Link #6: https://blogs.ubc.ca/brianetec540/2020/07/30/task-12-speculative-futures/

Task 12: Speculative Futures asked us to design two speculative narratives about the direction of technology, text, and education over the next 30 years. I was excited about this task solely because of the narrative component of this assignment. Since the beginning of this course, I have really enjoyed my rekindling with creative writing and the creative process. So often in post-secondary education, we can be overwhelmingly tasked with research papers, research assignments, and you guess it, more and more research. Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy research-based assignments as well, but this course has provided a new perspective on how I perceive post-secondary education. There are many times in this course, especially with our “Tasks”, that we were asked to build a foundation of knowledge through research-based articles, videos, and podcasts, and take that new, academic knowledge into a creative space. This new process in this academic space has opened my mind to a different way of thinking and perceiving the knowledge and information that has been provided.

While I was browsing through the amazing narratives that were creative by my colleagues in this course, I was stopped in my tracks by Brian’s speculation of health tracking. Brain takes a unique view of the possible future of health tracking, something that is already a prevalent part of many of our lives. He takes technology focused health tracking to the extreme with two different narratives, one focusing on a character named Jane, and one focused on a character named Julie. At first, when I read “2030 – Jane”, I was immediately drawn to the extreme nature of the technology, and the interaction of the technology with the character. The story comes across as a somewhat “perfect” world with a somewhat “perfect” interaction with the health tracking technology, intertwined with brief moments of imperfections that I didn’t know were so important the first time I read through the story.

In Brian’s second speculative narrative “2030 – Julie”, the story takes a different perspective, one from the not-so-perfect side of the health tracking technology. Jane and Julie are actually sisters, one that seems to live in a life of wrongly perceived perfection with her health tracking technology, and one that lives in a life of stark reality of using such an invasive health tracking technology. Having two very different perspectives of the speculative health tracking technology that Brian conceived provided a more complete view of the reality of this technology. This made me reflect on the perspectives on different technologies that already exist. So often we can be consumed with our own experiences, especially with technology. If we use something, like technology, and it works for us, it is easy to automatically assume that others are having the same experience that we are having. And if they are not having the same experience that we are having, we sometimes can find ourselves thinking that there is something wrong with that. Given the diversity of technology, we have to assume that there is going to be a diversity of usage, and we have to be open to these diversities because technology is a shoe that won’t find the perfect fit with everyone.

Brian’s webspace was developed in WordPress, and provided a simple yet straightforward approach to navigation. Brian’s webspace included menus at the top and recent posts in the sidebar. The simplicity of Brian’s webspace really puts the focus on his posts and projects, limiting the distractions that may be caused by the clutter of images, videos, and vibrant colours.