Link to Eva Somogyi’s, “What’s in my Bag?” Post

Eva’s, “What’s in my Bag?” Post: https://metstudent.wixsite.com/etec540/quote

After reading through Eva’s, “What’s in my Bag?” assignment, I realized that we had many similar items in our bags such as: laptop, pens, highlighters, USBs, day planner, keys, and wallet.

Eva and I both are teachers and I believe this is the reason why a lot of the contents of our bags are the same. What was interesting to read about was the fact that Eva believed many of the things that she had in her bags were not things she needed. This is something that I realized as well after reading through Eva’s post. Many of the items that I have in my bag are also items that I don’t necessarily need or use everyday but they are just there taking up space in my bag. As Eva stated, many of the items can be removed from the bag if they were “digitized.” Similar to Eva, it is difficult for me to plan out my day online. I find it easier to do so in a physical day planner.

Another interesting epiphany was the fact that I too don’t have many personal care items in my bag except for the mints, which are similar to Eva’s pack of gum. However, unlike Eva, I feel like I am teacher all the time. In fact lately, I feel that my life has only been revolving around teaching and my masters and this is reflected quite accurately through the items found in my bag.

 

Link to Sylvia Chu’s Voice to Text Task

Sylvia’s Voice to Text Task: https://blogs.ubc.ca/etec540texttechnologies/

I really enjoyed reading through Sylvia’s story and analysis for this task. Similar to me, Sylvia had some trouble coming up with what story to tell and told it as it came to her head. Like Sylvia, I made up my story impromptu.

I really liked the digital tool Sylvia used for her voice to text task. She decided to use an app called Otter. I had never heard of Otter before but after looking at how it notes down speech to text, I think I will definitely be making use of it in the future.

Some experiences that we shared while completing this task included worrying about speaking too fast or not clearly enough thus, affecting the accuracy of the text being transcribed. In addition, for both of us, words that were similar sounding were misinterpreted in the transcribed text.

Sylvia’s post really made me think about how communication methods have changed and sometimes the meanings behind words become lost in communication (such as via text) or there are “typos” or small errors, however the overall meaning being conveyed is clear. This notion I think was quite well reflected in the voice to text task for this week. It is also interesting to think about how voice to text or text to voice will go on to change the way we learn and communicate. Like Sylvia mentioned, perhaps in the future instead of reading, things will be read out to us. This option already exists in things like audiobooks and certain online programs and websites where text can be read aloud. This makes me wonder how this will impact teaching literacy in the future.

 

Link to Tanya Whiting’s Manual Manuscript Task

Tanya’s Manual Manuscript Task: https://metportfoliotanyawhiting.weebly.com/task-4-manual-script.html

I found Tanya’s post to be extremely thought provoking and well written! After having a read through the entire post, I noticed quite a few similarities between her Manual Manuscript task and mine. First off, I too enjoy writing by hand and I prefer pencil while writing as well. Tanya mentioned she likes her pencil to be sharp, I too have the same preference when writing. I also find that anything that is handwritten has a personal touch to it. Even today, I prefer handwritten letters over typed up because of this.

One thing in particular that I definitely agree with Tanya about is the issue of mistakes while writing by hand. When I am typing, I don’t need to think about any of the mistakes that I make along the way and can go back and edit my work. However, when I am writing by hand, I am continuously conscious about any errors or mistakes that I may make and that’s why I choose to write in pencil so that I can correct my mistakes along the way. I find writing with pen to be quite intimidating. This is the sole reason why I prefer typing to writing.

What I really appreciated in Tanya’s task was the fact that she chose to write in cursive. It is something I don’t see very often and it was refreshing to see it after so long. I had learned cursive, but didn’t practice it enough so I’ve lost touch. I find it’s a struggle these days to even have students printing properly let alone writing in cursive. My thoughts resonate with Tanya’s. I think writing will eventually become a thing of the past, as more and more people turn towards technology to type instead.

 

Link to Tuo Fan’s An Emoji Story Task

Tuo Fan’s Emoji Story Task: https://blogs.ubc.ca/etec5402019fall/task-6-an-emoji-story/

Tuo and I both used Apple emojis for this particular task. I literally “LOL’d” while “reading” this particular emoji story task. This is one story that I think I would recognize anywhere since it is one my favourite childhood movies, The Lion King. As soon as I saw the emojis used to describe the title, I guessed it instantly.

It was quite amusing to see how creative Tuo had to be when trying to find emojis that represented Timone and Pumba: a fox and pig. To describe the gender of the lions for Simba and Nala, Tuo had to use the lion emoji followed by either a boy or a girl. For Scar, Tuo used the lion emoji followed by a devil emoji. I really enjoyed the party celebration emoji and music notes that were used to describe the song, “Hakuna Matata.” One thing that I can tell was a challenge for Tuo was being able to use emojis to describe how Scar killed Mufasa. The only part of this emoji story, which I could not quite understand, was in the middle where there is a lion and devil emoji used to illustrate Scar followed by ghost emojis and death symbols. I was not quite sure what that part of the plot that was referring to. Overall, I think Tuo did an exceptional job describing the plot of the movie using only emojis and it was entertaining to “read” through.

 

Link to Kylie Neiser’s Mode Bending Task

Kylie Neiser’s Mode Bending Task: https://sites.google.com/view/kylieneiseretec540/weekly-tasks

I found Kylie’s Mode Bending Task quite creative and unique. I really liked how she decided to create a video and made use of a video and audio clips to try and get the audience to guess the contents of her bag. Sounds played a key role in her video so it was important to pay attention to them to figure out what item they were connected to. It was a completely different approach from the narrative one I took. I used only audio to tell a story from the point of view of a backpack. I appreciated how Kylie turned the “What’s in My Bag” task to a game of guess what’s inside my bag? It motivated me to try and figure out all the contents of Kylie’s bag and I found myself going back to check and see if I was correct. Kylie’s chose a great way to change the initial task that was given and engage her audience.

 

Link to Charles Currie’s Speculative Futures Post

Charles’ Speculative Futures Task: https://blogs.ubc.ca/etec540charlescurrie/

The speculative futures assignment was one of the most fun to complete and the most interesting one to view others’ posts on. I thoroughly enjoyed “envisioning” what my peers think the future may bring. I chose Charles’ post because there were elements that linked quite nicely with my speculative futures assignment. It was interesting to note how Charles and I both decided to make use of the text-to-speech tool to give a more “futuristic” tone. I chose an online application for my text-to-speech while Charles decided to go with Microsoft Word’s tool.

The way we chose to deliver our speculations differed. Charles used a podcast approach to deliver his ideas and I, instead, decided to use a narrative. For his first speculation, Charles stated that text based books would eventually phase out and audio books would become more popular. This is a speculation that both Sylvia and I mentioned when completing a link with Sylvia’s assignment earlier. I can definitely see this becoming a more popular option in the future as time is becoming more and more valuable and we look for faster and more efficient ways to do things.

I found Charles’ second speculation extremely fascinating. It was a very thought provoking idea that he came up with and one that could potentially exist in the future. I can definitely envision this idea being portrayed in an episode of Black Mirror. Algorithms are being used in almost every industry so it would not be surprising if they began playing a significant role in spirituality and dictating our lives. One could argue they already “dictate” our lives indirectly through areas like social media and law enforcement.