The Scout Report -- Volume 25, Number 51

As the name suggests, Stated Clearly uses "short animations" and "neutral language" to expose "people from all walks of life to the simple beauty of science." Founded in 2012 by Jon Perry, "an artist and science advocate," this YouTube channel uses narrative and animations to demonstrate that "science is for everyone." The channel currently features more than 30 videos, most of which are under ten minutes long. The topics cover biology, chemistry, and genetics, and seek answer both big and small questions - from "What is life?" to "What is a molecule?" With over 274,000 subscribers, the channel's light-hearted but thorough tone appeals to a wide audience. Middle-school teachers may find the videos particularly useful, as they provide brief explanations and definitions of key scientific concepts to compliment lesson plans. For example, in "What Is an Atom and How Do We Know?" (one of the most popular videos on the channel) viewers are transported back to 400 BCE and taken on a journey to present day to show "how scientists went about figuring all this out." From discovery in Ancient Greece to modern microscopes, the video highlights the many experiments and breakthroughs that contributed to our modern understanding. Additionally, select videos are available in Spanish and Arabic, and Stated Clearly recently launched a side channel, Claramente Explicado, dedicated to Spanish translations of the videos. [EMB]

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As most people who spend a significant amount of time online can likely attest, there are many different text-based ways to express laughter on the internet. Ever wonder which type of laugh is the most common, or if your preferred internet laugh really means what you think it does? Laughing On Line, an interactive visual essay published by The Pudding in October 2019, addresses these questions by "tak[ing] a closer look at the usage, evolution, and perception of the digital laugh." In the first section that readers encounter, they are asked "How funny is it?" Those who wish to answer can choose from a variety of internet laughs such as "heh," "sksksk," and the classic "lol," and then use a slider to indicate what they are actually doing when they use that type of laugh. Readers can also view the total responses without answering. The next section graphs how the popularity of "lol" and several other laughs have changed over time since 2009, while the third section digs into the most popular laughs of 2019. Laughing On Line was created by Russell Goldenberg, Kishan Sheth, Caitlyn Ralph, and Jan Diehm. [JDC]

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Launched in 2016, the Journal of Stories in Science is a publishing platform and citizen science project managed by the Boston-based STEM Advocacy Institute. Among its goals, this unique project aims "to understand people's connections and journeys in science [and] to publish inspiring and thought-provoking stories in science from around the world." On the main page, visitors can scroll down to see the project's most recently published stories, as well as examples from North America, South America, Africa, Europe, and Asia. As of this write-up, the Stories in Science Project has published more than 160 accounts from contributors worldwide. In addition to browsing the stories from the main page, visitors can also use the Search page to filter the collection by fields such as gender, career stage, location, type of science, and more. This database of diverse stories may be of particular interest to STEM educators in search of authentic stories to offer their students about real people in science, the challenges they've encountered, and how they overcame those challenges. For those interested in writing about their own science story, the Submit page provides detailed guidelines and helpful advice. [JDC]

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Readers interested in learning about the stories and experiences of children who migrated to East London between 1930 and the present day may enjoy Child Migrant Stories. The project was launched in 2016 with inspiration from Dr. Eithne Nightingale's research on "life stories of departure, arrival, and settlement [in East London]." Through pictures, films, and biographies, this website explores the meaning of "home" and the multi-cultural narratives that shape it. Users may want to begin by navigating the East London Stories tab (under the Stories drop-down menu), which will bring them to a database of images. By clicking on each image, users can read the story of a child who migrated to Hackney, Tower Hamlets, or Newham, East London, sharing their origin and the reasons for their journey. The stories encapsulate a spectrum of feelings, from "poignant [to] powerful [to] sometimes very funny." The website also features several short films, which depict migrant experiences "through images, music, and art." Teachers may find the Learning Resources provided to accompany these films particularly useful, as they include film guides with context and key words. Finally, under Worldwide Stories users can explore tales of migration from other corners of the globe, from Norway to New Zealand. [EMB]

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Historians, educators, and students with an interest in Canadian and North American history should check out the vast collections of Canadiana Online. This still-growing digital archive contains more than 25 million pages representing over 200,000 publication titles, the majority of which were published prior to 1921. From the main page, visitors can easily search and explore Canadiana Online's three primary collections: Monographs, Serials (which includes newspapers, magazines, city directories, and more), and Government Publications. Each collection can be browsed and searched individually, and users can also conduct keyword searches of Canadiana Online's entire holdings at once via the large search bar at the top. Users can also refine their results by searching within fields (e.g. subjects and full text) and filter results by date range and language. While publications in English and French make up the largest portion of the collections, there are also items in many other languages such as German, Latin, and Cree. The entire site is also available in French. Canadiana Online launched in its current form in 2018, following the merger of Canadiana.org and the Canadian Research Knowledge Network, during which it absorbed the now-closed Early Canadiana Online collections. [JDC]

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From the Newberry Library in Chicago comes Creating Shakespeare, a digital exhibition that explores how Shakespeare created his body of work and how that corpus has lived on afterwards through numerous professionals whose work "creat[es Shakespeare] anew for each successive generation." The exhibition opens by examining the time period in which Shakespeare lived and worked, as well as the sources that inspired him, providing historical and cultural context for his creative life. Subsequent portions deal with Shakespeare's "afterlife," looking at the myriad ways his works have been printed, performed, studied, and reinvented in the four centuries following his death. Each part of Creating Shakespeare weaves together narrative explanations and numerous images from materials in the Newberry's archives, providing visitors with an engaging journey through Shakespeare's world and legacy. Buttons at the bottom of each page make it easy to go through the exhibition in order, and visitors who prefer to skip ahead can access the table of contents via the menu found in the upper left. Curated by Jill E. Gage and directed by Diane Dillon, this digital resource is based on a physical exhibition displayed at the Newberry in late 2016. [JDC]

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Casting Shakespeare provides users with "a visual deep dive into data from 1,000+ productions of 10 Shakespearean plays between 1900 and 2018." Designed and coded by Eric William Lin, this award-winning website (featured in the 12-14-18 issue of the Scout Report) uses engaging analytics to tell the story of "how age, gender, and race affect casting." With its interactive display and creative data mapping, users can click through graphs and captions that create a comprehensive catalog of the actors who have starred in various Shakespearean roles. In doing so, users can further explore how aspects of performers' identities have shaped the roles and interpretations of Shakespeare's work over time. After clicking through the various charts that demonstrate the "conscious and unconscious" bias that has shaped casting, the user's experience concludes with a note about the changing landscape towards "a more equitable equilibrium," and the work that has yet to be done. [EMB]

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Educators looking for contemporary approaches to teaching Shakespeare should check out this teacher's guide put together by the folks at EDSITEment. Among its many offerings, this guide provides visitors with links to resources demonstrating ways that Shakespeare's works have inspired or been combined with pop culture, as well as "how performers around the world have infused their respective local histories and cultures into [Shakespeare's] works." In the Teaching Shakespeare portion, readers will find a diverse collection of nine lesson plans for middle and high school students that instructors can adopt in their current form or use as jumping-off points. These lessons include comparisons of revenge ethics from two different historical cultures (using Hamlet and the Japanese Bunraku/Kabuki play Chushingura or the Treasury of the Loyal Retainers), a performance-based activity exploring the language of Othello, and a close reading examining the connections between Shakespeare and STEM subjects. The final section of this guide highlights projects funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) "that bring Shakespeare to all corners of the United States," as well as links to several approachable articles on Shakespeare from NEH publications. [JDC]

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Readers curious to learn about how theater professionals engage with Shakespeare's works and what keeps them coming back to the Bard should check out Such Stuff. This podcast is produced by Shakespeare's Globe in London, a renowned performing arts venue and a reconstruction of the original Globe Theater where many of Shakespeare's plays were first performed. Launched in 2018, Such Stuff is hosted by artistic director Michelle Terry, Dr Farah Karim-Cooper, and Imogen Greenberg. Listeners to Such Stuff's roughly 30-minute episodes are treated to discussions of "Shakespeare's transformative impact on the world around us," and taken behind the scenes into interviews with actors, directors, and playwrights exploring how the work of Shakespeare, as well as the modern theater world more broadly, reflect and engage with contemporary issues. At the link above, readers will find the podcast's more than two dozen episodes (as of this write-up) with the option to download transcripts. Those interested can also subscribe to Such Stuff via Podbean, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, and other platforms. [JDC]

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Nearly everyone has read Shakespeare at some point in their life, but few have had the chance to read the original editions. Shakespeare Census has compiled a database of 1,843 "extant copies of all editions of Shakespeare's works through 1700, excluding the folios." Readers may wish to begin by reading the About page for information on navigating the site. On the home page, visitors will find a list of all of the Bard's works. Clicking on a specific text will take you to a list of publications, organized by edition. This listing also gives the year of publication, the number of existent copies, and more. Selecting a particular edition opens a list of library locations of original texts, along with provenance and copy-specific notes on the texts (accessible by clicking on a library name). For organization purposes, each copy has "a unique identifier, the SC #." Readers interested in viewing digitized versions of the original texts can click the camera icon on the right side of each listing. One could spend hours simply browsing the enormous collection, but users interested in a specific text can use the Search function in the top right of the website. Shakespeare Census is a work in progress and hopes to continue expanding its collection as more texts are discovered. [AL]

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Lektor is a static website generator that splits the difference between dynamic content management systems like Drupal or WordPress and command-line generators like Jekyll and Hugo. With Lektor, users may run a program on their local computer that provides a dynamically editable copy of their website. As with WordPress or Drupal, pages can be created and modified through their browser. Information for all the created pages is stored in plain text files that can be tracked with revision control systems such as Git and Mercurial, or shared via cloud storage such as Dropbox. More technical users may also opt to edit these files directly, bypassing the web-based page editor. To publish a site, users either run "lektor build" or push the corresponding button in the web editor, then copy the resulting static site (with rsync, SFTP, or a similar utility) to their web server. Lektor is written in Python and provides a plugin system that users may employ to write their own custom functionality. The Plugins section of the project site contains a directory of available plugins. The Download page provides installation instructions for Windows, macOS, and Linux computers. [CRH]

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Overtone describes itself as an environment for creating "collaborative programmable music." It uses the Clojure programming language to control the SuperCollider audio synthesis software. The system is quite flexible and allows users to create software-defined music and sounds in a variety of ways. Compositions can be pre-programmed to simply play from beginning to end without user intervention. Overtone also allows users to create libraries of audio loops, which can be interactively invoked and even modified as they are playing. By writing code to specify the sound waves that should be generated, software-defined instruments can be created. Users can mix and match these and other approaches to taste, creating their own custom music creation environment. The Documentation section of the Overtone site contains installation instructions for Linux/BSD, macOS, and Windows computers. It also provides a brief tutorial and some reference information on the system. Additional examples along with more detailed reference material can be located on the Overtone Wiki. [CRH]

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We originally featured this resource in the 7-27-2018 Scout Report. Since then, they have redesigned their website and added new content as well as a Site Guide, making this impressive project well worth visiting again.

MIT Global Shakespeares: Video & Performance Archive offers online access to videos of Shakespeare's plays performed worldwide, both on stage and on film, as well as video interviews, written essays, and reviews of many productions. Viewers can browse this extensive collection by play, language, and geographic region. In addition, researchers can also conduct a keyword search. Full-length videos are available for many of the stage productions, and there are also short clips of film scenes. This collaborative project is directed and edited by Peter S. Donaldson, MIT's Ford International Professor in the Humanities, in collaboration with a team of regional editors at universities around the world. This archive is designed to "promote cross-cultural understanding and serve as a core resource for students, teachers, and researchers" and to celebrate Shakespeare as a truly global literary figure whose work can bridge cultures.

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