The first post which I felt a connection to came from my classmate Analesa who wrote about her Task 3 experience while using the Talk-to-Text feature. Here is a link her post:
This was my response to Analesa’s post: https://blogs.ubc.ca/54064c/2021/10/03/week-3/
Bonjour Analesa,
Your experiences using talk-to-text technology were similar to mine. Missing punctuation, misspelled words, and really a lot of the context from the story which doesn’t get missed when speaking face-to-face.
What stood out to me in your analysis was something short, but vitally important:
“Another difference that exists is the value put on the type of storytelling. Indigenous cultures value oral storytelling and it is a significant part of most Indigenous cultures.”
Growing up on the West Coast on Canada and living within the very strong and proud indigenous communities, oral story telling is the cornerstone of their culture. Written histories were never kept, and throughout the colonization of Canada, languages were banned and most of the physical artifacts which had any meaning to indigenous groups were either confiscated or destroyed.
But what lived on through the forced change of language were the stories. In his 2003 Massey Lecture, Thomas King notes “The truth about stories is that’s all we are” (CBC, 2003). Once you have the honour of hearing a story, it can’t be taken from you like physical objects or beat out of you like a language. It can passed on to another person who can keep the story alive and pass it on to someone else.
While living in Prince Rupert for the past 7 years, I have had the honour of welcoming in many Ts’msyen elders into my classroom to share local “adawx” (stories) to students about a variety of subjects including salmon, weather, and celestial objects such as the sun and the moon. These adawx are some of the only things that have remained from this area over the last several thousand years. That’s why these adawx are so powerful and treasured when shared with my students. Though the stories may slightly changed how they are told from person to person, the messages remain the same.
As you also rightly point out “In general, Western and European cultures tend to value written storytelling more than oral.” For many reasons many of the adawx have never been put to paper, which sometimes makes it difficult to share with students as you need to arrange a time with a particular elder who has the right to share the story. Although it may be challenging for scheduling purposes, fear of losing control to whomever publishes the stories is always on the mind of the local Indigenous Education Department. Over the last few hundred years the Ts’msyen have watched colonialists come and take nearly everything they have known as valuable, so I can’t blame them if the are extremely carful how some of their last items of value of treated and shared.
Reference
Canadian Broadcast Company. 2003. The Truth About Stories: Part 1. CBC.ca. https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/2398900256
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The second post I am choosing to highlight is one from Angela. She was completing Task #5 and creating a digital story with Twine, which she have never used prior to this class. This is her original Blog Post: https://blogs.ubc.ca/angelamhluk/2021/10/10/20/
The following is my response to her post:
Bonjour Angela,
I can understand your feelings about not particularly liking this type of text, as I am more of a fan of non-fiction myself. But what I have come to learn over the last few years is there are some major educational benefits for students when using software such as Twine to create stories.
I was fortunate to be introduced to Twine back in 2017 when my employer sent me to a Professional Development opportunity set up by the Province of BC with Microsoft in Vancouver. At this Pro D session, dozens of educators from across the province were learning about the educational benefits of computational thinking strategies which were being added to the the provincial curriculum.
Programs like Twine allow students to move from just ideating like a computer (computational thinking), to actually putting these coding skills into practice (computational participation). As UBC Professor Dr. Jennifer Jensen notes, through computational participation “you don’t have to know how to code, but you need to understand what code does.” (PDCEUBC, 2020). Furthermore, Jensen & Droumeva (2017, p. 221) found that using programs similar to Twine “allow kids to practice applying key computational thinking constructs such as variables, operations, functions and conditionals.” It is a fallacy to think that every contemporary students comes born with this skill set. These skills need to be taught, developed, and practiced.
Finally, there are still noted gender differences when it comes to confidence and attitude with using computers. For a variety of reasons girls tend to have less time and access to forms of technology at home which allow them to fail and learn in a safe environment. The classroom then becomes the most important environment to receive computational literacies and skills training. (Jensen & Droumeva, 2017, p. 222)
References
Jenson, J., & Droumeva, M. (2017). Revisiting the media generation: Youth media use and computational literacy instruction. E-Learning and Digital Media, 14(4), 212-225. https://doi.org/10.1177/2042753017731357
Professional Development & Community Engagement – University of British Columbia. (2020, Feb 12). Computational Participation with Dr. Jennifer Jensen. Video [YouTube]. https://youtu.be/cCtiQlPMnJ8
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The third post that I connected with was Grant’s Emoji Task, found here: https://blogs.ubc.ca/etec540dgm/2021/10/17/task-6-an-emoji-story/
Grant chose to write out the script for a series I only watched a few months earlier (Ted Lasso). Grant’s ability to choose his emojis with precision, made it easy for me to recognize the show and plot. As Grant notes in his blog post, “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)”
I would agree on the point that there can be many interpretations when trying to read emojis. Some of the emoji stories I read from the collection that our class created were difficult to pick out, mostly because without actually knowing the complete plots of the particular stories being shared, certain symbols have no meaning. If I had never seen the series Ted Lasso on TV, I’m not quite sure I would have correctly picked it out from Grant’s emoji story. Although images, such as emojis, are always specific, full of meaning, and can pass on ideas, interpreting such images to their full extent is greatly aided by words and context.
As Kress’ notes “Speech and writing tell the world; depiction shows the world (2005. p. 16).” I would argue that in the 21st century, the visual medium is more powerful than the spoken or written medium. As the world becomes more connected through the power of the Internet, the power of the image becomes more dominant as billions of them are passed across all parts of the globe. Language matters less, but in the end, still matters!
I also asked Grant about his experience when reading other people’s emoji stories? I know correctly selected my emoji story, but I wondered if he’s already seen “No Time To Die”? Would he have selected it correctly if he hadn’t already seen the movie?
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
Kress (2005), Gains and losses: New forms of texts, knowledge, and learning. Computers and Composition, Vol. 2(1), 5-22.
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The fourth post I made a connection with was from Karen Wang’s Mode-Bending task, found here: https://karenw0801.wixsite.com/mysite/post/week-7-mode-bending-what-is-in-your-bag
I believe Karen’s mode bending exercise was a complete success. After reading her initial ‘What’s in my Bag” post https://karenw0801.wixsite.com/mysite/post/task-1-what-s-in-your-bag where she simply detailed what was in her purse, but I gained a totally different perspective by watching her mode-bending video.
By adding a video with her voice, and including some other pictures to gain references to her life in Taiwan, through this transformative practice (New London Group, 1996) the post became something completely different to her original post. I would argue that she, as the learner, took control of the overt instruction of the task (New London Group, 1996). She chose what extra photos to share, what pieces of information from your personal to share, and what sort of meaning and connections they have to you in your life.
I also feel that through her video and explanation of how important 7-11’s are to life in Taiwan helped me reconsider my own presuppositions with a fresh set of eyes about what 7-11’s can be (Dobson & Willinsky, 2009). Having grown up in North America for my entire life, 7-11’s were just corner store to get a slurpee and candy. After listening to her explanation, they appear to be much more, including a place to purchase concert tickets, pay bills, or do some photocopying. Nowhere near what I had in mind originally when I saw the bill in her original post.
Finally, I like that she flipped the video to something of a game where people can use the items within her bag and guess what Karen’s job is. Not exactly what was in your original post, but something that seems suitable in this new video context.
References
Dobson, T.M. & Willinsky J. (2009). Digital literacy. In D.R. Olson and N. Torrance (Eds) The Cambridge handbook of literacy (286-312) Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
The New London Group. (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review 66(1), 60-92.
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The fifth post I made a connection with was from Maurice, who posted about our Golden Record Task, which can be found here: https://blogs.ubc.ca/etec540texttech/task-eight/
Here is my response to his post:
Bonjour Maurice,
I too loved the experience of learning more about Voyager and it’s encapsulated Golden Record, as I’m a big fan of everything space. I agree with you that Sagan and his contemporaries had an impossible task to choose songs and sounds which fully encompass what it is to live on Earth. Many of your songs were ones that I myself chose including “Dark was the Night” by Blind Willie Johnson, “Night Chant” by Navajo Indians, and Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.
What I wondered in my own task was given all these years later, if a NASA group were to complete a similar task, would they choose any different songs or sounds? If so, which ones, and why?
Sadly, what stood out to me most from your post was your reasoning why you didn’t select the Chuck Berry song! I chose “Johnny B. Goode” as one my song selections, but after now reading the article which you shared, I definitely have a different impression of Chuck Berry. And his song “My Ding A Ling” doesn’t really have that playful context anymore.
Merci,
Mike McD
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The sixth post which I felt a connection came from DeeDee’s “What’s in Your Bag?” Post, found here: https://blogs.ubc.ca/ddperrott/2021/09/17/what-is-in-your-bag/
This is my response to her post:
Bonjour DeeDee,
I think what stood out to me the most about you post was not so much the items within the bag, but how many iterations that your bag has gone through in 30 years. From being a travel bag in Europe, to school bag for university, to a mom bag anything from diapers to Nintendos, and now teacher bag … that leather bag must have some stories to tell!
I also like your reflection about the different types of technology that bag has seen and held over the years from CD players, to notebooks and pens, and laptop computers. It makes me reflect on some of the different types of technologies that my own previous bags have held, which is something I didn’t mention within my own assignment. Sadly, I had to retire my old backpack a couple of years ago, as the wear and tear finally caught up with it. It too had seen man different types of technologies including CD players, MP3 players, DVD players, a leapfrog entertainment system for my daughter, along with a cell phone, and perhaps the odd alcoholic beverages or two as well!
Thinking about my new bag, I wonder what types of technology it will hold over the next twenty plus years? Where will the future take us? Or will the changes simply come through the ever-changing mobile devices which we already can’t do without?
Merci,
Mike McD
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I cheated a little and added a 7th post which I made a connection with. This last post comes from Sheena’s Speculative Futures post found here: https://blogs.ubc.ca/shetec/2021/11/30/task-12-speculative-futures/
This is the response I added to Sheena’s comments:
The section which stood out to me the most was the part about what teaching could look like in the future. This has an obvious connection as I am an educator myself.
“Meanwhile, Jay’s teacher is talking to herself, or is she? She’s having a discussion with her teaching app. The app goes through the curriculum and student data. From the time students enter the school, their learning progress has been input into a database. This data plus lesson plans taken from several online resources are input into the app which then uses this information to plan lessons around the teacher’s learning objectives.”
The idea of having an app which has a bank of lesson plans doesn’t seem too far off, as the current BC curriculum is online, and does have examples of lesson plans. What struck me the most was the idea of collection of student data and how educators will collect it and use it in the future. This idea takes me back to a previous MET course, where I explored the idea of the ethical collection of student data for educational analytics.
When considering the use of data collection and educational analytics, educational leadership and educators needs to consider a variety of issues including ownership; stewardship; access; transparency & consent; security and privacy; and interoperability.
Although all the other aspects are important to data collection, I believe interoperability is the one of the most important aspects. To ensure the adoption of the learning analytics program by educators, a School District would have to be proactive that the collection, use, and access to learning data would sync well between the District and supplier software systems (Fritz, John et al., 2017). I believe interoperability to be vital to the success of any data collection program overall as I feel not many educators would go through a process to obtain data that proved to be confusing, time-consuming, and cumbersome to acquire.
Future technologies can be complex in their design, but they will still need to be user-friendly otherwise they simply won’t be adopted by the masses.
References
Fritz, John et al., (2017, May 1). IMS Global Learning Data & Analytics Key Principles. IMS Global Learning Consortium. https://www.imsglobal.org/learning-data-analytics-key-principles