BitlBee, the built-in help system will prompt users with instructions for adding their instant messaging accounts. Alternately, the BitlBee User Guide linked from the BitlBee front page also provides detailed setup instructions. After IM accounts are configured, users can chat with their IM contacts just as they would normally chat with another IRC user. BitlBee is included in the package repositories for most Linux distributions and in the ports collections for the major BSDs. macOS users can install it using MacPorts, Homebrew, or Nix. BitlBee is free software, distributed under the GNU General Public License, with source code available on the BitlBee website. [CRH]

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Twine
Language Arts

Twine is a program for building interactive, non-linear stories and games. It produces HTML documents that can be published nearly anywhere. While no coding is necessary to use Twine, technical users may choose to make use of CSS and Javascript if they wish. On the Twine wiki, users will find a number of tutorials, screencasts, and even comprehensive reference documentation. The Twine Cookbook provides recipes for accomplishing common tasks. A number of sample works created with Twine are listed on the front page along with links to the Interactive Fiction Database where curious users may find more. Twine can be used online in a browser or downloaded as a desktop application. Executables are available for Windows, macOS, and Linux. Twine is free software, distributed under the GNU General Public License, with source code available on GitHub. [CRH]

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LGBT Inclusive Curriculum
Social studies

Last featured in the 1-22-2016 Scout Report, GLSEN's inclusive curriculum offers useful resources for educators wishing to incorporate LGBT History Month into their classrooms.

The Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network (GLSEN) has assembled an excellent repository of resources for educators who would like to ensure that LGBT students see themselves reflected in classroom lessons. Here, readers will find articles about the now-classic children's book Heather Has Two Mommies, links to resources dedicated to celebrating LGBT history month, and an engaging section called Unheard Voices: Stories and Lessons for Grades 6-12. This last section includes brief audio interviews with LGBT activists, as well as classroom materials and thematic lessons. Elementary teachers will also find much to appreciate in the Ready, Set, Respect! Elementary Toolkit, which develops diversity-focused lessons that encourage elementary school students to be respectful and inclusive.

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In the News

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Historic American Retailer Sears Files For Bankruptcy

Sears, the Original Everything Store, Files for Bankruptcy
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/14/business/sears-bankruptcy-filing-chapter-11.html

Rise and fall of Chicago icon: 132 years of Sears
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-sears-company-history-timeline-htmlstory.html

A viral Twitter thread revealed Sears's history as disruptor of Jim Crow-era racism
https://qz.com/work/1425905/the-sears-mail-order-catalogue-subverted-jim-crow-era-racism

How Sears Industrialized, Suburbanized, and Fractured the American Economy
http://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/2017/07/20/sears-industrialized-suburbanized-fractured-american-economy/chronicles/who-we-were

The House that Came in the Mail
https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-house-that-came-in-the-mail

Sears Archives
http://www.searsarchives.com

This week Sears, one of America's original department stores, filed for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11. This move came after the company was unable to make a multi-million dollar debt payment earlier this month. Like many retailers, the Chicago-based Sears company has struggled financially as competitors such as Walmart and Amazon ascended in recent decades. Sears, which started out by selling watches to railroad agents in 1886 and grew into a massive and hugely influential mail-order catalog company, was once known for its business savvy and innovation. Among the thousands of products Sears has sold over its long history, perhaps one of the more surprising items to readers of today is are mail-order houses, commonly known as Sears kit homes, which the company sold from 1908 to 1940 under the Sears Modern Homes Program. Some of Sears's other business innovations over the years included launching Craftsman as its exclusive brand of tools, establishing the Allstate Insurance Co., moving its headquarters to the Sears Tower (now known as the Willis Tower), and starting the Discover credit card. However, the past decade or so, in particular, has brought more losses than wins for Sears, and the company has said it will close 142 of its stores as it attempts to recover from bankruptcy. [JDC]

The first article, written by Michael Corkery for The New York Times, explains the company's bankruptcy and its more recent economic history. At the second link, readers interested in a historical overview of Sears will find an illustrated timeline of the company's history as well as a two-minute video timeline, created respectively by Kori Rumore and Jemal R. Brinson for the Chicago Tribune. The third link leads to a Quartz article by Lila MacLellan discussing social media posts made by Louis Hyman, Professor of History at Cornell University, who pointed out that Sears's mail-order catalogs played an important role in disrupting Jim Crow-era discrimination against black customers by owners of brick-and-mortar stores. At the fourth link, readers will find an essay on Sears's influence on American consumer culture, written in 2017 for Zocalo Public Square by historian Vicki Howard, author of From Main Street to Mall: The Rise and Fall of the American Department Store. Readers interested in learning about Sears's kit homes will find a 99% Invisible podcast episode on that topic at the fifth link, accompanied by a written article and multiple images. Finally, the last link leads to the official Sears Archives, where interested readers will find a trove of narrative histories, chronologies, profiles of Sears's early leaders, company reports, and more.