To see this and other fascinating stories, check out the Winter 2015 issue of YorkU Magazine.
Whether it’s finding healthy food on campus, channelling your inner Van Gogh or writing better term papers, there’s an app for that
In January 2011, the American Dialect Society (ADS) named “app” the word of the year for 2010, signifying that the term is trendy and growing rapidly in popularity. At the time, Ben Zimmer, chair of ADS and “On Language” columnist for the New York Times Magazine, said: “App has been around for ages, but with millions of dollars of marketing muscle behind the slogan ‘There’s an app for that,’ plus the arrival of ‘app stores’ for a wide spectrum of operating systems for phones and computers, app really exploded in the last 12 months. One of the most convincing arguments from the voting floor [for word of the year] was from a woman who said that even her grandmother had heard of it.”
An app, in case you haven’t heard, is a special type of software program that is typically used on a mobile device such as a smartphone or tablet computer. Mobile apps, as distinct from web-based apps, can be thought of as shortened or narrow software applications that perform just one function or provide a small bit of entertainment.
Since the word app is now familiar even to grandmothers, we thought it time to showcase a few apps of our own – some instruct, others entertain, and some help York students and staff to live healthier lives. In one way or another, apps can make life just a little bit better and more creative, which is, perhaps, the best use of all.
Write Away
By harnessing WebEval, students can gauge the legitimacy of online sources and get better essay results
Whether academia likes it or not, web-based research sites such as Wikipedia and others are here to stay. Not all online resources are created equal and, according to librarian Silvia Vong, who works at St. Michael’s College and recently completed her master of education at York, there are definitely some that can offer students – if not exhaustive depth and pinpoint accuracy of detail – at least a jumping off point or a broad overview of the topic at hand. On the job, Vong says she continually faces the conundrum of what online sources to point students to for their research and how to help them evaluate what they find there.
Vong has now developed an Android-only mobile app that will do just that. Called WebEval, it was developed with guidance from York Faculty of Education Dean and Professor Ron Owston. It offers students a checklist for evaluating websites, video tutorials on evaluating websites and Wikipedia entries, and links to library websites and contact information.
“My app gives users information on how to evaluate web resources,” says Vong. “As a librarian, I encounter students – especially first- and second-year students – who find it challenging when tasked with finding a credible web resource for their papers. While there are websites online that promote web
evaluation, I wanted to provide a mobile device-friendly version.
“Ultimately, this tool may also be useful for high-school students who require development of their information literacy skills, and for encouraging university-level students to think critically about web resources.” For more information or to download WebEval, visit goo.gl/Q9Dtb.
Food for Thought
Two York apps that will have you eating (and thinking) better
Sometimes a great idea seems so obvious in retrospect that you wonder why no one thought of it years ago. So it is with two new apps developed as part of a York research study aimed at student health. Thanks to York kinesiology and health science Professor Paul Ritvo – and a FedDev Ontario grant – student participants have the technology at their fingertips (via smartphones) to evaluate the nutritional health of what they eat on campus and to navigate their mood fluctuations.
Ritvo and computer science Professor Nick Cercone, with help from grad student Noah Wayne and postdoctoral students Mehdi Kargar and Xiandong An, developed the apps after talking with software executives and collaboratively musing on the addictive nature of the then-emerging smartphone technology. “We agreed that smartphones were ubiquitous and addictive among young adults,” says Ritvo. “And that included York students. So we saw York as the perfect testing ground for experiments with health-based apps.”
The healthy eating app rates food items’ healthiness based on calorie counts, but Ritvo says the app’s rating system will eventually contain other aspects like fat percentages. “Say you want a falafel,” says Ritvo. “The app will tell you who on campus sells them and who sells the healthiest. Calories are not the only basis for judging healthy food, but we chose them because excess weight is a major problem among students.”
The food app is designed to help people make the right choice at the moment when hunger strikes, since nutritionists know that is the critical point when making eating decisions. On the other side of the coin, “The mood app lets students assess mood changes on a 24-7 or weekly basis,” says Ritvo. “The best way to assess mood is during your daily life, not at weekly or monthly appointments. People who subscribe will access a health coach who can provide feedback and supportive communication.”
Ritvo says few people are in “good” or “bad” moods all the time; some conditions “boost” and some “bum.” “We want students to understand their mood ‘contour’ and use mood elevating methods when most useful. Health coaching is one method because when having a hard time, it’s good to know there’s someone to support and advise you.”
Tentacles
How a mind-bending installation at the intersection of art, public play and performance invites users to channel their inner artist
One of the most innovative ways apps are being used today is in the evolving field of public art, particularly in the realm of installations. Apps let viewers escape their usual passive role and become creators (or at least participants) in the very works they’re viewing or helping to create. Case in point is Michael Longford’s recent installation Tentacles that has been showcased at Toronto’s Nuit Blanche, New York City’s Museum of Modern Art and, most recently, at the invitation of the Canadian Consulate in Mumbai.
Tentacles is made up of two parts – an animated projection displaying responsive “avatars in a shared public space” and an app for iPhone and Android devices that turns your mobile device into a remote controller. Together, both features enable viewers or passersby to explore, improvise and play in real time in what Longford calls “a multi-user, location-based, game-like experience projected onto the side of a building, the wall of gallery or displayed on multiple screens.”
Players begin the game in the dark at the bottom of the ocean, each controlling a squid-like tentacle evolving out of the primordial ooze and hunting for life-sustaining microorganisms called “tenticules.” As each creature eats, it grows and is confronted with other growing creatures, representing other players that can steal its tenticules and deprive it of nutrients. Players must make a choice to either “share or scare” – that is, decide if they are out for themselves or willing to be part of the larger whole, making for a dynamic and philosophical public game.
The aim of the game is simple: Guide your tentacle on its journey through a dark, watery world, bumping into tenticules along the way. These tiny constellations will feed your tentacle, and the more tenticules you eat, the bigger you get. When you quit the app, your tentacle will (happily) explode into more tenticules, feeding the world you’ve left behind.
The artistic team behind Tentacles is made up of Longford and new media artists Rob King and Geoffrey Shea sharing the role of creative lead, along with a development team drawn from students in York’s Mobile Media Lab and the Mobile Experience Lab at OCAD. The team set out to create an ambient play environment for public space. Tentacles, Longford says, was intended to be always “on” – something to be discovered within the city, without a beginning or an end, where participants can casually join in or leave.
Longford is an associate professor in the Digital Media program at York University, and his creative and research interests reside in the areas of graphic design, photography, image culture, web design, networks, database and interaction design for wireless networks, sensors and mobile phones. He maintains that large public displays are transforming the visual landscape of our cities. The proliferation of screens with moving images, animated text and videos are everywhere – from public squares to public transit and roadside billboards – and are increasingly interactive. For more information, visit Tentacles.ca.