Using Twine - Week 2

Twee/Twine is an open source software that is used to make branching stories which means that there will be multiple possible paths through any story. Twine stories are an intuitive and easy way to make assignments and we thought it would be a good idea to use that to supplement the voice recognition software.

Twine Stories create stories with multiple possible branching scenarios through them. These stories can be used as an engaging tutorial to help students with new technologies. The flexibility of Twine allows integration of HTML, CSS and JavaScript easily into the stories. This will allow the integration of the voice recorder and feedback systems directly into the story. So, when the user is given a choice in the story, instead of clicking an option, the user will use their voice to pick an option. This will help them progress in their assignment and at the same time give feedback to the underlying systems allowing an appropriate response to be given for the user’s improvement or motivation.

When a Twine story is published to a file, that file doesn’t contain the entire Twine editor as it would take up excess space. Instead each story is bound to a particular format. There are multiple types of formats in Twine each one specific to a what one needs from the coding aspect. The default format is Harlowe. Its very easy to learn and makes adding interaction to stories simple. The other one is Snowman which is the one I have used to make the tutorials. While Harlowe is flexible, I needed to be able to easily integrate JavaScript for the voice recorder and Snowman allows this, creating a highly customizable user experience.

Initially, we plan to use the Accuracy Reviewal of Wikipedia Foundation’s application to make the first tutorials. These initial tutorials will give the necessary initial prompts which will be used. These prompts will need to have enough recordings to achieve sufficient accuracy for voice recognition. These recording will be obtained through the Amazon Mechanical Turk system where the prompts will be recorded by people(‘turkeys’) who will record themselves reading the prompt for a sum of money.

These tutorial will have been made in accordance with Wikipedia’s guidelines : Neutral Point of View, Verifiability, Citing Sources, Identifying Reliable Sources, Biographies of Living Persons, No Original Research.

To find the tutorials go to Twine Stories