Mapping Modes
Annotated photographs are marked up to show the ways multiple modes interact in an activity to maintain or challenge group boundaries, expected practices, and identity norms. In the example of iPad play above, shared gaze produces a collective space where children are working together. But the modes--close proximity, touch on the screen, and physical layout (right-side up orientation of the iPad)--mark the child in the dragon costume as the technology user and the other child as observer.
Programs such as Microsoft Word or PowerPoint, Apple Preview, Google Documents, among others, will allow you to mark up a photo to add shapes, arrows, or boundaries that make visible the social effects of modes such as movement, gaze, physical layout, and so on. Additionally, video analysis software will not only display modes but also allow you to organize and analyze the photos according to the coded markings.
Creating Modal Maps
Mark up videos or screenshots to illustrate how modes are shaping the interactions:
1. It is quite easy to create modal maps like the examples in chapter 5 to track how particular modes are shaping interactions. You can mark up screenshots (stills of video clips) to map modes and actions using the simple paint tools available in word processing or photo editing programs. Take screenshots of moments in your video by using screen capture tools on your computer, (e.g., pause the video and create a screen capture by simultaneously pressing three keys—command/shift/3—on a Mac computer or by pressing the Windows logo key and the PrtSc [print screen] key on a PC).
2. Mark up screenshots with drawing tools using a paint program features in word processing or presentation software on a computer or by using the tools on Google Drawings. On mobile devices, it’s even simpler to annotate screenshots through photo mark-up tools embedded in phone or tablet operating systems (e.g., Apple’s Markup tool in Photos) or through the wide and constantly evolving range of photo-editing apps (e.g., Annotable, Screen Master).
3. Video analysis research software turns annotation objects into coded data, that is markup arrows, shapes, or regions on a screenshot can be tagged with codes so that a images can be sorted by codes. In the following walkthrough, The Mapping Modes on a Still Photo, I demonstrate how to use annotation tools in Transana, a video analysis research software. Using research software to annotate allows you to attach codes to the graphic elements you add to your photo, turning a marked-up image into coded data, whether a photograph or a screenshot captured from a video.
3. Using video-editing software, it’s possible to annotate video clips with animated icons that move with subjects in the video (e.g., arrows to depict the direction of gaze, ovals to depict groups) using professional-grade video-editing programs (such as Adobe’s After Effects) that allow users to draw or annotate on moving objects within a video. At the time of this writing, marking up video with motion graphics that follow objects onscreen must be done manually, similar to frame-by-frame animation, which is quite time-consuming.
4. However, simple and affordable iOS apps (e.g., MovieMarkup, Write-On Video) are now emerging that enable users to annotate video by penciling in a static annotation on video using a tablet and an e-pencil. With these apps, it’s possible to draw words or shapes on a video and embed the images in a particular segment in a video’s timeline.