Category Archives: Linking Assignments

Amy – Emoji Story

Dana – Emoji Story 

Dana and I had similar thoughts about the emoji story task and what its implications are in terms of multimodality. Dana’s overall focus was on the challenges that educators face in incorporating new forms of media into the classroom. She noted that many educators are biased towards traditional printed works (Kress, 2005), and that there is a lack of funding for media literacy programs, but she also suggests that providing students with more authentic texts, such as social media posts and online articles, can help students engage with new forms of media in a supportive and controlled environment. I really liked the task that Dana presented her students with to represent their feelings with emojis. She is so right that “a picture is worth a thousand words”, particularly when it comes to emotion. Her example of a student activity coupled with my experience with translating hypertext using emojis has encouraged me to try to find a way to incorporate more visual projects into my highschool classroom 

I found that translating text into visuals and vice versa allowed me to make new connections and meanings in the story that may have otherwise been overlooked, and would like to give my students that same opportunity. 

Overall, both my reflection and Dan’s emphasize the importance of adapting to new forms of media, whether as an educator or as a consumer of media. 

References

Kress, G. (2005), Gains and losses: New forms of texts, knowledge, and learning. Computers and Composition, 2(1), 5-22.

Amy – What’s in my bag?

Nicole – Hockey & Hemorrhoids 

The title of this task is reminiscent of a collection of short stories by Tim O’Brien called “The Things They Carried”. This collection centres on a platoon of soldiers in the Vietnam war, and the title refers to everything the soldiers carried as they marched through Vietnam, both physical items and intangible feelings. It reminds us that the things we carry with us are symbolic and carry ‘weight’ both physically and emotionally in our lives.

With that said, I feel that this task was a great way of getting to know one another. I particularly liked Nicole’s response to the task because the items found in her hockey bag really pointed to a larger narrative of who she is as a person, and what she values in her life. It was obvious that being a mom is a very important part of who she is as a person, and the items in her hockey mom bag also showed what kind of a mom she is – a very prepared and organized one!

I appreciated that she noted her bag would have looked very different before she became a mom, and I would imagine something a lot more like mine. My bag communicates the story of someone who is very much not a mom, to the point that I can’t even carry a wallet around without losing it! From the perspective of an archeologist, I wonder if one found the contents of both of our ‘bags’ if they would imagine Nicole and I as being a part of the same cohort in some aspect of our lives. Though the things in our bags point to the same time period, they point to different lifestyles which might not be perceived to overlap.

References

O’Brien, T. (2009). The things they carried. Houghton Mifflin (Trade).

For this linking task, I have noted some similarities and differences between the processes for the curation of the Golden Record between Lisa Burnette and myself.

Amy – Golden Record Curation 

Lisa – Golden Record Curation 

The first thing that I noticed when taking a look at Lisa’s curated record, was that I liked her choice of songs. After reading her reasoning for having selected those songs, I realized our processes were completely different. My process was three fold, in choosing a vast representation of songs from around the world, different time periods that the songs represented, and lastly the range of human emotion present in the songs. Lisa, on the other hand, simply chose the songs that were most appealing to her. That said, if I had followed the same method as her I would have chosen many of the same songs! I believe that having the same taste in music as someone else is one of the great simple pleasures in life, so maybe Lisa and I should get together to listen to some tunes. 

I liked that Lisa listened to each of the songs in their entirety (admittedly not something I did myself), because it would give a much better picture as to what each of the songs were about than simply listening to Taylor’s (2019) Podcast episode on the album. It is amazing to me how much went into the curation of the record and how many songs its curators would have had to listen to in their entirety to bring the record to completion. Lisa’s note that John Lennon was originally approached to curate the album (Ferris, 2017)  is very interesting, and in my mind would have completely changed the outcome of the record. Same as it would have been completely different if any of us in this ETEC 540 class would have been given the reins. 

Ultimately I feel as though music is such a personal experience that the experience of selecting, making, and listening to music is such a different experience for everyone, as exemplified by this task. I would love to hear what the aliens have to say about the record if they ever get their hands on it. 

References

Ferris, T. (2017, August 20). How the Voyager Golden Record Was Made. The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/voyager-golden-record-40th-anniversary-timothy-ferris

Taylor, D. (Host). (2019, April). Voyager golden record [Audio podcast episode]. In Twenty thousand hertz. Defacto Sound.

For this linking task, I have made connections between my version, and Sonia Virk’s version of the task ‘Speculative Futures’

Amy – Speculative Futures 

Sonia – Speculative Futures

This task was my favourite of the course, one that allowed for creativity based on a simple prompt, and allowed me to connect content from the course to something that I am passionate about; music. 

I decided to link my experience with the speculative future with Sonia Virk’s task because there are both many similarities and many differences to consider between the two tasks. Firstly, both scenarios describe a world that has been transformed by technology and detail the impacts that it has made on society. In both cases, a new technology has been introduced that has the potential to change the lives of individuals in a significant way. In both scenarios, there is a sense of hope and optimism that comes with the introduction of this new technology, and it is seen as a way to bridge the gap between people and bring them together. In this way, I think that Sonia and I think similarly, in that we both interpret a complete breakdown of society as an opportunity for things to begin anew to build something positive, and potentially better than what existed before. 

On the other hand, there are also some key differences that I noted between Sonia’s scenario and my own. My scenario describes a society that has become deeply divided, and people have become cynical and hostile towards each other. In contrast, Sonia’s scenario describes a world where people have greater access to healthcare information and services, which has led to improvements in the overall health of the population. In my scenario, the focus is on the power of music to bring people together, while in Sonia’s scenario, the focus is on the power of technology and AI to improve people’s lives.

Overall, both scenarios highlight the potential of technology to change the world in positive ways. Whether it is through the power of music or the use of AI in healthcare, technology has the ability to bridge gaps between people and improve the quality of life for many.