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Elaine Lee_ETEC540 Final Assignment  (PDF version)

As we wrap up our course, I wanted to take a moment to share a bit about my final project. For my project, I decided to research Seesaw, an e-portfolio platform, and its implications for literacy and education.

Seesaw is a tool that allows students to create and share digital portfolios of their work. My research focused on the ways in which Seesaw can support literacy development and enhance learning in the classroom. I examined the benefits of using Seesaw to promote student agency and ownership and to foster collaboration and communication among students, teachers, and families. Throughout my research, I found that Seesaw has a lot of potential to be a powerful tool for supporting literacy development and enhancing learning outcomes. I believe that its ability to provide students with an authentic audience for their work and to foster collaboration and feedback is particularly valuable. I hope that my findings have provided some insight into the ways in which digital tools like Seesaw can support literacy development and enhance learning in the classroom.

As we come to the end of our online course, I want to take a moment to express my gratitude for the experience of learning together with all of you. While we may not have had the opportunity to meet in person, I feel that we have built a sense of community through our discussions and linking assignments.

Thank you, Ernesto, your guidance and support throughout this course have been invaluable. Your thoughtful feedback and clear explanations have helped me to understand the material and develop new skills. I appreciate the effort you have put into creating a well-organized and engaging online course that has allowed us to learn effectively. I am confident that the knowledge and skills we have gained will be valuable in our future endeavors, and I wish each of you the best of luck in all your future pursuits.

Thank you again for a wonderful online learning experience!

Elaine

ETEC 540 ELAINE LEE FINAL ASSIGNMENT by Lee Tutoring

Task 12: Speculative Futures

Hi Lubna,

Thank you for sharing your creative piece of writing. I find your description of the “Almost-Now” fascinating and thought-provoking. Both of our writing is set in a futuristic world where technology dominates human life. I described a world where algorithms control everything, and people have become increasingly disconnected from their emotions. In contrast, your writing portrays a world where machines and AI have manufactured everything with perfect cold precision. Everyone wears a Teslasuit, a skintight suit that allows wearers to experience any desirable motion or sensation. The suits use integrated EMS to communicate with the synced-in smart environment surrounding individuals. However, discovering an ancient relic disrupts this utopian world, and people can now experience the culture and emotions of the primitives who created the object.

I thought the concept of a future where machines and AI manufacture everything with perfect precision and where every individual is encased in a Teslasuit is both intriguing and somewhat terrifying. Your vivid descriptions of the suit’s features, such as EMS and self-repairing capabilities, make me wonder what it would be like to wear one and experience the world through it.

The discovery of the ancient relic, a hand-woven cloth, provides a fascinating contrast to the highly advanced technology of the Teslasuits. The notion that such a simple object could have such a profound impact on society is a compelling one. I appreciate the way you weave themes of longing, belonging, and separation into your story, suggesting that despite the futuristic setting, human emotions and desires remain unchanged.

I am curious about the social and cultural implications of the Teslasuits and how they have influenced people’s understanding of citizenship and identity. In a society where everyone is encased in an identical suit, do individuals still have a sense of personal identity? How does the state’s issuance of these suits at birth affect notions of individuality and self-expression?

Reference:

Teslasuit. (2022, December 2). Full Body VR Haptic Suit with Motion Capture | TESLASUIT. https://teslasuit.io/products/teslasuit-4/

Describe or narrate a scenario about an implant found a decade into a future in which society as we know it has come apart. Your description should address issues related to algorithms and elicit feelings of calm.

In the year 2035, the world was a vastly different place than it had been just a few decades earlier. Algorithms had become the new ruling class, controlling everything from the economy to people’s personal lives. Society had become increasingly reliant on technology to make decisions for them, and many people felt disconnected from their own emotions and desires. But one day, a small team of programmers stumbled upon an implant. It was unlike any implant they had ever seen before, with advanced algorithms that could analyze a person’s every thought and desire. The team of programmers was initially skeptical of the implant’s capabilities, but as they delved deeper into its design, they realized just how powerful it was. The implant’s algorithms were so advanced that they could predict a person’s needs before they even knew they had them. It could analyze a person’s daily routine and make suggestions for how to optimize it, making their lives more efficient and streamlined. It could even analyze a person’s emotional state and provide them with personalized affirmations to help them feel better. The implant’s algorithms were designed to elicit feelings of calm and contentment in the wearer, no matter what was going on in their lives. It could help them to find a sense of peace even in the most stressful of situations.

As the team of programmers studied the implant more closely, they realized that it was designed to address a critical problem in society: the disconnection between people and their emotions. In a world where algorithms controlled everything, people had become increasingly detached from their own thoughts and feelings. The implant was designed to help people reconnect with their emotions, providing them with the tools they needed to find happiness and contentment in their lives. The team of programmers knew that they had stumbled upon something truly special, a device that could change the world. They worked tirelessly to improve the implant’s design, making it more user-friendly and accessible to people around the world.

And as the implant became more widely available, people began to experience a new sense of calm and contentment in their lives. They were able to reconnect with their emotions, finding happiness in even the smallest moments. The implant had helped people to rediscover what it meant to be human, providing them with a sense of purpose and fulfillment that had been missing from their lives for so long. In the end, the implant became a symbol of hope and possibility for a better future. It showed that even in a world dominated by algorithms, there was still room for human connection and emotional well-being. And for that brief moment, the world felt a little bit brighter, a little bit more hopeful, and a little bit more full of potential.

When implementing AI use in an educational setting, one should first consider ethical issues such as discrimination/bias and surveillance. AI-based pattern recognition is in and of itself problematical. Like humans, the environment in which they learn ultimately impacts the nature of their learning. Pattern matching also has more insidious manifestations. The AI behind a Social Media platform captures a user’s browsing history, without users being aware that they are being
watched – to keep them in the echo chamber of feeds that can trap them into an increasingly narrow worldview.

DALL-E2 is an AI-powered image generation tool created by OpenAI that can create unique and complex images from textual input. DALL-E2 uses a combination of neural networks and natural language processing (NLP) to understand the user’s input and generate an image that matches the description. The platform is designed to be highly versatile and can produce images ranging from realistic to highly abstract or surreal. Its potential applications are varied, including graphic design, art, and visual storytelling.

In the educational setting (McMullan, 2015). AI is often presented as being entirely disembodied from its human creators, which somehow implies that it is therefore objective. There is a mountain of evidence that this is not the case. Since option 1 of this week’s task asks us to take on the role of a county judge at a bail hearing, I decided to put “detain or release individual defendant” in the search bar. The screenshot of this search is clearly biased. As you may notice, most defendants were people of color. As I continued to research this topic, I found an example of bias creeping in BERT—a universal language model that is used by Google’s search engine for things like sentence prediction. It learns from digitized information, including all the biases contained in that content. For example, it’s been discovered that, in general, it didn’t “give women enough credit,” and that when fed 100 random words “99 cases out of 100, BERT was more likely to associate the words with men rather than women.” (Metz, 2019). As with any machine learning algorithm, it is possible that DALL-E2 has biases built into its training data, which could lead to biased or problematic output. Additionally, the algorithm used in DALL-E2 has not been made public, so it is difficult to know exactly how it works or what biases it may contain. However, OpenAI has stated that they have taken steps to ensure that DALL-E is ethically and responsibly developed, and they have implemented various safeguards to prevent the generation of inappropriate or harmful content. Nonetheless, it is important to be aware of the limitations and potential biases of any AI tool and to approach its output with a critical eye.

Most AI systems currently used in education are created by private companies and do not involve much input from educators. This can lead to a lack of training and support for teachers to use AI effectively, potentially marginalizing them. As AI becomes more prevalent in education, it is important for teachers to be aware of the potential impacts on their students and to remain vigilant.

References

McMullan, T. (2015, July 23). What does the panopticon mean in the age of digital surveillance? (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jul/23/panopticondigital[1]surveillance-jeremy-bentham) The Guardian.

Metz, C. (2019). We Teach A.I. Systems Everything, Including Our Biases (https://people.eou.edu/soctech/files/2020/12/BERTNYT.pdf). New York Times.

Task 7: Mode-Bending

After watching “A Journey to the Bottom of the Internet,” I participated in a “close your eyes” exercise that prompted me to envision a web of nodes and edges, which I previously referred to as “links.” However, when I applied the information from Module 9 to Palladio, I realized that this web was complex and multi-layered and had a significant impact on our decision-making due to the vast amount of clicks and links involved.

Task 6: An Emoji Story

Hi Sonia,

Thanks for sharing your experience with using emojis to create a summary of a middle-grade novel that your students are reading. It sounds like you had some interesting challenges to overcome, particularly in finding the right emojis to convey certain ideas or concepts. I can imagine that it was difficult to stick to only the emojis available on your iPhone keyboard, but it’s great that you wanted to stay true to your own experience and use the tools that you’re most familiar with. It’s interesting to compare the differences between our tools and how they affect the ways in which we can author content and design the end-user interface.

As for theoretical underpinnings, one that comes to mind for me is semiotics, or the study of signs and symbols and how they convey meaning. Emojis are essentially a form of visual language, and by using them to create your summary, you’re engaging with the semiotics of the text and exploring how meaning is constructed through the use of these symbols.

One connection I see between your post and my work is the importance of understanding the affordances and constraints of different tools and platforms for communication. Just as you were limited to the emojis available on your iPhone keyboard, I had to work within the constraints of what was available on my Android. Both of our experiences highlight the importance of being able to adapt to and work within the limitations of a given medium or tool.

Another similarity between our work is the importance of audience interpretation. Just as you note that different readers may interpret emojis differently, my final product is also open to interpretation and may be viewed differently by different audiences. It is important to consider the various ways in which our work may be understood and to be open to feedback and dialogue with our viewers.

One question I have for you is: do you think that the use of emojis and other forms of visual language will become more prevalent in the classroom as digital literacy continues to evolve? Thanks for sharing!

Initially, I was thrilled to curate my selection of the ‘top ten’ from a provided list. My initial approach was to listen to the playlist and select songs based on my subjective taste. However, as established, personal preference is not an isolated construct but is shaped by multifaceted factors, including but not limited to cultural and societal influences. Dr. Smith Rumsey’s (2017) statement, “we are creatures of the world that we grow up in” (15:06), is a testament to this reality. Acknowledging this, I was determined to explore methods of incorporating alternative perspectives into my choices. In a similar vein, I consciously endeavored to amplify the voices of marginalized groups by incorporating their music into my selection process.

1. Tchakrulo – Radio Moscow, Georgia
2. Johnny B. Goode – Chuck Berry, America
3. Melancholy Blues – Louis Armstrong, America
4. Dark Was the Night, Cold was the Ground – Blind Willie Johnson, America
5. Night Chant– Navajo, America
6. 5th Symphony   (First Movement)
7. Morning Star & Devil Bird – Aborigine songs , Australia
8. The Fairie Round -David Monrow Early Music Consort of London, England
9. El Cascabel – Lorenzo Barcelata El Mariachi México, Mexico
10. Jaat Kahan Ho – Surshri Kesar Bai Kerkar, India

Despite some difficulty, I aspire for my mixtape to present a collection of perspectives that extend beyond my own. In retrospect, it is evident that my choices aimed to convey a message of inclusivity and also reflect the breadth of musical styles and genres available.

References

Smith Rumsey, A. (2017, July 11). Digital Memory: What Can We Afford to Lose [Video] YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBrahqg9ZMc&t=2277s

The assignment “What’s in your bag?” enabled us to discover aspects of ourselves indirectly without resorting to the overused question, “tell us a little about yourself?” Although the task focused on the contents of our bags, we revealed more about ourselves through the items we chose to include. Many of us used language and visuals, such as pictures and written words, to convey our identities in the original task (See Task 1). The primary mode of my new creation was through sound. Various elements like music and sound effects were incorporated to enrich the experience. Following the New London Group’s (1996) belief that all meaning-making involves multiple modes, I aimed to represent my identity in a multimodal way and determine if my bag could convey even more about me.

Transforming a visual representation into an audio format was a challenging task, and it took me some time to devise a strategy that would allow me to deliver the content in an engaging and informative manner without simply reciting a list of items in my bag. In the redesign process, I shifted my perspective from myself to the objects in my bag, and my final work incorporated linguistic and audio design elements, as per The New London Group’s (1996) belief that all meaning-making involves multiple modes. This process was similar to the Voice to Text assignment, where I observed that speaking instead of writing could influence the message’s delivery.

References

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

Task 5 – Twine Game

Hello Jessie,

I thoroughly enjoyed reading about your Twine game and was impressed by the creativity and interactivity you incorporated into the story. Your use of choices throughout the story created a more engaging experience for the reader. Your ability to incorporate external sources such as Spotify, Amazon, Scholastic Kids, and YouTube demonstrates your skill in navigating and utilizing digital media. However, I did notice that the Spotify link you mentioned was not working correctly, not sure if it was from my end.

I was particularly impressed by how you managed to learn all the tricks and even incorporated Gifs into your work. This added an extra layer of visual engagement to the story and made it even more enjoyable! In contrast, I stuck with using Bitmoji of myself and did not venture out to try all the new things like you did.

Furthermore, your reflection on your creative process was insightful, particularly your decision to search for sources that worked best for you. Your connections to Bolter’s (2001) ideas about hypertext and the limitless nature of stories across the internet demonstrate a deep understanding of the creative possibilities of digital media.