ETEC 540 Site For Greg Patton

“The concept of Design emphasizes the relationship between received modes of meaning  (Available Designs), the transformation of these modes of meaning in their hybrid and  intertextual use (Designing), and their subsequent to-be-received status (The Redesign).”  

The New London Group. (1996), p. 81 

The process of my redesign of Task One, What’s in Your Bag?, was more challenging that I thought it would be.  Transforming the assignment from a traditional text explanation of a visual picture to something else seemed easy at first; a quick PowerPoint of everything in my bag and their uses or a podcast of myself describing the contents.  But then I went back to the idea brought up by The New London Group of trying to ensure that individual differences are not barriers to educational success (The New London Group. (1996), p. 61).  If I redesign in a purely visual form, how does that help students who are visually impaired?  If I redesign in a purely audio form, where does that leave students who are visual learners or English language learners who need the scaffolding of a visual representation as they are learning?  I remember French class in high school, where we would listen to tapes of French being spoken, and I was lost.  But when our teacher switched to a video and visuals were used to show representation of the words I started to understand more.  It was this blending of these modes that I thought would be most beneficial to a student, so I fell on the idea of a video.  Then, stepping back and watching my kids cemented it. 

My kids watch videos to learn (yes, they watch videos to laugh at epic fails and see people do weird dances too but let me have this).  Owen has taught himself origami by watching YouTube videos and has recently developed an origami slinky that not only descends the stairs like the old spring but rotates as it works its way down.  Abby supplements her Band classes on the flute with more lessons online and has become very proficient at it.  I won’t even mention how many times we have searched online for a video about a topic they about at school and wanted to know more.  I myself have started recording Jamie Oliver shows and attempting to cook meals (and… patting myself on the back here, I’m getting to be an ok cook!).  Videos seem to me to be a good example of The New London Group’s idea of “multiliteracies” (The New London Group. (1996), p. 63). 

I knew I couldn’t do this alone so I gathered the professionals that were surrounding me; my family.  But as we worked on this project, I tried to keep in mind the ideas of PostFordism (The New London Group. (1996), p. 66) and collaboration with my kids.  Yes, I was in charge, but when it came to the things each kid took on, I stepped away and let them tell me what their “vision” was.  Owen came up with the set, the personality of his character as my sidekick (he meant business), and sound effects, while Abby had carte blanche when it came to the sign and the filming of the video.  Allowing them the opportunity to take a lead on certain things, instead of me telling them what to do, may have been more time consuming, but I believe the sense of accomplishment in the end and how proud they were of it when it was done was genuine and completely worth it. 

Granted the redesign was definitely more time consuming than the traditional text assignment, I felt that it has more opportunity to benefit more learners with its multi-modal concept.  Especially in an age of technology where anyone with a Wi-Fi connection can watch videos and learn about a plethora of subjects, we need to meet students on the level of learning they are accustomed to and not try to make them revert back to the stand and deliver model that most of us grew up with and kept us from being true collaborators in our learning. 

By the way, I paid the kids in pizza… 

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

I had a pretty good idea what recently-watched movie I was going to attempt to “emoji-ize” while I was reading the articles this week… and then I came upon this quote:

“Representation and communication are motivated by the social; its effects are outcomes of the economic and the political.  To think or act otherwise is to follow phantoms.” Kress (2005), p. 6

This immediately brought to mind this piece of graphic design:

This is an iconic poster; political in its inception, it has also influenced the artist economically as they and their form of art became more famous (or is it infamous?) after the release of this and broke into modern culture.  I also found it completely ironic that this graphic designer’s chosen form of art actually make them and their fellow artists a form of a phantom (I might be giving too much away here).

“Graphic designers sought to show that a combination of word and image offered an experience that was more authentic than the conventional printed page could offer alone.” Bolter, J. D. (2001), p. 70

We all know there were numerous articles written in support of Barak Obama in his bid to become the 44^th President of The United States.  But this perfect blend of word and imagery, with the boldness of the picture combined with the colour palette (red, beige, and blue) and the single word “HOPE”, had more impact within the American culture than most written news stories did in 2008.  It came to represent the 2008 Presidential race and is a perfect example of the “Breakout of the Visual”. Bolter, J. D. (2001)

I have digressed (sort of) from my emoji movie.  This is a little bit more of an obscure movie but, after the epiphany I had above, I knew this film was the right one for this module and I wanted to attempt it.  I started with the title; with this film I couldn’t think of where else to start.  I relied on a combination of breaking words into syllables, swapping an emoji for an entire word, ignoring an article, and hoping (praying really) that some would get a few pop culture references.  As per usual, I had professional help from my son; and his aid really showed me the differences between our generations.  Even at eleven years old, and a very basic chat app on his Ipod, he was quick with coming up with what emoji could entirely replace a word, yet when I switched to syllables, actually breaking down the written language, it was I that came up with the emojis.  I really felt like this title chose me after I had read both articles and I wholeheartedly recommend it… once you figure it out!

Another aside: I drove to Mt. Seymour this morning for my weekend bike ride.  As I turned off the highway onto Mt. Seymour Parkway, I came upon road construction and a sign showing the speed and how much over the posted speed limit (40 km/hr) you are going.  The sign started blinking 43 km/hr; I ignored it as 3 kms… come on!  The sign then switched to a sad face emoji.  I immediately started to slow down and feel guilty.  I then thought, “Why?  Why does that face have that effect on me, and obviously other people?”  I just thought that this was such a bold example of how emojis are so powerful and absorbed within our new modern culture and that they are a language unto themslves.

Spaceship of Death!

(right click)

My strategy for making my twine was simple: I cheated.  I brought in an expert to help me with the whole process because I knew that they  would have great ideas for a story and they’re pretty knowledgeable around a computer.  The ringer is my 11 year old son, Owen.  The minute I showed him the example Twine, he wanted to help me with mine, and I am not turning down any opportunity to spend time with my kids.  How did I know he would have good ideas for this assignment?  His two favourite gifts from his birthday and Christmas: 

We chose space as the theme as he had been playing an online game called “Among Us” a lot and was really into space.  He had designed a boardgame loosely based after the videogame; that is where the three main characters came from as they are game pieces for it.  Please don’t ask why one is a Pirate and one has a pumpkin on his head… that’s pure Owen; the boy is imaginative.  As we worked our way through the story, we decided that not all endings will be happy; far from it.  There are four possible endings, and only one allows the character to live.  This brought us back to the “Choose Your Own Adventure” books; I always found that there were way more opportunities to perish than live in those books (I could be wrong and just have a poor sense of making choices) and found that to be part of the attraction of reading them.    

The hypertext linking was definitely like going down a rabbit hole.   We could have kept linking off of branches and been completely carried away from the actual plot into a whole other subplot quite easily.  I think that is one of the benefits of hypertext within online reading; it can take the reader off on a whole other tandem that they may not have known about.   Link that access to curiosity with the real time speed of the internet and you have a powerful tool for information. 

A complete aside: if anyone really loved reading the Choose Your Own Adventure books, I highly recommend the board game.  There are lots of little pieces and it takes some time getting used to it, but it ends up being a collaborative choose your own adventure.  It’s pretty fun watching the members of your family try to come to a consensus on the next move… and they aren’t looking at their devices!! 

Task 4 Writing Enlarged

Do you normally write by hand or type? Did you find this task difficult or easy? Explain.

All of my formal writing, especially for work, is done on a computer. But I still do all my notes and rough drafts by hand. I leave numerous post-its around my desk to remind me of things; that sounds old school, but I find that I pay attention to them more than just throwing a note in my phone. I am also not a very good typist; I’m 2 to 3 fingers max so I do find that handwriting is a lot faster for me to get my thoughts out.

What did you do when you made a mistake or wanted to change your writing? How did you edit your work? Did your choice of media play a part in how you edited your work?

Seeming as I thought of this as a rough reflection, I didn’t go back and edit my work. I did make mistakes however, and what I usually do is try to fix it on the paper; add a letter where I forgot one, fix a spelling mistake, or ultimately cross out a word and redo it. A funny thing: I started this assignment and finished the first paragraph when one of my kids came in and took me off task (they wanted to play chess). Once I came back to my paragraph, I quickly read it over and noticed that I had missed words. Small ones, the ones you just automatically say when you read something even if they aren’t there. I decided to start over again.

What do you feel is the most significant difference between writing by hand and using mechanized forms of writing? Which do you prefer and why?

The most significant difference between these two for me is speed. I write quite quickly; hence why I sometimes end up missing some words. My typing skills are lacking so I am not a fast; my wife can type between 90 to 100 words a minute and makes me feel tremendously inadequate. I also like the feel of holding a finished copy in my hand. I think this is because I am an older guy and haven’t embraced technology to some of the younger generation’s degree. One of my favourite smells in the world is the smell of secondhand bookstores, where I love hanging out in and adding to my shelves; I also have a large record collection in my basement. The pen I use for the majority of my writing was the first gift my in-laws gave me for Christmas. The feeling of having something in the end still resonates with me; I can’t entirely entrust myself to technology with my writing. Plus, I really love my pen!