Here we are- the final task for ETEC540. What an interesting journey it’s been. I’m quite sad that this will be the final weekly task but I hope you will enjoy my final contribution. For my speculative futures narratives, I created a Visual story/ game in Twine called The Interview.

There will be at least one character (maybe two depending on how you look at it) that we are all familiar with and that I don’t think needs much of a bio although we do get glimpses into how their life has changed over time. I don’t want to give too much away! The other characters are purely fictional but represent students like us that participated in this course, we get to catch up with them much later in life. To access the story/ game please click on The Interview.

Hmmm… so a little context for the micro-blog above. I was scheduled to get married at the start of April. Alas, that had to be cancelled or hopefully only postponed as a result of the Covid pandemic. In the last few weeks, my partner and I discussed skipping the actual celebrations and just getting the paper work done. This is thus an imaginary message to my parents telling them that I’m sorry that they will miss the hypothetical day (they are not allowed to travel). I didn’t actually intend for the message to be this one though, I really wanted to start by saying that, “this is not my idea of a holiday” but the word holiday didn’t appear as an option with the predictive text. I then just went with the word “formal” and this is the message that flowed out of that initial choice. Even before beginning the task, I was thinking of how different this task might be to the speech to text and manual script tasks. For some reason, I kept on circling back to the idea of how much writing has changed over the centuries. More about that later though…

The entire micro-blog seems clunky in the way it was put together with words being used rather oddly and sentence construction also seeming strange. That is entirely due to the silly options the predictive text offers at times. Just take a look at the screenshot below… I live in South Africa, why on earth would I want to reference Washington? It doesn’t even make any sense in terms of the sentences already constructed in the message.

The micro-blog reads a bit like as if someone with a rather basic grasp of English wrote this message and as such I can’t say I’ve seen similar statements in any other textual products that would be considered mainstream media or even scholarly. It did remind me of the spam emails I get informing me of the millions I’ve inherited but this is probably not the place to get into that. The text is different in several ways from how I would have normally expressed myself, for one- I wouldn’t have typed this message in English but would have used my first language. On that point, I was super excited to see one or two words from my mother tongue be included in the predictive text options. It’s rather funny to think I would go “weekend” after just saying sorry for something in this text. Again, this was a rather silly option provided by the algorithm given the sentences already constructed. Can the algorithm not recognize the contexts in which certain words might be used?

Enough about the message here though and back to considering the changing landscape of written text through the use of algorithms. Where literacy was once a domain for only a privileged few, this kind of predictive text algorithm almost allows anyone to assemble a semi-coherent message in a language they might not even know. To test this theory, I conducted a little experiment. I removed the English keyboard on my phone, added an Italian keyboard and went back to my messaging app and repeated our micro-blog task. This time without knowing what the words were that I was picking. Here is the translated result. Can I declare myself fluent in Italian now? 😀

Probably not… But I do wonder about what affordances are lost when the user has to input less and less of their own thoughts and creativity in the message they are constructing. Isn’t that something that many of us agreed upon when we reflected on the speech to text task- that there was more thought that went into the story and words we wanted to weave together in our stories if we were given the chance to type it vs. just narrating it? Is this a similar situation for predictive text? Not quite, but there does seem to be a similar feeling attached to making use of predictive text. I did feel as if I lost a little of my own voice in this message, I felt limited by the technology in what I wanted to say and how I wanted to express myself.

I don’t like the idea that an algorithm is deciding for me what the message is I am constructing. It feels controlling and steals from me the opportunity to be an individual. Someone somewhere has decided for me that I should be using the word “Washington” in my messages where I probably have only used it a handful of times in my entire life. Where are the words that I would have liked to use? The ones I love and regularly make use of… Until algorithms can be more ethical and less biased towards further privileging those part of the societies that have constructed them will they be of little use to help contribute towards a more equitable society or education system. Their biases (small and large) robs us of our individuality and tries to conform us to some inputted standard. The algorithms are of course not to blame, it is the designers of those algorithms and the data used to construct their biases that reflect the underlying problems still present in our societies.

It was Nobel Laureate Herbert A. Simon, who first articulated the concept of the Attention Economy when he proclaimed that, “a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention”. This topic reminded me of a poem I came across in another ETEC module that so aptly illustrated the idea of how our attention is being diverted to activities that see a change in the very behavior we use to define human existence.

Our daily lives are now so intertwined with the devices we use that we spend on average a third of our waking hours engaged with mobile technology alone. With the millions of apps out there it is not surprising that so many different techniques have been developed to try and fight to keep our attention. I think what the task this week highlighted so well for me though was exactly how accustomed (or is the correct word really “trained”) I’ve become to these embedded features or design elements. By employing an alternate design, the game we were tasked to play purposefully had me recognize what I am typically used to engaging with on these interfaces. The task also gave rise to a pretty strong emotional response. I became increasingly frustrated and even anxious by not being able to complete the tasks required of me in a timely manner. Everything took a second try or even a third before I got it right and was able to move on to the next screen.

Right on the very first page, I had to remove the filled in text before adding in my details to “register”, I had to Google a Cyrillic letter to add to my password, match letters to my email address, use annoying drop down lists for the domain name and go into the terms and conditions to accept them. The deathly slow scrolling rate to go through the terms and conditions along with the ticking clock and pop up window reminding me that time is a limited resource was the beginning of my anxiety-filled experience. On top of that it took me some time to figure out that to progress I had to click on next which was placed rather oddly on the left hand side of the window (as opposed to a more natural central or right orientated position which would be in-line with the convention I am used to).

Window after window came filled with similar annoyances (why have an age scale that goes to 200? Who lives that long?). I even wanted to ask the chat bot for help- a cheat for the game… I was naive but hopeful (okay, maybe a little desperate). Whatever I typed ended up being complete gibberish. Another time, it told me to wait because there were 430 people in line. I came to accept that I was truly alone.

I made it in the end but ended up feeling a little emotionally drained thereafter. I was overstimulated and felt exhausted by the amount of effort I had to put in to progress between the screens.

What I take from the experience of playing this game was the impact that digital interactions have on me. The very design of a website clearly has the ability to affect me emotionally whether positive or not. I think this disillusioned me from the idea that these spaces are neutral ground in some way. They contain a lot of elements that have been purposefully used to elicit some kind of response in me (whether that is for my benefit or theirs). Is there an alternative though? On the site for the Center for Humane Technology (spearheaded by Tristan Harris), there is a suggested design framework for developers to help them take into account six human sensitivities to counter strong responses elicited through the interaction with technology in order to create more balanced/ neutral spaces. Take a look at the snapshot below of this framework.

To conclude, I watched a talk this week by an expert in XR data privacy and it seems that so many concerns that were highlighted in this week’s module regarding data collected and the design of social media apps/ websites to manipulate our behavior is being transferred into the Virtual and Augmented reality spaces too. Just take a look at this article to gain some insight on this. I’m afraid that these are problems that simply cannot be ignored and will require each of us to educate ourselves on design practices being used to manipulate our attention, demand more transparency from tech. companies on how they operate and to pressure governments to institute and uphold laws that will see more protection of our rights and information.

The experience of completing the task this week was the polar opposite of Task 8’s for me, which was strange as these two tasks are really inextricably linked. As I worked through the module’s theory component, I suddenly felt at home with words such as “matrices” being used. As a science graduate, mathematics feels very much like a safe space and a tool I can rely on to help reveal the truth about relationships in data. Or can it?

It was with much enthusiasm that I opened the data set sent by Ernesto in Palladio. I was fascinated by all the facets and groupings available to toggle and filter the visualized networks with. Just a few seconds were needed each time to reveal a new and unexpected connected network between the musical tracks, curators and groupings. Each one calling out for careful further inspection to make sense of the interesting visuals taking over my screen. It also meant a lot of crosschecking with fellow curators’ posts on the reasons for their track selection to paint a richer story of the networks panned out in front of me.

The very first network I’d like to share was one created with just myself and Kristin’s track choices. Even though I had read over her post last weekend describing her curation, I was very surprised to see that we in fact had picked nine identical songs (you might be wondering whether we were comparing notes on the sly during our selection process but I can guarantee you that we weren’t). Judging our song selection solely by the visualization of this network though would tempt one to think that our analysis and curation of the songs must have been based on similar criteria.

I distinctly remembered though that Kristin had followed a meticulously thought out process in the way that she selected her songs. She eliminated songs that had similar sounds from her list and she tried to represent the different continents in a more equitable way. In contrast, my own criteria for song selection was based solely on a song being able to evoke some kind of emotion in me. Vastly different approaches resulted in almost identical song selections. This was fascinating to me and highlighted the risk associated in interpreting data without considering the context from which that data came. A first glance of the connected network formed between Kristin and my selections would have rightly led one to conclude that we placed emphasis on similar songs but it does not reveal in any way the reasoning behind that selection and emphasis (which could only be gleaned from our blog posts). Fascinatingly, this bias could also be confirmed with the network graph created between Daniella’s track choices and my own. Like me, she also chose tracks solely based on emotional reactions but in this case, we only shared three identical track choices.

The other graph I wanted to show-case was a multiplex network created between the most popular track curated (Beethoven’s 5^th Symphony) and one of the least popular tracks (the panpipes track from the Solomon Islands). Only two curators had selected both of these tracks (Rebecca and Sukhjeevan) thus signifying the critical role they play in connecting these two networks. In contrast, the track I rated as my favorite (5^th symphony) and least favorite (Johnny B. Goode) had a multitude of curators that had selected both songs.

I also wanted to look at the network formed between the eight classical tracks of the Golden Record and the choices in curation within my group since many of us had commented on there being too many such tracks perhaps included on the Golden Record. This revealed that the 5^th symphony was the most popular choice of classical song and on average most curators in my group had selected two classical pieces with the most popular combination being this track with the Magic Flute track. Most interestingly though, the three curators to have only selected one classical track (Brian, Rebecca and Alexandra) had all picked the 5^th symphony to form part of their curation. I think this says something about how pervasive the 5^th symphony in fact is in terms of its reputation as a true piece of musical mastery but again this might just be my interpretation.

I think this exercise was useful in revealing interesting similarities in the choices made among all the curators in their selection of songs. However, it’s also very clear that one has to be careful in reading too much into the choices made as the reasons for selection can clearly be vastly different, which adds a different dimension to how one views these networks.

“Epic album of all time”?

Honestly, I disliked completing the task this week and wish it was an optional one as opposed to a mandatory one. Initially, I was very excited to learn what songs were included on the record that was sent out into the universe to represent earth and the life it contains. It started pretty well with the first few tracks on the playlist we were given, a wedding song from Peru and Muğam titled as Ugam on the playlist (the Azerbaijan bagpipes song). Then came the composition by Bach (completely okay with this at first although I did wonder why specifically this song was included since I thought there were more well-known classical pieces out there). Upon listening to the podcast episode and reading a little more about the songs that were included on the record, I came to understand that Bach pieces contain a large amount of mathematical operations, which I then rationalized, was the reason for including this particular piece. As I continued with the playlist, I became increasingly dismayed to learn that not just one but THREE Bach pieces were included on the 27 track record. Added to this was a piece by Mozart and also two tracks by Beethoven. There are eight classical pieces then in total if you also include the piece by Stravinsky and the Frairie Round. Add in a further two popular US songs and we now have more than a third of the record representing the Western world alone. Many of the largest nations on earth had but a single song each representing them on the record e.g. India and China.

I guess it being an American project, it would have made sense to include so many western musical artifacts but then the project does not match the criteria set out by Tim Ferris when he stated that they wanted music from all around the world represented, as “music is a good way to memorialize the human species”. The module’s reading this week seems echoed in this task. Just as it’s naive according to Apple (1988) to think of school curricula as neutral knowledge so too is it naive to have thought that this project would equitably represent so many nations and cultures. I would really like to know though what kind of input the various nations across the world were allowed to give in this project or whether they were consulted on any of the songs meant to represent them.

Although I understand that there were physical limits to how many songs and sounds could be included on the record, I feel let down by the choices the committee in charge of this project made. Even some of the 55 languages used for the greetings didn’t make sense to me e.g. Sesotho but not Swahili is on the list even though there are almost three times as many speakers of Swahili than Sesotho on the African continent? Then there is also the small matter of the UN president at the time included in the recordings. Kurt Waldheim (that made the opening address) had hid the extent of his involvement in Nazi war crimes over the years and in general just simply wasn’t a very nice person.

Since I didn’t feel the tracks were truly representative of the world’s nations and cultures, I decided to not try and curate the songs based on that criteria. I simply listened to the tracks and those that evoked some kind of emotion in me were the ones I ended up putting together into a playlist. It was apparently Plato that said “music has a direct effect on the soul” and it was those kinds of songs I sought out from the list given. I arranged them so that the ones I liked the most would appear first in the playlist. Beethoven is ranked highest as listening to the music evoked strong memories from my childhood. On a lighter note- my first exposure to classical music came from watching a kid’s show in the 90’s called the Mozart Band. Having tried to find a video clip of the show I found out it was actually a Spanish cartoon animated by a Taiwanese company that was then dubbed into other languages and distributed. Notably, Bach is absent from this group of young geniuses.

Playlist

(the titles below are as they appear on the NASA site)

1. Beethoven, Fifth Symphony, First Movement, the Philharmonia Orchestra, Otto Klemperer, conductor.

2. Azerbaijan S.S.R., bagpipes, recorded by Radio Moscow.

3. Senegal, percussion, recorded by Charles Duvelle (it was originally thought that this song was recorded in Senegal but it turns out it was actually recorded in Benin).

4. Bulgaria, “Izlel je Delyo Hagdutin,” sung by Valya Balkanska.

5. India, raga, “Jaat Kahan Ho,” sung by Surshri Kesar Bai Kerkar.

6. Peru, wedding song, recorded by John Cohen.

7. Australia, Aborigine songs, “Morning Star” and “Devil Bird,” recorded by Sandra LeBrun Holmes.

8. Mexico, “El Cascabel,” performed by Lorenzo Barcelata and the Mariachi México.

9. Mozart, The Magic Flute, Queen of the Night aria, no. 14. Edda Moser, soprano. Bavarian State Opera, Munich, Wolfgang Sawallisch, conductor.

10. “Johnny B. Goode,” written and performed by Chuck Berry.

Reference

Apple, M. W. (1988). What reform talk does: Creating new inequalities in education. Educational Administration Quarterly, 24(3), 272-281.

McDonald, L. (Host). (2019). Voyager Golden Record. In Twenty Thousand Hertz. Defacto Sound. https://www.20k.org/episodes/voyagergoldenrecord

This has been by far the most challenging task to complete for me yet. I imagine this is because the two mediums I used for Task 1 (visual and written text) are in my comfort zone when it comes to communication. I had taken a photo of my work bag’s contents and incorporated numbered icons you could click on for more information on the items found in my bag. Below is a reminder of the picture I used.

It was challenging to decide this week how I would redesign the submission and it took me some time to develop an idea of what I wanted to do. One of my initial ideas to transform the task included recording the names of the items in my first language as voice notes and having my classmates assign the words to what they thought each item’s name was. I then reasoned that it wouldn’t be very obvious at all for them to do and so the next idea I explored was to find the internet slang (urban lingo) of the items I had in my bag in some way. Since I didn’t know some of the common slang words used for the items in my bag, I had to turn to the internet to search for them and it was during this process that I concluded that both my ideas thus far weren’t really matching the brief of the task.

The idea I most would have liked to explore would have been to create a mashup song of popular or known songs associated for me with the different items. Mashups (to me) are wonderfully creative pieces of work and I have fond memories of listening to some that combined either the year’s most popular songs or some of my most loved songs. Alas, when I looked into what the process would be like to deliver a mashup I got quite scared. I needed to find acoustic tracks of the songs to overlay with the originals and additionally would have to guess the bpm (beats per minute) of each song. As someone that likes to listen to music but has received no musical training, I just didn’t think I would be able to do this in the few days available this week.

I then started thinking about examples of mainstream media I’ve come across that used alternative ways of communication than what would normally be associated with that particular medium. Examples like Mr. Bean and old-school radio serials came to mind. This gave me the confidence to try my hand at creating my own version of such a media artifact. A small amount of written text is used as an intro in my amateur radio-serial type artifact with the idea being that you as a listener will be able to identify the objects by the sound effects created as the different items in my bag are being used (the aural component). Alternatively, listeners might infer meaning by that what you hear me say given the context that the item is being used in (a verbal component).

Below is the video of my sound project. Don’t worry it isn’t really much of a video as you’ll soon see that the two lines of text included in the clip really don’t give anything away. The story is painted solely through the items and the sounds associated with them along with the context my voice hopefully provides as clues to what they are (the natural habitat that they are used in). I haven’t included all the items from my original bag (I wondered throughout this task why I had picked such a boring bag) but you might want to tick off the items you can identify from the list given below the video. Once you submit your answers, you should be able to see how many you got right (totally optional).

The purpose of Task 1 was for us to get to know each other through the exploration of the items we hold in our bags. What do these items “say” about us? Now that you have identified the items I have in my bag through the radio-serial type artifact above, you should have also formed some opinions on me by now. You should have picked up that I am an educator that spends time balancing written texts (my notebooks and textbooks) with the digital (e.g. emails on a laptop and drawing pad) along with verbal communication either in person (greeting my colleagues) or digitally (my Skype meeting). At least, I hope some of that information could be picked up on as you listened to my artifact. 🙂 The New London Group’s description of how people create through hybridization seems applicable to me too as I constantly blend digital and analogue communications (written and verbal) in my work.

The second video included here are for those that have a burning desire to know exactly which items are responsible for which sounds. To be clear- this isn’t the intended artifact for the task submission and I only included it for those that might really want to link the sounds with the items.

Reference

The New London Group. (1999;1996;). A pedagogy of multiliteracies designing social futures. (pp. 19-46). Cambridge: Routledge. doi:10.4324/9780203979402-6

I have to admit that the task this week was pleasantly frustrating! It was challenging but also a lot of fun to come up with a story (plot) that I wanted to share and then creatively pick out all the symbols (emojis) I could use to convey that message. My first challenge was to decide on what kind of emoji keyboard or tool I was going to use to construct the title and plot of for the last TV show I watched. One of the factors I considered to help me make this choice was the ease with which I could find the emojis I wanted to use to construct my story on different platforms.

Google Docs and Apple Pages offered the option of searching for emojis by name or keywords, which made the process of selecting emojis simpler and more efficient than scrolling through available lists. Google Docs also had an additional feature, which I didn’t see on any other platform when it came to filtering through lists of emojis i.e. the option to draw the symbol, or image you are looking for and it returning results based on a visual match to your drawing.

The other factors I considered in my choice of keyboard/ platform were the number of available emojis as well as the aesthetic appeal of their design. A common saying seems applicable here as not all emojis are seemingly “created equal” and below you’ll find four very different looking “tree emojis”. The combination of factors mentioned above eventually led me to choose Apple Pages to complete my task.

I predominantly relied on the emojis to represent certain words or actions to convey the story of the plot but there were cases where there simply weren’t emojis available for a literal representation and I had to rely on a combination of emojis to then try and convey the idea of the word I had in mind e.g. the basket and shower head. I also had to think creatively to how I was going to convey a sense of scale in my story and I decided to incorporate multiple emojis of the same kind in order to accomplish this. Therefore, even though I only used two emojis to represent the title of the show, the sheer number of emojis and their layout conveys a different message than that of a single tree-water droplet-tree combination would have I believe.

Additionally, I made use of a large amount of arrow emojis to help direct the reader in how to read the symbol representation of the story plot. In most cases, the emojis are meant to be read from left to right (the normal convention in Western writing) with the exception of line two. In this case, a symbol (the water pistol) limited my ability to adhere to the normal writing/ reading convention I am used to. Since this emoji only displays from right to left, with no mirror-image available on the platform that I used, I adapted my writing and this in turn also alters the way the viewer of my story will have to attempt to interpret this line.

This task presented a first-hand opportunity to explore the reverse ekphrasis phenomenon of using visuals to explain words (Bolter, 2001). I had to rely on emoji symbols (images) to do what I would normally have done with words (my primary method of communication). Emojis are of course most commonly used to display emotions, gestures, facial expressions or certain objects in digital communication with friends, family and even colleagues in the online or virtual space. They tend to be used to add an extra layer to the conversation by creating a more intimate and personal communication between the parties involved. This is successful because both words and the visual element offered by the emojis can complement one another and offer a complete message to the reader that is rich in context to the parties. This task focused on using only one medium i.e. emojis (symbols) as a primary communication tool or method. It was therefore challenging because I was trying to string emojis together to form a cohesive story and I lacked the words I am so used to using to help fill in the gaps so to say.

Reference:

Bolter, J. D. (2001). Writing space: Computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print (2nd ed.). Mahwah, N.J: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. doi:10.4324/9781410600110

This was a really fun task to do although I have to admit it took me much longer to complete than any of the other tasks up to now. I first had to decide on what the story would be that I wanted to tell throughout my game and it took quite a few hours of brainstorming just to settle on this aspect of the task alone. I finally chose to craft a story that I could share with my younger cousins and I hope that even you (as part of a slightly older audience) will still enjoy it too. It’s meant to amuse and there are multiple endings that can be reached.

Of course, the story was only the peak of the glacier as working in Twine requires understanding how passages are linked, knowing how to edit fonts, add in effects etc. This tweaking is what brings the story to life and adds a personal touch to each Twine created. The passages are of course at the heart of a Twine story or game as they are the links (or hypertexts even) that allow the reader to follow a path of their own choosing. In my story, most generally these links appear as two separate word statements at the bottom of each passage as it’s displayed in the screen and although they appear to be just words, they require an action by the reader to choose how they wish to move to the next part of the story. There are also circular links included in my game at each alternate ending that allows the reader to return to the start of the story and travel along a different path if they so choose. I have also included associative links to other websites hosted outside of Twine for more information on certain topics.

In the end, the hyper-textual links in Twine passages allow the reader to visit and carve out for themselves a rich virtual path in the story (unique in many cases to each reader as there are multiple snippets of information to move and link through, which in essence will make the story and how it’s read unique to each reader). To play the game I designed, download the Career Fair Day folder and open the file. Enjoy!

Reference:

Bolter, J. D. (2001). Writing space: Computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print (2nd ed.). Mahwah, N.J: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. doi:10.4324/9781410600110

I wanted desperately to do this task because it reminded me of a school activity I did years ago when I was learning about how writing developed in different civilizations and had to do a lino print. From what I can remember, my lino print was far easier to do than this task as it took me about 50 minutes to carve my first set of baby potato stamps. You’ll see from my pictures I made a mistake in my first attempt to create letter stamps for the word “coast*”, which I only caught onto when I started with the actual printing (I didn’t carve out the reverse of the letter “s” so when I stamped my initial version of this stamp, it gave the mirror image of the letter that I wanted). No matter, I got them made but there are some other struggles in the process that should also be highlighted- like the video tutorial I tried to trace my letters with a sharpie to make the cutting easier, which didn’t work at all (re-watching the video I realized I forgot to dry the potato with paper towel before trying this)! I tried a different marker, a pen and finally just used a pencil to carve an outline of each letter before using a carpenter knife to cut out the shape I had traced.

Looking at the two prints, I think they turned out okay. There is a big space between the “c” and “o” letters, which were due to the size of the potatoes that I had aligned with markings next to one another to get my two prints (my own alignment technique). The letter “t” in my first word print smudged a bit but I think it is legible even though there is no doubt that it would have been thrown out by the monks in their scriptoria.

Working on this activity, I found the words spoken by Paul Collier true when he demonstrated the working of the letterpress in the video included in our module this week. Using a letterpress or potato stamps “requires a greater degree of consideration” than had I done the same task using a word processor and printed the document on lets say a laser printer. The mechanization of writing that we utilize today has definitely taken away some of the planning and organization that was needed with this kind of printing. The quote mistakenly attributed to Marshall McLuhan but which rings true to his ideas on communication and technology summarizes this: “we shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us” (the words belong to John Culkin, a close friend of McLuhan). We are now at the stage where we shaped our printing methods by developing the computer and printing equipment that can produce documents in a matter of seconds and in the process it has taken over the organization and the “thinking” once associated with printing for us. In that way it has shaped us too as we now only concentrate on the meaning that we want to convey with our words and we leave the printing to the machines.

*The word “coast” has a lot of meaning for me, I picked it for its use as a noun- a place where I feel most at peace and also the verb- to describe how I view my daily movement at the moment, simply coasting forward without much purpose or direction (I wrote more about this word in Option 1 of the task).

Culkin, J. (1967, March 18). A schoolman’s guide to Marshall McLuhan. Saturday Review, 51–53, 70–72.

I made the choice to complete both options for Task 4 because I simply could not decide which one I would rather do. I am an old-school lover of written notes and right next to my laptop sits a notepad with a pen ready for any thought that I feel is so important that it requires a permanent commitment to paper. The task was thus not difficult in the sense of the mechanics required to produce the final product, as I am familiar with writing hand-written documents and favor this form of expression over typing on a word processor and printer.

To address some of the questions posed in this task though- when I make a mistake in written documents; I most often scratch it out by using two lines. This is a habit I picked up from my undergraduate years of study where we were prohibited from using correction fluid. I don’t find it bothersome and I now read over these blotches on the paper quite easily- I have no qualms over the resultant look of the document even though some might say it taints the document. I also don’t really care about how neat my hand-writing is. I used to write in cursive but as the need arose to write faster, I adapted to a style that allowed me to record thoughts at a quicker pace. Rather unconventional, at times, I also draw attention to certain parts of the text by underlining it or by including a small diagram. This is a habit I picked up from work where I often rely on diagrams to convey thoughts or ideas (I’m no Picasso but I think my diagrams get the job done).

However, the part of the task that was challenging was to decide on what I wanted to share with a larger audience. Very few of my written documents are shared with others and it felt a little intrusive to have to share my work with people I had barely met. Sharing the document, I felt would expose me and allow others to in effect spy on my inner thoughts and feelings. The podcast we listened to this week confirmed that these feelings were valid when the presenters succinctly summarized that writing lets us “be with each writer through their text”. Reading someone’s writing allows you to see and experience a world through their eyes or representation and thereby gives us an intimate view into their thoughts.

Writing by hand is definitely more personal to me though than using mechanized forms of writing. Apart from obvious cues such as how we write certain letters, underline words of importance or draw diagrams, I believe that even those mistakes documented in writing can give some insight into the thoughts of the person that wrote the text for e.g. I still struggle in deciding whether to write certain words in English as one or two words. My first language has a general tendency to write most words as one and in English, it is the opposite. My cheat (incorrect grammatically I think) is to use a hyphen between words like lock-down (should actually be one word) and hand-sanitizer (should be two words). Writing those words on a word processor would have allowed me to spot the errors and correct them before sharing my thoughts with the world as a printed document (a process that would have de-personalized the text). In conclusion, there is a personal touch to be witnessed in hand-written notes and letters that somehow can get lost when moving to print-based forms of writing.