https://www.gnookgnome.com/post/voice-to-text
HM published content on Wix, and I published on UBC Blogs/WordPress. In terms of mechanical functionality Wix and UBC Blogs/WordPress are very similar; thus our presentations of content throughout the course are comparable. One notable difference is that HM requires a log in to leave comments and I do not. After searching the Wix Help Center I believe logging in to comment is a requirement for Wix. This barrier is a minor frustration. Before signing up for a Wix account in order to comment on a classmate’s post I considered not signing up and not leaving a comment because the log-in barrier is an unnecessary inconvenience from a user perspective.
For Task 3 HM writes, “Oral storytelling excludes the thoughts of the storyteller . . . Written storytelling gives a reader more context and is better at filling in the gaps using side notes.” This explication invited me to consider an opposite perspective on differences between oral and written storytelling. For example, I wrote:
In general oral storytelling affords a more embodied, emphatic, and emotive presentation than written storytelling . . . the embodied prosody of oral storytelling adds . . . an interpretive dimension . . . Written storytelling does not provide such embodied interpretation; the reader is open to draw his or her own conclusions. Thus lacking audible inflection and tonality, written storytelling allows a reader more room for textual interpretation than oral storytelling; in oral storytelling an orator’s eisegesis stands between the text and the listener.
My perspective is that oral storytelling implicitly or explicitly conveys the storyteller’s thoughts more than written storytelling. Although after reflection I have not changed my stance, it is worthwhile for me to consider HM’s perspective. One aspect which I had not considered prior to HM’s post regarding how written storytelling may “[give] a reader more context” than oral storytelling is that written text not only allows the reader the chance to go back and re-read things they miss, but the medium of written storytelling may also afford the opportunity for the writer to include more details than a listener would enjoy in an oral storytelling setting. In this manner, HM has a valid point which expands my perspective.
https://blogs.ubc.ca/pbarrington/2019/09/25/task-4-manual-scripts/
Philip and I present content similarly throughout this course, both utilizing UBC Blogs/WordPress. One difference is Philip uses a narrower reading pane. One characteristic of a wider reading pane is it makes posts seem shorter.
For Task 4 Philip writes, “at times I limit my vocabulary when I am typing on the computer. I find that I stick with the words that I am comfortable with and I do not challenge my writing style. The computer has a way of limiting the risk of writing.”
Philip’s experience invited me to consider a perspective different from my own. I tend to limit my vocabulary and risk when I write without a computer; I take more risks on a computer than without. I almost exclusively use a digital device to reference definitions, spellings, synonyms, and antonyms, and I reference the dictionary frequently when I write. Thus if I write without a computer then I tend towards my preferred option to make easier, less risky choices rather than the more laborious option of writing on paper and having a digital device for reference there as well. However, with the second option I feel more disjointed because I am jumping between two mediums. In the case of writing on a computer I sometimes move between two programs via Alt + Tab to look up content, but my focus remains in one medium.
Thus, when I write away from a computer then I tend to stick to words I know how to spell and use correctly; when I write on a computer I am more likely to use reference material and take risks in word choice, which diversifies my writing and, in my humble opinion, makes it more interesting.
https://blogs.ubc.ca/yilu/2019/09/29/task-4-manual-scripts-and-potato-printing/
Yi and I each published our ETEC 540 content on UBC Blogs/WordPress. We used the same or very similar templates, so our sites look very similar. One difference between our sites is Yi’s site includes a right-side navigation including a search bar, recent posts, archives, tags, categories, and links. Without this right-side navigation on my site the main content for text, images, and video is wider.
Yi and I chose different modes for Task 4. I appreciated that Yi posted her potato prints and confessed her embarrassment because I also found posting the image of my very unflattering handwriting a bit ignominious. Yi indicates the task took longer than she expected and curved letters are very difficult to carve into potatoes. In essence these were the exact cursory reasons why I elected the other mode for Task 4: 1-I expected the potato stamps to take me over an hour if I even had the requisite supplies in the house, and 2-I couldn’t settle on a five-letter word with no repeating letters and letters easy enough for me to complete the task in under an hour. I focused on choosing a qualifying word with vertically symmetric letters. Of course now I realize “MOUTH” would have worked. However in reading Yi’s contribution and reflecting on my own process which led me to the handwriting option I now also realize the deeper problem for me in choosing the potato-printing assignment was not only that I wanted to avoid it and sought to hack the assignment as described above, but as a result of my aversions to the Task for real or fabricated reasons, I never settled on a word which resonated with me.
This leads me to what I conclude from this Task. Words are significant. I did not want to spend an hour printing a five-letter word twice unless the word had some personal significance; I believe this is the real reason I selected the other mode for Task 4. Words are unique, even sacred. Words matter—especially when it takes so long to print them. As Yi writes,
This task is thought-provoking for me since I can not stop imagining what if I need to print a press or law with 100 words? First, I need to select my carving tools, colouring tools, and stamp material( definitely not 100 potatoes). Second, I have to reverse every word carefully then double-check. Third, I need to prepare five pieces of paper for just 1 copy. Ideally, after 10 hours of tedious crafting (6 mins work per word), will I have printed fine copies of this brief writing? The answer is still a no! Since I am not a skilled carver, the print will be blurry . . . After this task, I am feeling blessed to born at a time with the mechanization of writing that knowledge, thoughts, and literature can be easily shared and spread at minimum efforts.
Through reading Yi’s submission and reflection on my interaction with this Task I conclude print matters not only because it can take an investment of time; print matters because words matter.
https://blogs.ubc.ca/kdewald540assigns/week-7-mode-bending/
Kristie and I have similar UBC Blogs/WordPress sites with top-page navigation. One difference in our navigation is my labels are shorter, which makes for a cleaner site but each label provides little information to users without course context, and Kristie’s labels are more informative though they take up more space. A second difference is Kristie employs a banner and I only use a meta-spirited tag of “[Insert Content Here]”. At first I missed the significance of Kristie’s image in the context of this course. However when I clicked on the image I understood its relevance; as Kristie writes, “This picture of the sunset was taken just a few blocks from my house in Nanaimo, BC. My husband and I arrived here only a few months ago and have been very much enjoying the beautiful scenery we are surrounded by.”
Kristie’s mode-bending assignment is an audio narrative. Although it is technically a YouTube video, the video is a black screen; I appreciate Kristie’s decision to exclude a photo to accompany the audio as this provides an opportunity to focus on the story without unnecessary visual distraction. In the spirit of the original assignment and the mode-bending edition Kristie is very successful in crafting a short story which informs the listener of her bag’s contents and their importance without focusing the tone on explaining each item. In this manner she displays creative storytelling prowess and respect for her audience by “showing” the listener without explaining everything. Kristie not only captures the spirit of the digital-analogue temporal hybrid in which we find ourselves as she hops between electronic devices and non-electronic objects but also the familiar tension of having the freedom for leisure activities while lacking the time to enjoy them. The juxtaposition between this conflict and the ever-widening presence of electronic devices, which at least theoretically are aimed towards a time-saving telos, is profound. Listening to Kristie’s reworking of this Task convinced me that I spent too much time in Task 7 describing each object rather than letting a narrative accomplish this purpose.
https://mcdaniel-etec-590.weebly.com/etec-540.html
Jennifer’s ETEC 540 course site is a Weebly page which appears to be aimed for ETEC 590. My ETEC 540 site is specific to this single course. Although most of my online coursework for the MET has been through Canvas so far and I have not been required to create a separate site to publish content online, I greatly like Jennifer’s model of collecting content in one place. Even if one does not plan to take ETEC 590 this is a useful way to document the journey in one place. Creating such a site at the beginning of the MET would be a useful piece of advice I would share with a new MET student.
Another difference between Jennifer’s page and my own is that she posted newer content below older content—“From past to present in linear formation,” rather than in reverse chronological order as I did following popular convention. I particularly noticed Jennifer’s choice not only because of her introductory note but also because at the beginning of this course I used a WordPress template which posted content in chronological order by default, and I replaced it with a reverse-chronological template because I thought classmate interaction with my content may reduce if visitors have to scroll for content. Regardless, I appreciate Jennifer’s thoughtfulness and her explication of the choice. She writes:
Would it be more meaningful and current to change the order? Is there a more cyclical way to organize posts that you know of that would make the information here equal in value? Is it expected that the depth of my work and reflections also increase in complexity and analysis as I continue.
Although I do not know of a more balanced manner to present information I wonder if her second question could particularly inform the design of future digital interfaces.
Another difference between Jennifer’s online interaction and mine is that she uses a comprehensive blog for comments and interaction, “strategically placed at the end of all of my assignments in hopes that the totality of my work would be viewed and considered before comments are made,” and I have discrete comment conversations for each post. Each of our choices with respect to managing comments is consistent to our ETEC 540 courses site structure as discussed above.
For Task 8 Jennifer offers criteria for her Golden Record curation which differs from my own. Whereas I weigh culture, geography, historical significance, artists, composers, instrumentation, and composition, she considers the conveyance of earthly knowledge, complexity of oral language, sound frequency, melody, mathematics, evidence of human intelligent, universality of humanity, and depictions of human evolution in her picks. Jennifer’s overall motivation was to create a welcoming experience. Though the intent is kindhearted and laudable, I found this goal illusive without knowing anything about the recipients.
Jennifer and I have three overlapping selections. We both chose Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. Jennifer included it because it is robust in frequencies. Similarly in my explanation of this selection I wrote, “The composition is an exemplar symphony. It is a complex coordination of dozens of musicians.”
We also both included Bach’s “Well-Tempered Clavier”. I welcomed it because it is a piano-centered composition. Jennifer included it because it is mathematical. I cited percussion from Senegal for the mathematical purpose, though to be transparent as a mathematician and a musician I am not entirely clear what we mean when we label some music as more mathematical than other music. In my case mathematics meant prominence of rhythm. Perhaps in Jennifer’s case mathematical relates to intervals between notes and repetitive melodic patterns. However, one might list atypical time signatures such as 7/8 or 15/16 as more mathematical than common time signatures. Thus I find the “mathematical music” moniker ambiguous.
We also both greenlighted the Peruvian wedding song. Jennifer included this recording because it represents human intellect. I thought the context of a woman lamenting marrying too young speaks to two global human themes: 1-marriage and 2-the different experiences of men and women.
On this second theme, one consideration absent from Jennifer’s explicit evaluative list with which I wrestled in each selection and the overall list was the gender of each selection’s performer(s) and/or composer. While this criteria was in mind in my selection process, one might argue my own list underrepresented women. I have not calculated how my list compares to the original list in this respect. However, even considering this one criteria exposes a challenge of where to cease with such ponderings. I feel relieved knowing Jennifer created a beautiful and thoughtful list without explicitly considering the aspect of gender, even if it may have been an unspoken consideration. Perhaps I struggled with the characteristic of gender too much in my curation.
https://blogs.ubc.ca/etec540personalwebspace/tasks-10-12/
Katie and I both host content on UBC Blogs/WordPress. One distinction between our navigational choices is she clumps triads of Tasks and I individuate Tasks. My solution of utilizing one navigational link per post—“Task 1 Task 2 Task 3 . . . ” worked well most of the term; however once I hit twelve items my menu was less aesthetically appealing, splitting in two lines on my laptop monitor. At that point I abbreviated my headings to “T1 T2 T3 . . .” to maintain tidiness. Although I prefer the navigation options to be only one line, I like Katie’s navigation presentation above my own for two reasons. First she has a cleaner design with seven choices compared to over a dozen on my site. Second when a user selects one of Katie’s triads of Tasks she or he reaches three posts on one page. This not only contextualizes a Task in relationship to two more Tasks; it also increases the likelihood of a visitor engaging more content than a specific post since arriving at new content requires no additional clicking or inter-page navigation.
For Task 11 Katie and I used the same microblogging prompt, “Education is not about . . . ”. We both produced similar grammatically correct nonsense, which misrepresents our perceptions of our voices. I used WhatsApp, and I believe Katie used her Smartphone’s text function. As an independent application I hypothesize WhatsApp employs an internal predictive text algorithm. On a Smartphone I am uncertain if predictive text for texting is an operation of the text application or the operating system. Regardless, our use of varying applications makes for an interesting observation that different applications employ different predictive text algorithms.
Katie picks up that while, “This auto-generated microblog post differs drastically from a post I would actually write to express my views,” her predictive text suggests words and phrases she uses often such as dogs, working out, lunch, and you guys and thus offers the reader insight into her interests. Katie’s point resonates with me because while I would have expected or hoped for the same I had a very different experience. My sentence feels more like Mad Libs®. I do not speak about snakes at all, so in the context of a sentence about education this suggestion seems absurd. Similarly Rachel is a word I use with very low frequency if at all in WhatsApp; it also holds insubstantial statistical significance by others in my WhatsApp chat threads. So again, the predictive suggestion of Rachel and snakes seems very specific, highly irrelevant, and silly to both the content of the lead of the sentence, my personal diction, and my conversational history.
While the juxtaposition of our experiences is interesting in our cases both algorithms were still unsuccessful in the sense of producing useful or correct predictions. My takeaway from reading Katie’s reflection and building on my own is that predictive text may save time sometimes, but these algorithms are not at the level of composing texts on our behalves in our voices. When they are able to read and contextualize our personal digital thumbprint along with what we see and hear in real time and produce relevant predictive texts in our own voices, then we will have shifted into something quite stunning and alarming.
Apparently I’m awesome. Who knew?