Manipulation of attention and responses

From the beginning of the task, I found it interesting the landing page was set up. The colour choices, the large “NO” button (which was not a button at all), and then the Please click HERE to GO to the next page where click is underlined (making me think this is what would have been linked to continue) but it was not. The pop-up on the next page reads “This site uses cookies, is that a problem for you?”… giving options of “Not really, no” and “Yes”. This design is a little devious and tricky for users with the wording and the use of a double negative (Brignull, 2011). The timer and movement between 1,2,3,4 made me a little anxious and the pop-up window of “Hurry time is ticking” with a strange close option was a little annoying but made me want to continue and go faster. The use of not in “I do not accept the Terms & Conditions” was interesting, so you had to deselect the check-marked box and it was very slow to scroll down on the link (this may be a good feature though as it may convince others to read if they HAVE to scroll slowly). I actually spent a very long time on this page, embarrassingly so, because I added my email incorrectly (although it did not prompt me to change it) and I did not figure out I had to change the “other” box to .com for my email. I was also getting an error message for “Your password is not unsafe” making me think I had to not follow the password requirements and make it unsafe.

The next page where we were asked to “Choose 3 interests” required we deselect them all first to then make our 3 selections. The following page was interesting as we had to first delete the “Placeholders” for each section to entire our information. The age button was a silly design as we had to pull it along and it could be somewhat finicky. The selection of our country and the use of flags rather than words were entertaining, to say the least. I was interested in the Help box in the lower right-hand corner so for curiosity’s sake I pressed the Help button and was given the response “Please wait, there are 477 people in line.” It was interesting how slowly this help box went away when send to bottom was selected. The next (and last) page was interesting as we had to “Select all images with glasses” which was all of the images…

Tufekci (2017) talks about this threat to freedom and dignity. I felt a little bit of this as I raced against this arbitrary timer with annoying reminders and lost a bit of dignity because I couldn’t figure out what I was missing to move on from page 1. I am left wondering about the idea presented by Harris (2017), of ethically steering people’s thoughts, and how they do not evolve randomly but rather in a specific direction. I know this simple task was racing for our attention and simply steering us to the next page to complete but it is a simple example of how we are drawn into these technologies (racing against a clock and providing personal information), how we are easily persuaded, and there was little to no transparency in the task (Harris, 2017).

References

Bagaar. (2019). User Inyerface. [web game].

Brignull, H. (2011). Dark patterns: Deception vs. honesty in UI design. A List Apart, 338.

Harris, T. (2017). How a handful of tech companies control billions of minds every day. [Video]. TED.

Tufekci, Z. (2017). We’re building a dystopia just to make people click on ads. [Video]. TED.

The Program

The Palladio program seemed a little overwhelming at first and I was not quite sure where to begin with this analysis of the visualizations. I played around with the count and dimensions for quite some time and settled on using what made the most (or any) sense to me based on the fractions in the selected targets and the visualization. I based my analysis using the count of “number of nodes” and added the dimensions of “modularity class, “target”, and “source” to analyze.

Modularity Class

The Palladio program set up 5 modularity classes for our section participants. This is where my comparisons will start. I was organized into modularity class 2, a group with Angela, Dana, Jessie, and Sonia. All 5 of us chose Track 20: The Night Chant and Track 25: Jaat Kahan Ho. If I move along to the other similarities I had with other group members; I shared Track 6: El Cascabel with Jessie and Sonia, Track 5: Morning Star Devil Bird with Sonia, Track 3: Percussion (Senegal) with Dana, Track 24: Flowing Stream with Jessie and Sonia, Track 13: Panpipes and Drum with Dana and Sonia, Track 17: The Well-Tempered Clavier with Angela and Jessie, and Track 2: Kinds of Flowers with Angela and Jessie. Track 21: The Fairie Round was not shared with any of my modularity class members.

All Sources

Now, if I compare my choices with the choices of the entire section, I find 14 out of 17 participants chose Track 20: The Night Chant, 11 chose Track 6: El Cascabel, 9 chose Track 5: Morning Star Devil Bird, 9 chose Track 3: Percussion (Senegal), 9 chose Track 24: Flowing Stream, 8 chose Track 25: Jaat Kahan Ho, 7 chose Track 13: Panpipes and Drum, 5 chose Track 21: The Fairie Round, 5 chose Track 17: The Well-Tempered Clavier, and 4 chose Track 2: Kinds of Flowers. This tells me that my choices are more mainstream than other choices, I chose none of the songs that indicated source ratios of 3 or fewer people from the class choosing it.

My Targets

If I select the visualization of my 10 targets (the 10 records I chose) I share something in common with every source (every participant), which isn’t surprising as 14 of us chose Track 20: The Night Chant. My target choices compared to each source is as follows; 4 shared with Angela, 5 shared with Chris, 4 shared with Dana, 4 shared with Deborah, 6 shared with Jessie, 4 shared with Kristine, 3 shared with Lisa, 5 shared with Lubna, 3 shared with Natalie, 5 shared with Nicole, 4 shared with Petros, 4 shared with Phi, 4 shared with Sarah, 3 shared with Seime, 6 shared with Sonia, 7 shared with Amy. This tells me I have the most in common with Amy and the least in common with Lisa, Natalie, and Seime. This also gives me a little insight into why I was in a modularity group with Jessie and Sonia, indicating that they must have had similarities with the other members (and so on and so forth) to be grouped in such classes.

Reasoning

The visualization creates communities of individuals with similar responses, as indicated by the modularity class, or by selecting visualizations with specific targets or sources to see the links and connections between participants and record selections. As for capturing the reasoning behind the choices that participants made for record selection, I only know my true reasoning as highlighted in task 8. The visualization gives no indication and does not reveal why participants made their choice or selection of various tracks. However, can my (or others’) choices (or non-choices) be interpreted (or misinterpreted) by this data?

Political Implications

If I were to step into a different mindset than the one that I approached this task with, I may be able to view this data through a more judgemental (maybe even pessimistic) lens to see if I can decipher choices that may be racially biased, gender imbalanced, xenophobic, and even religiously or politically discriminating based on geographical location and my knowledge of various countries. For example, did I exclude (and only 2 of 17 participants chose) Track 16: The Rite of Spring (Sacrificial Dance) because it was written by a Russian composer and I do not agree with “their” war on Ukraine? No, I didn’t, I genuinely did not like the song and chose to include others from Europe. Buuuuut, data may be interpreted this way, especially during such times of chaos and unrest. In the same vein, did I along with 13 other participants, chose Track 20: The Night Chant, a North American Indigenous record, because we believe in Truth and Reconciliation or the importance of Indigenous representation or celebrating those who have been stewards of our land for time immemorial? Maybe, or maybe we genuinely liked the song and the instruments, or both. Does this mean 3 participants do not believe in my previous statement? Likely not, buuuuut again, data can be misinterpreted in ways that may misrepresent us and our beliefs if improperly analyzed.

Final thoughts

My previous comments were not written to offend anyone but just trying to bring light to the implications of misinterpreting data, which can potentially happen even through simple tasks as we have just done. Misinterpreting data can lead to misrepresenting people. This could have grandiose effects. I think another interesting task would be to analyze the original record choices, I am sure we could misinterpret a lot through this as well; why are there 6 pieces included from North America and only 1 from Africa? Why does Bach have 3 pieces and Beethoven only 1? Why are the only pieces from South America both from Peru? There are many questions we can ask (or not ask), and many assumptions (and judgments) we can make when we analyze data without knowing the genuine intentions of selectors.

References

Music from Earth. (n.d.). NASA.

Palladio. (n.d). https://hdlab.stanford.edu/palladio-app/#/visualization

The Process

I was quite methodical in my approach to my choices. I started by recording which country and continent each piece of music came from. This was one of my main factors in choosing songs that truly represented the people on planet Earth, as Kurt Waldheim highlighted as the intention of this curation, in the podcast. The purpose was to properly introduce humanity and to collect musical pieces from all around the world so this is what mainly drove my decision-making process. To add, it was stated that one piece represented each “thing” therefore, musical instruments factored into my decision as well; if I had already chosen a song with panpipes or percussion I likely chose a different instrument from the same continent. I still had the two goals at the forefront of my process as well; try to be inclusive as possible and make a good record. 

The Music

Australia, Aborigine songs, “Morning Star” and “Devil Bird,” recorded by Sandra LeBrun Holmes. 1:26

This song is one of three from Oceania, which is described as a continent in some regions, this is new to me. At first, I immediately chose this song as it was the only song from the continent of Australia (as I previously knew it) and upon further investigation, I chose to keep it as I appreciated how it is actually two Aborigine songs with one of the most interesting instruments, the didgeridoo. I also liked the dichotomy of bright and dark of the two songs, as well as the representation of the Indigenous peoples of Australia with their voices. 

Navajo Indians, Night Chant, recorded by Willard Rhodes. 0:57

This song is one of five possible choices from North America. I chose this one in particular as I think it is important to include Indigenous culture and is in a way one of the closest related to Canadian Indigenous culture. I read that it is a song about healing and restoring culture, a message that I appreciate and admire. This song felt very light with the shaker instruments and the high pitch voices. 

Peru, panpipes and drum, collected by Casa de la Cultura, Lima. 0:52

This song is one of two possible choices from South America, based on my list I only chose one song from South America. This is because both songs on the record are from Peru and I thought my narrowing list should not favour two songs from the same country. As I listened and compared the two songs I appreciated the instruments, the panpipes and the drums, over the other song. For some reason, this song reminded me of Peter Pan, and I liked its intensity and mysteriousness with the panpipes and drums.

India, raga, “Jaat Kahan Ho,” sung by Surshri Kesar Bai Kerkar. 3:30

This song is one of eight possible from Asia, depending on how you categorize various countries that may belong to multiple continents, and I only found it fitting to include a song from the most populous place on the planet, as it (in a way) represents the culture of the most amount of people (loosely speaking). I found this song hauntingly beautiful and only fitting for interstellar travel as the title is Where are you going alone, girl?

Holborne, Paueans, Galliards, Almains and Other Short Aeirs, “The Fairie Round,” performed by David Munrow and the Early Music Consort of London. 1:17

This song is one of ten possible from Europe, again depending on categorization. As the UK was historically one of the most influential countries in the world, especially to Canada (ie. British monarch), I thought it fitting to include it. I also think the use of the recorder is too good to pass up, as the recorder was a staple of my middle school music experience. It is a very light and airy song, it made me feel joy and happiness as I listened to it. I could picture dances and courtship as I listened to the high notes and bright melody.  

Mexico, “El Cascabel,” performed by Lorenzo Barcelata and the Mariachi México. 3:14

This song is the second chosen of five possible choices from North America. I had already chosen a song from the USA, so I wanted to diversify and bring in the fun and exciting sounds of Latino music. I read that music in Spanish may be the second most consumed music in the world which is a noteworthy statistic. The fast rhythm and mariachi band beats made me want to dance, it sounded like something very exciting was happening throughout this song of The Little Bell.

China, ch’in, “Flowing Streams,” performed by Kuan P’ing-hu. 7:37

This song is the second chosen of eight possible from Asia. Similarly to the song from India, I chose a song from China as not only is it the second most populous country in the world but is also (sometimes frighteningly) influential and powerful on an international scale. Although, I do love the sentiment of ever-moving water and the intriguing introduction of plucking strings drew me further into the song. There were ebbs and flows of the harder and lighter plucking of the strings, just as a river would act. 

Bach, The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2, Prelude and Fugue in C, No.1. Glenn Gould, piano. 4:48

This song is the second chosen of ten possible from Europe. It only made sense to me to choose at least one song from Bach as there were three on the record. I debated between Bach and Beethoven, as people would argue Beethoven is better, however, statistically speaking this choice sat better. I also found it interesting the conversations that revolved around the mathematical concepts of these pieces included from Bach and Beethoven. This particular Bach song was chosen because the instrument was the piano, something that the other songs did not include.

Java, court gamelan, “Kinds of Flowers,” recorded by Robert Brown. 4:43

This song is the second chosen of three from Oceania. I enjoyed the various percussive instruments and I read that it is a traditional ensemble of various peoples of Indonesia, and therefore a more diverse representation of people. There was a lot going on right from the beginning of this piece and the interesting addition of the various voices overlapping was intriguing and beautiful, it made me sway back and forth with the carried notes. 

Senegal, percussion, recorded by Charles Duvelle. 2:08

This song is the only song from Africa on the list, and therefore should absolutely be on the record. The other record that may be included for Africa is Pygmy Girls, however, from what I could find, it was a British American who recorded it so I shied away from this choice. The drums at the very beginning made me want to shake my hips, I pictured people in regalia and traditional dances when I closed my eyes and listened. 

A burning need to share my runner-ups;

“Johnny B. Goode,” written and performed by Chuck Berry. 2:38

I read this piece was a little controversial as rock music was deemed adolescent to which the reply was there are many adolescents on the planet. Love it!

Beethoven, Fifth Symphony, First Movement, the Philharmonia Orchestra, Otto Klemperer, conductor. 7:20

Classic. Classic. Classic. Duh duh duh duuuuum. 

References

Taylor, D. (Host). (2019, April). Voyager golden record. [Audio podcast episode]. In Twenty thousand hertz. Defacto Sound.

867.5309 TextRadio Show

Task 7 – Mode Bending Transcript

Reflection

Postman (2011) wrote that new technologies alter the structure of our interests and I was drawn to create a “radio show” for this task as this form of electronic media culture is markedly important in the history of orality and altering the nature of community (Lunsford, 2006). I quite enjoy thinking of this task as a continuity or extension of the original print literacy of task 1, using a new medium of audio to represent the content of the previous medium of text (Dobson & Willinsky, 2009). 

Similarly, my design rested largely on the transformation of making new use of the old material as the task required (New London Group, 1996). I debated structuring something around a visual design with audio components, filming myself in some sort of artistic gesturing dance, or creating a video with multimodal components. I settled on the radio/podcast-like mode because it is something I have never done before. I was surprised at how much time it ended up taking me in the end, but feel like this is always the case with virgin podcasters; what platform to use, how to add effects, and how to sound okay with minimal equipment for such a task.

The idea of meaning-making practices is especially important in my world of education. This idea of digital natives and digital immigrants, although warned of this binary, is interesting to consider (Prensky, 2001). A dichotomy of myself as a digital immigrant, who went through K-12 without technology being a real participant in my education, compared to those I teach who are digital natives, who have experienced educational technologies before kindergarten. I am also battling both internally and externally with the digital divide, a very prominent and real concern in the community I live. This is fundamentally what actually lead me to the MET program, as I teach marginalized students who have been traditionally underserved including access to digital resources and digital literacy opportunities. 

It was enjoyable to explore this task, of changing the semiotic mode of a previous task. It is a very practical way to teach multimodality and I plan to carry this type of practical experience into my classroom.

References

Dobson, T., & Willinsky, J. (2009). Digital literacy. In D. R. Olson & N. Torrance (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of literacy (pp. 286-312). Cambridge University Press.

Lunsford, A. A. (2006). Writing, technologies, and the fifth canon. Computers and composition, 23(2), 169-177.

Postman, N. (2011). Technopoly: The surrender of culture to technology. Knopf Doubleday Publishing. (Original work published 1992)

Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants part 2: Do they really think differently? On the Horizon, 9(6), 1-6. The New London Group. (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review 66(1), 60-92.

Syllables, words, ideas

I relied mainly on words and ideas, especially with emoji’s you have to get a little creative and some ideas may stretch farther than others to connect to specific words/places/people and other representations of a movie. If I consider how reading is modified in this multimedia environment I would refer to the saying of “a picture is worth a thousand words” and slightly modify it to say “an emoji is worth representing a chunk of plot” for the purposes of this task.

Starting with the title

Yes, I started with the title. There was a specific emoji I wanted to use in the title as I use it throughout the rest of my emoji story, this emoji acts as a representation of a specific place and as this was the closest emoji I could find I wanted to ensure readers could pick it out from the beginning (I thought this representation is made more obvious in the title). I also started with the title because the emojis were what came to mind almost immediately when I thought of this task.

Visualization

I had two choices to pick from recently viewed material, and although one was pretty comical to visualize, I chose the other for its, say… appropriateness and challenge, or more “complex orchestration”. I had a rough idea of what emojis may be possible to use and highlight the key features or ideas, however, I was surprised by the lack of emojis I thought would be available and the ones that were available. I definitely had to improvise or create some looser connections of ideas to representation but in the end, I think I was able to find at least some sort of visual representation for my word or idea.

References

Bolter, J. D. (2001). Writing space: Computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print. (2nd ed). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Adventure Awaits

ETEC 540 Adventure Awaits.html

Strategy

I have created one previous Twine in another course, so I knew it would take me a while to create something but I find it such a fun process that I decided to take on the optional challenge (challenging for me). I did refer to my previous Twine to remind myself of some of the basic coding strategies, and I also referred to the Twine cookbook if something just didn’t seem to be looking right or I wanted a certain font, colour, size, etc. of text. I find I use the test from here function ALOT, and will copy and paste codes to other pages that have turned out the way I want it. The cookbook and Twinery forums seemed to be my go-to and were often very helpful.

I wanted to create a mini adventure, including a few things that I am passionate about (traveling, adventure, and the outdoors), while being creative and of course, a little silly – hoping to get a few laughs out of participants. I began with a plan on paper; how the story would begin, explained why there is an adventure and the general layout of what each adventure would entail. I chose to keep the layout similar between each adventure, I thought it would be more pleasing for the viewer and of course because of time constraints. I was hoping to find more images that went together but this proved to be a difficult task and I decided to keep the images simple rather than mismatched and clunky. 

It is a little frustrating WordPress does not have an easy solution for embedding a Twine story into the blog, I messed around with plugins for a while but was (very) unsuccessful. I feel like there is always more I could do, but alas, I just needed to finally move on to different tasks (both academically, professionally, and personally).

I hope you enjoy 🙂

History of potato stamps

Potato stamps originated in the early 1900s when North America was seeing an influx of white European settlers and Indigenous peoples wanted to cater to this increased “tourism” by decorating their woven baskets (Made by a Potato, 2022). A cubism art movement was sweeping across Europe and these basket decorating techniques seemed to catch the attention of passing tourists, using vegetables such as potatoes and squash and herbal dyes on ash splint baskets (Bruchac, 2015). Interestingly enough, this practice of weaving and designing baskets emphasized the importance of oral storytelling in Indigenous cultures (connecting to Task 3).

Challenges

Embarrassingly so, I created the first stamp backward and had to redo it. I had one of those moments where you cannot believe how silly you were…like duh! And then I had another moment where I realized that maybe each letter needed to be on its own potato and that we needed five stamps and not two stamps of the full word. But alas, I’ll speak to what I know and did in this circumstance. 

Time taken

I think from the very beginning (full potato) to stamps on the page, my guess would be about 25 minutes. I used a kitchen knife to cut the potato in half and cut out the letters, I kind of thought after that it may have worked better if I used my art knife (but we’ll never know now). I tried to use multiple writing tools to write the letters on before cutting, but nothing seemed to stick (sharpie, marker, pencil), so I had ultra-light markings to follow when cutting. 

Letter choice

The curves of the J and the inside space of the A were particularly challenging to cut. I found the little space I had to work with it made all of the letters difficult to define and refine, the M and the E had a lot of middle spaces that I was worried I would chop off one of their “limbs”.

Mechanization of writing

I thought it was a lot of fun to do a hands-on activity, it was at times calming and almost meditative, this was a first for me in the program. However, my stamps look like garbage, they took quite some time to create and prepare, and they made quite a mess with potato chunks, juice, and paint. I had read somewhere that some people have used cookie cutters to create shapes in the potato, pressing it into the open half and cutting around – this sounds like a fun way to do crafts with kids as well. This may be what I reserve this for, a fun activity to do with kids around the holidays to make cards and build some motor skills along with creativity. 

I do recognize that historically it may have been a low-cost alternative to produce a repeated pattern or message, so it would have been more efficient and quicker than writing or drawing by hand. Appreciatively it was an important step towards more advanced practices and technologies for printing and the way we share information.

As I watched the short film on letterpress technology I almost found it such a beautiful art form. Efficient, no, not in this day and age as it is time-consuming and the actual technology of the press is so dated it is hard to find and/or replace parts, but an enchanting operation. Once textual bodies are all perfectly pieced together, it is impressive how fast it does in fact make copies with the rolling mechanisms. An acceleration of 200 pages to 768,000 pages an hour is a fascinating statistic the printing press holds, it is no wonder it transformed societies (Innis, 2007). My work of potato art was not so transformative!

References

Bruchac, M. (2015, May 5). Potato Stamps and Ash Splints:
A Narrative of Process and Exchange. https://www.penn.museum/blog/museum/potato-stamps-and-ash-splints/

Danny Cooke Freelance Filmmaker. (2012, January 26). Upside down, left to right: A letterpress film [Video]. YouTube.

Innis, H. (2007). Empire and communications. Dundurn Press. 

Made by a Potato. (2022, November 4). The History of Potato Stamps. https://madebyapotato.com/blogs/news/the-history-of-potato-stamps

My story

Hello friends so I’m going to tell you a story that happened to me just over the Christmas holidays my husband and I went down to Mexico and we decided to go scuba diving and snorkeling In the popular cenotes my husband’s a scuba diver so he did that and I snorkeled in both locations that we went to so the first location we went to was called dose oils which means two eyes because if you were to see it from up above it looks like two eyes which is pretty cool and it’s snorkeling and Diving all throughout these underwater caves which was absolutely incredible and it was so beautiful and I’ve never experienced anything like it and then he went to the second location and it’s sort of reminded me of like Florida mangroves and it was a much smaller place and the smaller operation and before we got there our guide said we’re going to go into the water and we’re going to loop around a little horseshoe Loop and we’re going to see a crocodile or Panchito sitting on a rock it’s always sitting on this rock so we’re going to swim mirror it but far enough away we can just look at it from a distance and so I’m the only one snorkeling and she’s diving our guide is diving with my husband and then two other people who are very experienced divers I think they were just friends of her that wanted to come along so she asks if this is okay and I say of course and because it was quite shallow I was actually going to be snorkeling right above them and was going to be able to see them the whole time and so all sounds good so we get ready we get in the water the scuba divers go down and I am up and so I’m looking down seeing some really big fish in the water and getting to see the beautiful scenery with all the big trees that are kind of Dipping into the water and it was really awesome so I’m looking down I see them and then I look up and stick my head out of the water and I see a crocodile in the water about 30 ft in front of me and I look back down and I see that the guy also notices that the crocodile is in the water and so she looks at my husband and tells him underneath the water however they communicate to stay down and she was going to go up and be with me and so she’s telling him stay down here and then I see her and she’s going to come up and be with me so she calmly comes up out of the water and she tells me in a very calm voice to just go over to the side and hold on to one of the main girls and we’re just going to give the crocodile some space to swim by and so of course I’m a little panicked but I am keeping my calm I’m not splashing around I’m doing what I’m told and I hold on to the tree and sure enough the crocodile is just getting closer and closer and just swimming and then are my guide again just says we’re going to give it space we’re going to let it go bye and she pulls up her little ear thing from her scuba diving tank and she didn’t tell me after what that was for but so the crocodile swims by and is probably about a foot and a half away from me as it swims by and it was a very interesting experience for that to happen and the crocodile swims by and we watch it go by and my guide looks at me and asked me if I’m okay and I say yes I’m okay and she says okay we now have to swim back to the entrance and I knew that I’d have to swim back by the crocodile because it went towards the entrance and so I was a little scared but my guy said she was going to be looking out the whole time and I trusted her so she goes back down we turn around and we start swimming again and I kept looking up and looking down and looking up and looking down and my heart was beating pretty fast at this point and then sure enough we turn a corner and this time when we see the crocodile it is on the floor of the peninsula place we were diving and snorkeling and I could see my guide and she was telling the divers to again stick to the side and she looked up and told me to stick to the side and we all swam buy the crocodile and as soon as we were in front of it it twisted around and swam back the other way from where it came probably to go back to its Rock and then finally we all got back to the entrance where we entered and we were all buzzing it was very exhilarating definitely scary at the time it was happening but in a way that made me feel alive and full of energy we all raved about what a fascinating experience this was even our guide and her friends were ecstatic thanks for listening to my story

How does the text deviate from the conventions of written English?

• Spelling and grammar appeared to be correct throughout the text, the only time spelling deviated was when the recorder misheard what I said (it spelled the word correctly for the word it must have heard).
• Capitalization is not always present or correct, this would also tie into punctuation as there was really only the “beginning” of a sentence with the first spoken words.
• Punctuation is non-existent, it is one long run-on sentence that lacks any structure other than my oral words being put into textual words. 
• Dialogue is not indicated.

What is “wrong” in the text? What is “right”?

• As mentioned above the capitalization, punctuation, and dialogue is incorrect. The spelling and grammar appear to be correct. 
• I use a few Spanish words, the text incorrectly writes “dose oils” instead of dos oyos, however, it correctly writes panchito and cenotes. 
• There are incorrect words such as; the smaller operation, swim mirror it, he went to the second location at it’s sort of reminded, the guy also, but my guy, let it go bye, ear thing, main girls should have alternatively been; a smaller operation, swim near it, we went to the second location and it sort of reminded, the guide also, but my guide, let it go by, air thing, mangroves respectively. 
• Dipping, Diving, Loop, Rock, In, and Panchito, are capitalized and shouldn’t be, however, Mexico, Florida, and Christmas are capitalized which is correct. I is correctly capitalized throughout the text/story. It is obviously missing all of the capitalizations that should be present at the beginning of new sentences, but as previously mentioned there is no sentence structure throughout the entire text.

What are the most common “mistakes” in the text and why do you consider them “mistakes”?

• There are some mistakes with the word that is present in the text and this may be due to my pronunciation or annunciation of the words. For example, guy and guide. I would consider these a mistake because most of the wrong words, or words that I did not say aloud but the recorder thought it heard, do not make sense in the story. For example swim mirror it, and main girls.
• Again, the capitalization of words is interesting and it seems as though there is no rhyme or reason for their placement. I wonder if there may have been pauses or emphasis in me speaking those particular words and this is why they are capitalized, although this would not explain why there are no periods. 
• Punctuation in this story may have added even the slightest indication that things were exciting, tense, and exhilarating by throwing in a “!” or a suspenseful “…”.

What if you had “scripted” the story? What difference might that have made?

• Although it would have likely looked the same structurally based on the affordances of the speech-to-text program I used, it would have been more polished with word choices for descriptions and adding more detail to paint a better picture for my reader. For example, I would have explained what a cenote is, maybe explained in more detail how big this one was and why the crocodile had to be so close to me as it swam by, 
• I used certain words that looking back, I am not sure I knew what I meant at the time, I think I was a little nervous knowing everything I said was being translated into text. For example, Florida mangroves and peninsula place. 
• I likely wouldn’t have said and, then, and so as much as I did throughout the story.
• I would have tried to express verbally what I was doing physically, not in the literal sense of “now I am moving my head up and down to indicate in and out of water”, but in a written story sense of setting the stage, using words to convey emotional impact and context of the story.

In what ways does oral storytelling differ from written storytelling? 

Oral expression, or storytelling, can exist without writing, however, writing, or written storytelling, is never without orality (Ong, 2002, p.8). Oral storytelling is a dynamic performative art, it relies on body language and a range of human faculties such as gestures, tone, volume, pace, and facial expressions (Callahan, 2006). Things like intonation and emotional content are aspects of oral storytelling that writing can not record, writing records language but not actual speech (Gnanadesikan, 2008, p.9).

As Mark Twain (1897) states:

“The pause is an exceedingly important feature in any kind of story, and a frequently recurring feature, too. It is a dainty thing, and delicate, and also uncertain and treacherous; for it must be exactly the right length — no more and no less — or it fails of its purpose and makes trouble. If the pause is too short the impressive point is passed, and the audience have had time to divine that a surprise is intended — and then you can’t surprise them, of course” (p.9).

Written words are residue, invented to store information (Gnanadesikan, 2008, p.2; Ong, 2002). Writing has organized and enhanced orality into a scientific art through visible markings, making meaningful connections to science and history, creating disjunctions between past and present (Haas, 2013, p.11; Ong, 2002, p.9). Writing is therefore a process of translating time into space (2), written stories are static works of art, like an artifact that is a fixed creation (Gnanadesikan, 2008, p.3, Berve, 2021).

As Haas (2013) discusses:

“For Ong, writing transforms human consciousness by moving language from an aural realm, where it unfolds across time, to a visual realm, where it takes on a primarily spatial quality” (p.9). 

As such, written storytelling can be examined, analyzed, and dissected through this visual realm, written words can be pointed to and discussed compared to fleeting spoken words (Gnanadesikan, 2008, p.4). Written storytelling is a more deliberate practice than speaking, carefully crafted to convey messages more precisely, adding to the sense that writing is worth more than speech (Gnanadesikan, 2008, p.5). It is a polished artifact compared to a spontaneous performance of oral storytelling (Berve, 2021). An author is conscious of the potential audiences, they can edit draft after draft to obtain a desired effect (Callahan, 2006). 

Last thoughts

What would society look like without writing?

As we have read, writing is fundamentally rooted in control:

“As human societies became more complex, those attempting to control them found that their memories were overtaxed. What they needed was an external storage device. What they came up with is writing” (Gnanadesikan, 2008, p.3).

That the societies that have been created, based on this control, have happened in the advent of state administration and bureaucracy, in trade and commerce, and in religion. I wonder if society has just been conditioned to believe that writing is a necessity. That evolution has made our brains less capable to store information because as time went on we required our brains to store less and less information. Just think about the advent of cellphones, storing numbers I used to have memorized, having information at my fingertips so my brain inadvertently knows it does not have to retain information, and plugging every destination into google maps.

In a world with no writing, we may pay more attention to knowledge keepers in philosophy and science, and celebrate Indigenous ways of knowing over western practices of data and graphs. An interesting sentiment from Ong (2002);

“Nevertheless, without writing, human consciousness cannot achieve its fuller potentials, cannot produce other beautiful and powerful creations” (p.14).

Indigenous peoples have spent thousands of years passing down stories, traditions, agricultural practices, values, beliefs, and language through oral storytelling. The First Peoples Principles of Learning were written recently, but have been practiced for centuries. Indigenous peoples have been stewards of the land for time immemorial. If someone would like to argue that the fuller potential is overpopulation, climate change, deforestation, and mass extinction at alarming rates then I welcome the discussion. These creations are powerful, yes, but not so much beautiful.  

References

Berve, C. (March 28, 2021). What Are the Differences between Riveting Oral and Written Storytelling. Ignited Ink Writing. https://www.ignitedinkwriting.com/

Callahan, S. (August 21, 2006). Storytelling versus story-writing. Anecdote. https://www.anecdote.com/

Gnanadesikan, A.E. (2011). The first IT revolution. In The writing revolution: Cuneiform to the Internet (pp. 1-12). John Wiley & Sons.

Haas, C. (2013). The technology question. In Writing technology: Studies on the materiality of literacy (pp. 3-23). Routledge.

Ong, W.J. (2002). Chapter 1: The orality of language. In Orality and literacy: The technologizing of the word (pp. 5-16). Routledge. (Original work published 1982).

Twain, M., Ingold, E., Clemens, O., Ernest Ingold Collection of Mark Twain (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library)., American Wit and Humor Collection (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library). Franklin J. Meine Collection., Harper & Brothers. (1897). How to tell a story, and other essays. New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers.

Striking Statements

[16:53] Dr. Boroditsky mentions “…very egocentric of me to make the dimension of time chase me around every time I happen to turn my body…”

I think this ecogentricity with language, in general, is something that I think of often, connected to ideologies of perspective. This idea that everyone sees the world in the same way that I do, and not until we acknowledge that this is far from true do we begin to open our minds (and sometimes our hearts) in ways that allow us to accept and celebrate diversities. I am also humbled when I travel to places that do not cater to my English-speaking requisites, I flourish in these uncomfortable encounters and am reminded how egotistical English speakers can be. To see time through this same lens is an interesting topic of conversation.

[21:33] Dr. Boroditsky mentions “…once you have learned a language like this with grammatical gender, do you actually end up thinking of the sun and the moon as more male-like or female-like depending on what gender they are in your language… if you speak a language with grammatical gender this is an incredibly pervasive feature…”

Taking this conversation of gendered languages in a different direction, I want to highlight how gendered language can affect perceptions. There’s an omnipresence of gendered language deeply engrained in society that can affect behaviour and lead to biases (subtle or not). When male is always the default used in language (ie. mankind), although intended to be gender-neutral, a subtle gender conditioning takes hold. Man is the norm and woman is deviant. So, would the underlying language structures be the same in gendered languages?  

[26:05] Dr. Boroditsky mentions “…language allows us to construe and construct events…”

I am instantly drawn to the game of telephone, where you sit around in a circle and the first person leans over to whisper something in another’s ear and that message is passed all the way around the circle until it reaches the end and everyone laughs at how the message has changed and morphed into something completely unrecognizable. The retelling of a message through language can change in this simple game, it can be completely transformed and reconstructed through intentional or unintentional language choices, a revelation that reminds me to dig a little deeper, especially when engaging with social media. 

[39:40] Dr. Boroditsky mentions “…this cultural system of number words that are developed and refined over many generations and that we now take completely for granted because we learned it so long ago when we were kids we don’t remember learning it and yet it gave us entry into this whole word of number and math…”

This may have been the part of her presentation I was most in awe over. Mathematics has been portrayed as this universal language, something everyone uses and to some degree understands as it pervades how things just “are”. I was surprised to find that this is not the case, that there are cultures that do not use such mathematical terms or even necessarily need it in their everyday lives. As a teacher, it is critical we teach mathematical concepts (even at their most simple foundation) so that students will be successful in society. This makes me think that teaching math is vital because of the society that has been built around us to require it, therefore, the societies that do not need this entry into a mathematical world rely on other ways to communicate mathematical concepts (amounts, building, time). So, maybe next time a student says they don’t know why they need math (or math is stupid) I can ask them to move to those places.

[44:32] Dr. Boroditsky mentions “…cultures also reduce cognitive entropy, we are able to think about the world and conceptualize the world in many ways but we don’t usually do all of those different ways… thinking about linguistic diversity as this aspiration to think about how you could think about things differently, what are all the different things your mind can do…”

I love discussing and dissecting societal constructs, and this idea of cognitive entropy reminds me of social constructions. We can acknowledge that social constructs exist, that some are beneficial and others are not, but yet I find that as humans, the majority of people are happy to do things as they have been done because of a belief that it is the best way since it has “always been done that way”. Now, is this in fact the case or are we just lazy, and as many creatures, taking the path of least resistance is easiest (and most enjoyable)? Critical thinking is a competency at the forefront of my teaching practice, yet it is easier said than done. I encourage discovery, exploration, and dialogue over teacher-dominated projection of facts for students to passively receive knowledge. The idea of thinking about thinking is metacognition, and whether it is explicit or not, I think a lot of teachers attempt to improve this in their students.  

[57:45] Dr. Boroditsky mentions “…language continues changing and evolving and that’s its nature, it’s a living thing that we create, so whether it’s through technology or through being exposed to new experiences that’s just something that is always going to happen…”

Language, how it evolves, how it circulates, and sadly, how it disappears is fascinating. When I think about my role as a special education teacher, this evokes some controversy as the term special has evolved and along with it, has negative connotations and stigma. I found it intriguing (and a little hypocritical) that a MET course would teach that special should not be used when their own organization continues to offer degrees in Special Education. Similarly, I think there are many other terms that have evolved over history because of negative associations and how words, unfortunately, morphed into insults and derogatory phrases. But alas, let’s not just focus on the negative. The idea that it is a living thing, capable of reproduction, growth, and change, is an incredible thing. It is dynamic, fluid, and adaptable.   

Connections

Boroditsky (2017) highlights that language is never static, whether it changes through technology or is exposed to new experiences. Berkowitz (n.d) reflects on how technological change leads to a linguistic change in his episode on The Word Guy. It’s interesting to think about how often the original meaning of a word is a metaphor for the new (ie. cloud), or how words have become verbs (ie. Google). Based on these examples, advancements in technology have changed or evolved the meanings of words, therefore, changing language and text. Boroditsky’s latter point on exposure to new experiences can be highlighted through Innis (1951), who states that “sudden extensions of communications are reflected in cultural disturbances” (p. 32). The age of social media is at the forefront of this particular point, and how could it not be? The dawning of the world wide web was one thing to connect people on a global scale, what it has evolved into is another. With the rise of various platforms for instant communication abilities and various ways to share, post, like, chat, snap, upload, and comment (to name a few), the extensions of communication are vast. This dialogue on social media can also connect to another note from Boroditsky (2011), “A hallmark feature of human intelligence is its adaptability, the ability to invent and rearrange conceptions of the world to suit changing goals and environments” (p.65). 

“Language shapes even the most fundamental dimensions of human experience: space, time, causality, and relationships to others” (Boroditsky, 2011, p.64). I am again drawn to the idea of metacognition, thinking about thinking and how we can do things differently. Snyder (1996) claimed, “the space created by each writing technology permits certain kinds of thinking and discourages others” (p. 5). All of these notions of thinking and doing and thinking about what we are doing. It is this communication piece of doing and changing what we are doing; the reciprocal influences between communication needs, invention, and evolving practices. 

References

Boroditsky, L. (2011). How language shapes thought. Scientific American, 304(2), 62-65.

Innis, H. (1951). The bias of communication. University of Toronto Press. 

SAR School for Advanced Research. (2017, June 7). Lera Boroditsky, how the languages we speak shape the way we think [Video]. YouTube.

Snyder, I. (1996). Hypertext: The electronic labyrinth. Melbourne University Press.