Link #1
TASK 4: Manual Scripts and Potato Printing by Angela Jarvis
Link: https://blogs.ubc.ca/ajarvisetec540/2025/09/26/task-4-manual-scripts-and-potato-printing/
I’m linking to Angela Jarvis’s hands-on take on Task 4. She carved two potato stamps with her son, printed a five-letter name twice, and reflected on the very physical parts of the process (mirroring errors, spacing, smudging, time). It’s a thoughtful counterpoint to my choice to do Option 1 (talk-to-text), where I spoke for five minutes into Speechnotes and then analyzed the messy transcript.
This pairing interests me because we landed on opposite ends of the spectrum (from hands-on to automated). I offloaded the mechanics to software and wrestled with run-ons and mishears; she embraced the mechanics and wrestled with reversal, uneven pressure, and variability.
A few quick reflections:
- Tools & affordances:
Her “toolchain” (paring knife/potato/paint/paper) exposes every physical decision. My chain (mic/Speechnotes/auto-punctuation) hides the physicality but exposes every guess the model makes. Her workflow leans on careful hands; mine leans on fast capture. - What each one makes obvious:
In her prints, the backwards J/E/S, spacing, and smudges show up right away in the shapes. In my transcript, the issues show up in the words. Things like run-ons, odd mishears like “five homeless,” and missing punctuation. Both take work to fix: hers in re-carving/re-inking, mine in editing/re-punctuating. - Skills each approach leans on:
Her version depends on hands-on making (pressure, orientation, getting two copies to match), whereas mine depends on clean-up (breaking up sentences, fixing punctuation, trimming filler). Different skills, same goal: something someone else can read.
Where theory shows up:
- Dobson & Willinsky (2009) – Digital work extends print. Speechnotes gave me a draft, but I still needed print conventions to make it readable.
- Ong (1982) – Speech habits (repetition, fillers, loose syntax) don’t map neatly to writing without mediation.
- McLuhan (1967) – Her kitchen table becomes a press; my phone becomes a scribe. Learning moves beyond the classroom.
- Postman (1992) – Mechanization reorganizes our effort: I traded craft time for revision time; she traded revision time for craft time.
Do I regret choosing Option 1?
No. But her piece reminded me what we lose when we skip the friction of making. I gained speed and voice capture; she gained a feel for consistency, legibility, and learning from errors. If I re-ran the task, I’d add one small manual step (like a manual “red ink” edit pass I could photograph and upload) to bring some of that craft back into view.
Accessibility note:
- For her post: add alt text like “Two potato-stamp prints of the name; left print denser and smudged, right print lighter with wider letter spacing.”
- For mine: I include the full transcript and flag the transcription anomalies for clarity.
References
Dobson, T., & Willinsky, J. (2009). Digital literacy. In D. R. Olson & N. Torrance (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of literacy (pp. 286–312). Cambridge University Press.
McLuhan, M. (1967). Classrooms without walls. In E. Carpenter & M. McLuhan (Eds.), Explorations 7 (pp. 119–123). Dial Press.
Ong, W. J. (1982). Orality and literacy. Methuen.
Postman, N. (1992). Technopoly: The surrender of culture to technology. Knopf Doubleday.
Link #2
TASK 7 Mode-bending “Guess What’s in My Bag” by Brie Limb Link: https://blogs.ubc.ca/etec540bl/2025/10/19/task-7-mode-bending/
I’m linking to Brie Limb’s audio-first “guessing game,” which asks the listener to identify backpack items from sound cues (zippers, pen clicks, laptop keys). It’s simple, playful, and deliberately puts listening at the centre.
This connects neatly to my ASMR piece: Keys, Phone, Headphones. However, our approaches diverge in productive ways. My track is a guided soundscape. Rhythm and texture carry the meaning; whereas, Brie’s makes the listener do interpretive work. I’m aiming for immersion; she’s aiming for inference.
A few quick reflections:
- Tools and affordances: Brie likely edited in a lightweight video tool (captions + minimal visuals), which supports quick prompting and accessibility. I worked in Garage Band (an audio editor) for finer control over volume envelopes, EQ, and pacing. Different tools, different literacies: hers privileges participation and clarity; mine emphasizes timbre and flow.
- Literacies at play: Both of us are abandoning print. Brie’s piece invites the audience to “read with their ears,” which lines up with the New London Group’s (1996) multiliteracies, especially the aural mode. My piece leans into Ong’s (1982) secondary orality (intimacy, presence, cadence) while keeping text nearby via transcript.
- Where theory shows up:
- Dobson & Willinsky (2009): Digital literacy extends print; captions (hers) and transcripts (mine) sit alongside non-print modes rather than replacing them.
- McLuhan (1967): Phones/headphones become classrooms without walls; both pieces are designed to be worn and heard, not just read.
- Postman (1992): The phone segment in my piece nods to how tech reorganizes daily life (payment, maps, messages). Brie’s guessing game rides that same reorganization by foregrounding listening as a legitimate literacy practice.
- Course design/architecture: The prompt to change semiotic mode pushed both of us away from the comfort of text. I responded with an atmosphere; Brie responded with a game. I like how her design could transfer directly to my Adult Ed context for EAL/ELL listening as meaning-making, not just comprehension checking.
- Subjective feedback: I would have liked to see the original photograph before the audio began. In my opinion, having the items in her bag on display, before the game started, would have helped focus more on what the sound could be. Additionally, because there is only one photo during the game, against which the learner is meant to compare their results, I found the numbers on the photo at the end to be quite large. Smaller ones would have been less obstructive to the items in the photo.
Accessibility note: My track keeps levels soft and steady (no jump scares) and includes a full transcript. Brie’s version uses short captions and controlled volumes. Between the two, there are multiple entry points without diluting the focus on sound.
References
Dobson, T., & Willinsky, J. (2009). Digital literacy. In D. R. Olson & N. Torrance (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of literacy (pp. 286–312). Cambridge University Press.
McLuhan, M. (1967). Classrooms without walls. In E. Carpenter & M. McLuhan (Eds.), Explorations 7 (pp. 119–123). Dial Press.
New London Group. (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review, 66(1), 60–92.
Ong, W. J. (1982). Orality and literacy. Methuen.
Postman, N. (1992). Technopoly: The surrender of culture to technology. Knopf Doubleday.
Link #3
Task 6: “My Film Review in Emojis”
By: Manouchehr
I’m linking to this reflection on translating a movie into emojis. Manouchehr chose a film and rebuilt the plot as emoji strings, then wrote about where the approach worked and where it ran out of road. What I appreciated most was the idea that a single icon can sometimes carry a whole word or feeling, but more often you need a small chain to suggest an idea, like a “teacher guiding a student,” for example. Titles turned out to be harder than scenes, and concrete action was easier than abstraction. That checks out. Emojis are fast and expressive, but they’re also a limited palette; meaning travels as far as your symbols (and your reader’s decoding) can take it…which is probably why I got so frustrated that they never expressly said what the movie title was. I just couldn’t seem to figure it out on my own.
But hey, who am I to judge? I didn’t complete this task myself, which is why I wanted to see how someone else pulled it off. I’m using this link to stay faithful to the assignment while reflecting on what I might have learned by doing it. Reading the post, I kept thinking about my own pattern this term: I gravitate to tools that compress time (talk-to-text, transcripts, quick audio edits). Emoji translation inverts that. It slows you down and forces decisions like which tiny picture stands in for which idea, and in what order? Manouchehr point that “too few emojis and you lose detail; too many and it clutters”, which felt familiar to my Speechnotes cleanup work, just in a different medium. In one case I’m pruning words and punctuation; in the other, I’d be pruning little pictures.
There’s also a quiet tools story here. If I’d done it, I probably would have drafted in Notes or Docs to experiment with sequences and then posted with a short legend beneath each line. Different authoring choices, different reading experiences: theirs invites scanning and inference; mine would likely anchor each sequence with a quick caption to reduce guesswork. That tension speed versus clarity and compression versus nuance, has been a constant for me throughout my time here in ETEC 540.
On the theory side, we’ve been talking about how our “codes” for meaning are changing. Luke (2003) reminds us that digital communication mixes modes; this task is exactly that, a shifting from words to little icons. Hayles (2003) also notes that the medium shapes what’s possible; with emojis, the limited set quietly decides which parts of the story you can show. I don’t see emojis replacing writing at all. They sit alongside it, and they work best with a bit of text to support them.
Do I want to circle back and try this task now? Yes. I’d pick a film with strong, concrete scenes, set a tiny emoji palette up front, and add one-sentence captions for anything that might be read three ways. I’d also flag where the system breaks. How do you express things like irony, subplots, and cultural references that a generic icon can’t carry? Accessibility matters here too: screen readers voice emoji names, which can get noisy, so I’d include those short captions to keep it readable for everyone.
In short, this post earns its place on my linking page because it pushes on the same question I’ve been working through all term: what changes when we swap the code we write with? Moving from text to icons doesn’t just decorate a story, it rewires how the story is built, shared, and understood.
References
Hayles, N. K. (2003). Deeper into the Machine: The Future of Electronic Literature. Culture Machine, 5.
Luke, C. (2003). Pedagogy, connectivity, multimodality, and interdisciplinarity. Reading Research Quarterly, 38(3), 397–403.
Link #4
Task 7: Mode-Bending by Jonathan Dueck
Link: https://blogs.ubc.ca/jduecketec540/task-7/
I’m linking to Jonathan’s audio re-make of What’s in your bag. He shifted the original visual task into the aural mode with ambient sounds, fragments and pauses so the listener has to build the story from tone and rhythm rather than images. He frames this as design work (New London Group, 1996) and as part of the ongoing expansion of literacy practices (Dobson & Willinsky, 2009).
I did this task in a similar way, but with a different mix of sounds. I added my own voice to give context and a bit of music at the end to put the listener in my shoes as I walked outside. His piece leans into ambiguity; mine leans into guidance. That’s the main difference in our listener experience. With his version, I enjoyed the puzzle of identifying sources, but I sometimes wanted more clues about where the sounds were happening. In my version, narration and music did some of that scene-setting so the listener didn’t have to work as hard to place each sound.
Our tools nudged us in these directions. We both used audio editors, but he treated everyday sounds as the primary “available designs,” while I layered in voiceover and music to scaffold the meaning. His approach privileges close listening and inference. Mine privileges flow and orientation. Both choices make sense for the prompt to switch modes. We both we moved away from images and text, but in different ways.
We each leaned into different skills. Jonathan’s piece asks the listener to figure things out from sound alone (patterns, textures, timing) and it’s okay if some parts stay uncertain. Mine gives a bit of help through voice and music, so there’s less guessing. Neither of us is trying to replace writing; we’re adding to it. That fits Dobson & Willinsky’s point about digital literacies extending print. And the New London Group shows up in our process too: picking which sounds matter, how to order them, and how a listener will move through time instead of a page.
I also appreciated Jonathan’s classroom note. When he played the piece for his middle-school students, the ambiguity actually drew them in: they started guessing together and co-constructing meaning. That aligns with the idea of literacy as social and situated. It also reminded me that “less context” can be a feature if the goal is discussion and interpretation. If I re-did mine for a class, I might try two cuts: one like my current version with narration, and one more like his (no voiceover, just sound) then have learners compare how their understanding changes.
Why does this link belongs on my page? I found it interesting that we both solved the same problem with two similar but different aural designs. His shows what you gain when you trust the listener to infer; mine shows what you gain when you layer context. Together they make the case for thinking about design choices as not just content, but as strong examples of “writing with sound.”
Accessibility note: I provided a full transcript and short content note (steady levels, no sudden loud sounds). For Jonathan’s piece, a brief caption or timestamped cue sheet would help screen-reader users and anyone who benefits from text supports.
References
Dobson, T., & Willinsky, J. (2009). Digital literacy. In D. R. Olson & N. Torrance (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of literacy (pp. 286–312). Cambridge University Press.
New London Group. (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review, 66(1), 60–92.
Link #5
Task 4: Manual Scripts and Potato Printing by Ice8499
Reading Ice’s reflection felt like looking at the same assignment through a totally different lens. We were both responding to the exact same prompt, but our minds clearly wandered in different directions. I ended up talking about my own history with handwriting: growing up before computers, my messy penmanship, and how my son’s generation barely uses cursive at all. Ice, meanwhile, connected their experience to the bigger historical shifts we’ve explored throughout the course, like scroll to codex, Gutenberg, mechanization and Bolter’s remediation. Same task, but two totally different ways of making sense of it.
Their moment with the correction tape really made me smile. I mentioned in my piece that don’t even own white-out anymore, so my mistakes live on the page, unapologetically. They treated their taped-over errors, pressure marks and uneven strokes as part of a longer story about writing technologies. I noticed the same things, but in a more personal way, like how surprised I was to be hesitating over spelling now that I rely so heavily on autocorrect. It was neat to see how our observations overlapped but our interpretations diverged.
What we do share is that handwriting slowed both of us down, but the meaning we pulled from that slowdown was different. For them, it connected to history and theory; for me, it opened up memories and questions about how writing habits change across generations. Linking our pieces here feels natural because it shows exactly what this assignment is trying to highlight: how the same activity can spark totally different reflections depending on the person holding the pen.
References
Bolter, J. D. (2001). Writing space: Computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print (2nd ed). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
From Scroll to Codex: ETEC_V 540 64A 2025W1 Text Technologies: The Changing Spaces of Reading and Writing. (2025). University of British Columbia.
Innis, H. (2007). Empire and communications. Dundurn Press.
Mechanization: Before and After: ETEC_V 540 64A 2025W1 Text Technologies: The Changing Spaces of Reading and Writing. (2025). University of British Columbia.
Economies of Writing -or- Writing About Writing: ETEC_V 540 64A 2025W1 Text Technologies: The Changing Spaces of Reading and Writing. (2025). University of British Columbia.