Monthly Archives: October 2021

Task 8 – Golden Record Curation

This week we read about the digitization of texts and the importance of keeping record of our past. In Dr. Smith Rumsey’s (2017) video presentation she discusses the transition that has been made from keeping analog or physical records of text to recording everything in a digital format. With the affordance that the internet and digital technology have provided us with vast amounts of information and data, it becomes a challenge to be able to keep a record of everything. In her talk, when it comes to our historical records, she asks the question, “what can we afford to lose?” (Brown University, 2017). This is a very difficult question to answer because to me it seems like we can’t afford to lose any information. However, with information overload and the expense that is required to keep record of everything it means that some information we will unfortunately have to lose. She does however conclude that keeping record is extremely important. Even though some texts might not seem useful, important, or relevant to today it doesn’t mean that these texts won’t be useful, important, or relevant in the future. 

For this task I had to curate the Voyager’s Golden Record song list from 27 down to 10. This was an interesting and challenging task as I didn’t really know how to start eliminating songs. To me, I felt like all of the songs brought value to the record and provided a good representation of what music is or was like on Earth since the record was produced in the 1970s. However, as per the instructions of the task, I had to eliminate 17 songs. To do this I basically listened to all 27 songs and chose what I felt provided the most musically and geographically diverse set of 10 songs. Part of their choosing was also influenced by if I actually liked the song and/or how it made me feel.  I also tried to put myself in the extraterrestrial’s shoes (don’t know if/how that’s possible but you know what I mean) to look at it from an outside perspective. But I thought if I was in those shoes, which songs would peak my interest the most. With all that being said, the following are the 10 songs I chose:

 

  1. Georgian S.S.R., chorus, “Tchakrulo,” collected by Radio Moscow. 2:18. – This song was chosen because of the beautiful voices of the Georgian choir. The song is just so powerful and spiritual that I had to include it. With the benefit of having spoken language in it, I think it provides great value to the record.
  2. Bach, The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2, Prelude and Fugue in C, No.1. Glenn Gould, piano. 4:48. – This song was chosen because Glen Gould is one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century and is playing Bach’s music who is one of, if not the greatest composers of all time. I also chose it for biased reasons because Glen Gould is Canadian.
  3. Senegal, percussion, recorded by Charles Duvelle. 2:08. – I chose this song because of its wonderful percussion and how it represents an aspect of African culture where, according to our records, all humans descended from. Though it doesn’t represent all of Africa, it provides a listen inside African tribal song which is an ancient form of music.
  4. Mexico, “El Cascabel,” performed by Lorenzo Barcelata and the Mariachi México. 3:14. – This song brings value to the record because it represents an aspect of the Latin of Central American culture. This song includes a variety of instruments and vocals as well. Spanish is one of the most spoken languages in the world.
  5. China, ch’in, “Flowing Streams,” performed by Kuan P’ing-hu. 7:37. – I chose this song because it comes from China which is home to the largest ethnic group of people in the world. This song is a very peaceful song and it represents the culture of people well. As an extraterrestrial, I think I would like this song and  think that the people of Earth had a calm side to them.
  6. “Johnny B. Goode,” written and performed by Chuck Berry. 2:38. – I had to choose this song because who doesn’t like this song? It represents America well and includes a number of instruments including electric guitar, piano, bass, and drums. It also is only one of the songs that includes the spoken English language.
  7. India, raga, “Jaat Kahan Ho,” sung by Surshri Kesar Bai Kerkar. 3:30. – This song was chosen because it represents the people of India which has one of the largest country populations on Earth. This again is another powerful and spiritual song which also includes a variety of instruments and a beautiful voice.
  8. Peru, wedding song, recorded by John Cohen. 0:38. – This song was chosen because it came from a South American country and I thought it was the better song out of the two Peruvian songs. What helps make it a beautiful song is that it is just vocals, no accompanying instruments.
  9. Beethoven, Fifth Symphony, First Movement, the Philharmonia Orchestra, Otto Klemperer, conductor. 7:20. – I chose this song because of how well known and powerful the song is (It was one of only songs I knew too). It is one of the most powerful classically composed pieces of music ever. I find it also represents western or European classical music well.
  10. Australia, Aborigine songs, “Morning Star” and “Devil Bird,” recorded by Sandra LeBrun Holmes. 1:26. – This song was chosen because it comes from the continent of Oceania (or Australia). It includes the didgeridoo and represents the aboriginal people of that continent.

 

Overall, this was a challenging task and there were some songs that I didn’t really want to leave out but I had to let go. However, I think the songs that I ended up choosing represented what I was trying to do. This task leaves me wondering what a modern Golden Record would look like today, especially with the vast amount of recorded music that we have. How would one even listen to all the different songs that have been recorded today and select them? My guess is that an algorithm would have to be developed and machine learning would have to be used to pick out songs which matched the specific criteria set by the developers of the golden record. With that said, I am interested in seeing what songs my classmates have chosen and their justifications.

 

References

Brown University. (2017). Abby Smith Rumsey: “Digital Memory: What Can We Afford to Lose?”

Smith Rumsey, A. (1999, February). Why Digitize? Retrieved June 15, 2019, from Council on Library and Information Resources website: https://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub80-smith/pub80-2/

The Voyager Golden Record. (n.d.). [Image]. https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Voyager_Golden_Record

Task 7 – Mode-Bending

What’s In That Bag? Trivia Podcast

Links to Podcast

https://open.spotify.com/show/5Qom95fh796Jwpjp3TG1LR

https://open.spotify.com/episode/4kjDKLMoBbdkkOSe9MrXwC?si=d889b0d338b54e8d

https://anchor.fm/daniel-macleod6/episodes/Episode-1-Whats-in-that-work-bag-e196oqn

Podcast Transcript

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WmnONbd7YvJpnELCh-Bob-MY_8rJckid/view?usp=sharing

Reflection

This week was all about digital and multiple literacies and how the advancement in technology in the 20th century has expanded literacy and the ways in which humans communicate. Whether it is through print like text-messaging, audio like in podcasts, or visual like in multimedia etc., all of these text forms of literacy have expanded through the evolution of our linguistics, social environments, and cultures. One challenge that Dobson and Willinsky’s (2009) discussed is the “digital divide”, which suggests the division between who gets and who doesn’t get access to digital technology. In the 80s and 90s accessibility issues were likely caused by the high costs and low connectivity of these technologies but they were definitely a result of political and social problems too (Dobson & Willinsky, 2009). As costs have come down and connectivity has gone up, the digital divide has become narrower but even today there are still populations that are trying to catch up or left behind. Even when we do have access there is such an abundance of technologies that coincide with traditional print that makes it challenging for us to keep up with, especially for older generations of people who are not as familiar with how these technologies work. Mabrito and Medley (2008) discuss the challenges at colleges where professors have to change how they teach to meet the needs of today’s learners who have grown up using digital technologies. They discuss differentiating “digital natives” (Net Generation or Millennial students)  from “digital immigrants” (Pre Net Generation professors) where the latter is having to learn all of these new forms of digital literacy just to keep up (Mabrito and Medley, 2008). Even being a millennial myself, with the continued evolution of digital technology I am finding myself getting more and more lumped into the  “digital immigrant” category. With so much digital technology, it’s extremely difficult to keep up with and has even made this week’s task a bit challenging.

For this week’s task, I had to transform or “mode- bend” my submission for Task 1 – What’s in your bag? This was a challenging task, as I had to think hard about how I would change what I did for task #1 in a way that was in-line with what the New London Group discussed about needed changes in literacy pedagogy and their ideas about multiliteracies. So after thinking long and hard, I decided to do a podcast. Although I have listened to many podcasts before, for this task, I stepped out of my comfort zone as I have never created my own podcast before. I was willing to give it a try and luckily I was able to find a website that made it fairly easy. 

For my podcast, I wanted to include more than just a verbal form of text as well as make it fun. So I decided to make it a trivia game and included different aspects of audio and visual like sound clips, music, and images to make it more engaging and entertaining. Using Task 1 as a reference I used bits and pieces while making some alterations to still represent the purpose of the task. To start I altered the name calling my podcast “What’s in that bag?” instead of “What’s in your bag?”. I then gave the title “What’s in that work bag? for the episode. I chose 10 items that were from my work bag in task 1 and then came up with descriptions/questions for each. In my podcast I gave an introduction and then asked the questions giving the listeners 10 seconds to guess before moving on to the next question. Some of the questions had audio hints as well. At the end I simply read the questions again and gave the answers just like a typical trivia game. 

Using audio was a great alternative to the simple text that was used in task 1. I thought it allowed for a more engaging exercise but also another option for those who wouldn’t want to read written text. I really enjoyed this task but it was challenging to make the podcast flow in a way that was easy for the listener. I did a lot of editing to make the podcast work but I probably could have spent a lot more time trying to make it perfect. Even as I reflect on this now I am thinking about what I could have done or what I could have added to make the podcast better. Overall, I have gained a better understanding of multiliteracies and how our diverse cultures and changing social environments affect digital literacies. I even gained a better appreciation for podcasts as I once thought that they were simple but now realize that they take a lot of effort to make them well.

References

Dobson, T., & Willinsky, J. (2009). Digital Literacy. In D. Olson & N. Torrance (Eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Literacy (Cambridge Handbooks in Psychology, pp. 286-312). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Mabrito, M. & Medley, R. (2008). Why professor johnny can’t read: Understanding the net generation’s texts. Innovate: Journal of Online Education: Vol. 4:6, Article 2.

The New London Group.  (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. (Links to an external site.)  Harvard Educational Review 66(1), 60-92.

Task 6 – An Emoji Story

Reflection

For this task I had to select a recent book, tv show, or movie then write the title and plot using only Emojis . Please see the entry above. In chapter 4 of Bolter’s book, he discusses how the evolution of print technologies have allowed or encouraged humans to move from a linguistic (text) culture into more of a visual (graphic) culture for communication (Bolter, 2001). With the arrival of computers and the web, visual culture has grown even further and has become a dominant form of communication even to this day. In 2021, visual culture is still going strong and continues to grow with the evolution of technology (examples: video chat, holograms, emojis, memojis, VR, gifs, etc.).

One of the most interesting developments in visual communication in the past twenty years has been “Emojis”. According to Grannan (n.d.) from Briticanna.com, Emojis are pictographs of faces, objects, and symbols. They are the successor to the earlier emoticons which were glyphs or icons built in ASCII (a type of character code system) and read sideways (Grannan, n.d.) . Emoticons were used in electronic communication to represent emotions in a more graphical way then from a traditional textual method. When discussing emoticons, Bolter (2001) says, “such icons are meant to put the verbal text in context, as the writer tries to enforce a univocal interpretation on prose that is otherwise open to many interpretations.” (Bolter, 2001, p.72) Early emoticons were able to do some of this and modify traditional text. They were able to represent some emotions but they were still leaving room for many interpretations. With emojis, there are many more options for representing emotions or text but it still can be a challenge if there is no text (prose) to accompany them. You can see from my image above, emojis alone, by themselves, still make it difficult for the reader to interpret.

For this task, I used the emojis from my Notes app on my iPhone. I tried to use emojis to represent words and ideas, not so much syllables. I started with the title and then worked my way through the plot. I chose to start with the title because I thought this would be the easy part and if I couldn’t use emojis to represent the title, then using them for the plot, I thought, would be near impossible. From the many emojis that I had access to with my iPhone I think I was able to do a decent job choosing them to represent what I was trying to describe. I selected each emoji and organized them in a way that I thought was best for the reader to interpret and understand. Using just emojis to communicate was not that simple as there was a limited selection of emojis to use and they were more difficult to access as opposed to the letters that are present on the keypad. Having completed this task, I have a better appreciation for using emojis and will most likely use them more when I text. I still prefer regular text but I can see the value emojis have especially when you can’t quite get your message across or convey your emotions using text alone. Overall, this was a fun challenge and I hope my readers can translate my Emoji story!

 

References

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

Grannan, C. (n.d.). What’s the Difference Between Emoji and Emoticons? Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/story/whats-the-difference-between-emoji-and-emoticons

Task 5 – Twine Task

A Day On The Water

Click on the link below to read the story.

A Day On The Water

Reflection

For Task 5 I had to create a game using the application called Twine. Twine is an opened source tool that allows users to create games and “Choose your own adventure” stories. Having learned all about hypertext and its history in this past week’s module, this was a great activity to experiment with and reflect on hyperlinks and how they have transformed writing/literature to what it is today. Bolter (2001) says, hypertext is “a path through virtual space” (Bolter, 2001, p. 29). Bolter (2001) also makes a good analogy when he says “a hypertext is like a printed book that the author has attacked with a pair of scissors and cut into convenient verbal sizes” (Bolter, 2001, p. 35). Twine is basically a virtual platform that uses hyperlinks to link text and passages together allowing readers move though text and space on their own choosing. It is a simple to use program and I like think that Twine is a modern version of how Ted Nelson and Vannevar Bush would have envisioned hypertext to be.

Unlike a printed book where the reader is kind of directed to read from start to finish, the text in Twine can be put on many different and linked pages. Depending on the reader, they can choose what links to click on and what text to read depending on their own interest. If used to develop a “choose your own adventure” story, which I have developed here, it allows reader to actively make decisions based on what they read and how they feel. The text is not fixed and the reader is not forced to read all the text or from start to finish. The developer can also add different text formats, colors, images, sounds, and video, etc., which all bring a very different dynamic to the reader’s experience. When developing my story, I initially didn’t include sound effects but I think it really makes a huge difference for the reader. The sounds effect how the reader feels and perhaps the sound even effects how the reader chooses their path.

Although this task took me a long time to complete, being my my first Twine experience, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I actually wanted to spend more time trying to perfect my story and learn how to add new features like video, etc. Before this module, I never really took notice but hypertext was a huge revolution in how literature and text is experienced by the reader. It gives readers the freedom to choose what they want to read and connects everything they read together. On the other hand, this freedom can lead consequences as well, depending on what path the reader chooses. This makes me think about all of the information that is on web and how you can really go down ‘a rabbit hole’ when clicking on links. Hyperlink technology has provided a great way to read and interpret an abundance of information but their are risks when clicking on links too. Readers must be cautious too as the paths and networks that hyperlinking provides might lead the reader to unwanted places where there is false information or malware/viruses. It seems like with all technology (hyperlinks included), when it is initially developed there are always good intentions in mind but there also are always people who will try to use it to take advantage of others. As educators, it is therefore important to make sure our students are aware the risks involved with using technology and how to avoid the risks so that they can use it in a good and safe manner.

References

Bolter, J. (2001). Writing space: computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print. New York, NY: Routledge.

Task 4 – Manual Scripts and Potato Printing

Option 2 – Potato Printing

Reflection

Task 4 involved choosing a 5 letter word and making a stamp to print that word on a piece of paper. The word that I chose was the word “OCEAN” as you can see in the image of the finished product above. Before I got started I watched the short video that was provided on how to make a stamp using a potato. On initial thought, it looked fairly simple and I guessed that it would only take me a couple of minutes to make. Oh, how I was wrong. I used one potato to make two stamps and decided to carve out three letters (OCE) on one half and two letters (AN) on the other. This was fairly easy and took only about 10 minutes to complete. However, after painting the letters and then going to press the stamps on the paper, I realized that some of my letters would be backwards. I should have known. In order to print the word so that it was legible, I had to re-think how I was going to carve the letters into the potato. Luckily, I made the stamps using capital letters so for the “OCE” stamp I just flipped it and stamped it on the paper so the letter “O” came first. For the “AN” stamp I had to re-carve the letters so that letter “N” came first and letter “A” second. I also had to carve the letter “N” so that it was backwards. All of this work took me an extra 20-30 minutes to complete the task. This was actually challenging and a bit frustrating so I can only imagine how frustrating it was for early writers who had to use tools like styluses, chisels, or stamps.

On the episodes of the podcast, Stuff To Blow Your Mind, entitled “From the Vault: Invention of the Book”, Part 1 and 2, Robert Lamb and Joe McCormick discussed how early forms of text technology have adapted over time. As part of their discussion they talked about the difficulties of pre-mechanized writing, how time consuming and how much effort was required just to inscribe simple text. For example, they mention early forms of pre-mechanized books such as Mesopotamian clay tablets that were hand written cuneiform scripts that were inscribed using reeds and then baked in a fire. They also mentioned Egyptian papyrus rolls that were made of strips of the papyrus plant that were overlapped, held together with pith, and then dried.  To inscribe their text they used a brush and ink (Lamb & McCormick, 2020, 28:00). These are just two examples of laborious writing techniques that must have been frustratingly time consuming similar to the potato stamp.

Looking at it from another point of view, these early writing tools were all what was known at the time so people might have thought these frustrating mistakes were just part of the writing process. Like in the video “Medieval Helpdesk in English”, what seems simple to use now, like understanding how to navigate a book, printing with stamps would have been difficult for the inexperienced. However, once they practiced and became more experienced with stamps it would have been much easier.  So for myself, if I practiced more potato printing it would surely be much simpler. Looking back on this task, I think the mechanization of writing is no question one of the greatest inventions of all time. Writing a book with a printing press would definitely be easier and less frustrating than writing a book with handmade potato stamps. The mechanization of writing not only eased the pain and frustrations for people but also opened the doors to transferring knowledge quicker and to a wider audience.

 

References

Medieval helpdesk in English. (2008, February 23). YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUQRbqc2qtY&feature=emb_imp_woyt

Lamb, R., & McCormick, J. (Hosts). (2020, May 26). From the Vault: Invention of the Book. [Audio podcast episode]. In Stuff to Blow Your Mind. iHeartRadio. https://www.iheart.com/podcast/stuff-to-blow-your-mind-21123915/episode/from-the-vault-invention-of-the-82316952/?keyid%5B0%5D=Stuff%20To%20Blow%20Your%20Mind&keyid%5B1%5D=From%20the%20Vault%3A%20Invention%20of%20the%20Book%2C%20Part%201&sc=podcast_widget