Monthly Archives: May 2020

Experiences of online learning

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I’ve observed/experienced 2 things in my online classes, perhaps 3; maybe 4:

1. without exception, when  my classes began 3 weeks ago, students meeting synchronously, in the great majority, used both audio and video; that has almost 100% changed by this week–almost no one uses video, including posting a photo; attendees are now faceless;

2. very few people post to chat and there seems to be significant reluctance to speak out and formerly frequent public “across the room” greetings/shout outs have disappeared;

3. on rare occasion, someone has left their mic on, and their home sounds have penetrated the learning environment. When this occurred when all the videos were on, I experienced a sense of disruption, but shrugged it off. Today, when it happened, and 100% of videos were off, I was quite smitten, listening to the soft murmurings of someone talking–a rather voyeuristic activity on my part, invited by an accident on theirs . . . as the prof’s voice droned in the background. I’m having some trouble articulating the experience, but the prof’s voice went to the background, like anchoring beat, while the (female) voice was foregrounded and rawer, more insistent, yet softer and more melodic–crooning is the word that comes to mind. I felt quite close to this unknown disruptor and was struck at the emotive qualities those few seconds aroused in me, even while I could not distinguish any sense from the sounds. Not sure what it means to online course design, but I thought of it as a way to build community . . . how could allowing one’s home to impinge on the learning environment . . . could that bridge/create/contribute to community? And what does turning the video off suggest? refusal of the community?

4. Most of my online classes have some form of meet up–audio, video, discussions, groups, etc. Only one (actually, 3, but . .. ) has only intermittent, occasional meets throughout the term. The longer I do not meet with this group (and the others) the less connected I feel to the group (community) and to the course of study. Not sure what that means, either . . .

My new dark Jack Jack . . .

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Keating_Speech to text optional task

So since this is an optional task, I have decided to add a layer of play to it. My computer is getting old; the ‘r,’ ‘s,’ ‘e’ and ‘n’ keys work at whim. That can be anticipated, of course, and caught and corrected. What often slips by, though, is how my cursor randomly jumps. So I can be happily writing along, and suddenly my cursor will decide to jump up and back a line or three. Between these two malfunctions, I can occasionally get some pretty wild results. So I am going to write for a bit, without correcting for either shortcoming as I explain the shortcomings of the speech to text task I just completed. Here goes.

  1. How does the text deviate from conventions of written English?

The text has no punctuation, but I can say what punctuation I want; e.g., period, comma, tc., and the application, text dit, will insert it for me.

  1. What is “wrong” in the text? What is “right”?

Th txt suffes from significant errors in grammar, splling and syntax, to say th least . . . lol . . . not to point finges . . . hahahahaha.

  1. What are the most common “mistakes” in the text and why do you consider them “mistakes”?

I don’t rally conside th anomalies in the text, mistakes. I realiz as I am writing that I have seen text that deviated this far from standard nglish befoe: my students! As I write this material, I am wondering how thy manage to leave out the lettes they do—mine a5e due to an aging machine, but their errors are mistakes of misunderstanding or pehaps just iattention. Still, I cannot help but notice the similiarities in my errors and those of my students who struggle in English.

I suppose one error that I might consider is the homonym . . . mail for male; weather for whether.

One error the speech dito5 kept making was to tu5 h wod, dog, into, dark. Where it occurs, though, made me laugh as I read it; I some crazy way it made sense . . . as this txt may b makig crazy sense to you, as you read it.

  1. What if you had “scripted” the story? What difference might that have made?

I don’t think I could’ve scripted a story this creative, but I am sure I would never allow myslf to make this many errors in th mechanics of written speech. It seems quite funny to me and I find myself laughing as I read, my dark Jack Jack . . . I don’t know why the word repeatd, but that dog is a “JackJack” and I may call him that from now on.

Some expressions wer quite beautiful and unxpctdly fitting, such as “hope broken” whe I’d said “heart broken” but it means the sam thig; in fact, I love th xpression “hope broken” . . . ad fid it quite touching . . .

  1. In what ways does oral storytelling differ from written storytelling?

Well, the composition was quicker, lacking in detail, and not as articulate, perhaps, errors otwithstandig. The lack of punctuation—an error on my part—helps emphasize the oral natue of the text—running on, as it does, without pause.

This was an intestig exe5cise and one I’ll do with my students.

 

My new dark Jack Jack

I want to tell you about my new dark Jack Jack is an American people he was in a hoarding situation and hadn’t start he was rescued by the SPCA and I adopted him just before everything will shut down independent panda I had wondered about getting a dog that was still quite hope broken over the last of my 17 year plus companion Molly who died last summer so didn’t didn’t know if I had hoped to take on a new dark but as a pitbull Jack didn’t stand much chance of being adopted is also mail and American peoples mil died aggressive Home dogs to handle the weather went there at the dog that I had to intended to adopt was gone and is that sometime speaking to the staff about this 12 month old pop home with me he has shield to my heart something I had not expected IAM slow to make attachments I always have them so I would not say that I love Jack but I can see that given time given time we will become meets he has so many and during qualities she is extremely affectionate something my Jack Russell Teletech my Jack Russell terrier never was she loves to sleep on top of me she comes over it speaks to me the high pitched bark that The lies the fantastic size strength and speed of this dog and he’s always delighted to play sometimes too much so I am glad that I was typed into getting this dog as much trouble as years and for the number of things he’s tutor he’s helped me to remember why I love animals as much as they do that’s it

Well, damn, and didn’t my cursor not jump even once!