Author Archives: James Seaton

Golden Record Curation (Task 8)

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For this task, I was required to curate a set of 10 songs from the 27 included on the Voyager spacecraft’s Golden Record. Below you will find the full list of songs, with my selections indicated in red (alongside an *), along with a brief rationale for my choices:

  • Bach, Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F. First Movement, Munich Bach Orchestra, Karl Richter, conductor. 4:40
  • Java, court gamelan, “Kinds of Flowers,” recorded by Robert Brown. 4:43
  • Senegal, percussion, recorded by Charles Duvelle. 2:08
  • *Zaire, Pygmy girls’ initiation song, recorded by Colin Turnbull. 0:56
  • Australia, Aborigine songs, “Morning Star” and “Devil Bird,” recorded by Sandra LeBrun Holmes. 1:26
  • Mexico, “El Cascabel,” performed by Lorenzo Barcelata and the Mariachi México. 3:14
  • *”Johnny B. Goode,” written and performed by Chuck Berry. 2:38
  • New Guinea, men’s house song, recorded by Robert MacLennan. 1:20
  • Japan, shakuhachi, “Tsuru No Sugomori” (“Crane’s Nest,”) performed by Goro Yamaguchi. 4:51
  • Bach, “Gavotte en rondeaux” from the Partita No. 3 in E major for Violin, performed by Arthur Grumiaux. 2:55
  • *Mozart, The Magic Flute, Queen of the Night aria, no. 14. Edda Moser, soprano. Bavarian State Opera, Munich, Wolfgang Sawallisch, conductor. 2:55
  • *Georgian S.S.R., chorus, “Tchakrulo,” collected by Radio Moscow. 2:18
  • Peru, panpipes and drum, collected by Casa de la Cultura, Lima. 0:52
  • *”Melancholy Blues,” performed by Louis Armstrong and his Hot Seven. 3:05
  • *Azerbaijan S.S.R., bagpipes, recorded by Radio Moscow. 2:30
  • Stravinsky, Rite of Spring, Sacrificial Dance, Columbia Symphony Orchestra, Igor Stravinsky, conductor. 4:35
  • Bach, The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2, Prelude and Fugue in C, No.1. Glenn Gould, piano. 4:48
  • *Beethoven, Fifth Symphony, First Movement, the Philharmonia Orchestra, Otto Klemperer, conductor. 7:20
  • Bulgaria, “Izlel je Delyo Hagdutin,” sung by Valya Balkanska. 4:59
  • *Navajo Indians, Night Chant, recorded by Willard Rhodes. 0:57
  • Holborne, Paueans, Galliards, Almains and Other Short Aeirs, “The Fairie Round,” performed by David Munrow and the Early Music Consort of London. 1:17
  • *Solomon Islands, panpipes, collected by the Solomon Islands Broadcasting Service. 1:12
  • Peru, wedding song, recorded by John Cohen. 0:38
  • China, ch’in, “Flowing Streams,” performed by Kuan P’ing-hu. 7:37
  • *India, raga, “Jaat Kahan Ho,” sung by Surshri Kesar Bai Kerkar. 3:30
  • “Dark Was the Night,” written and performed by Blind Willie Johnson. 3:15
  • Beethoven, String Quartet No. 13 in B flat, Opus 130, Cavatina, performed by Budapest String Quartet. 6:37

(available from NASA, n.d.)

I chose these recordings based on a few criteria. First and foremost, I wanted recordings that were pleasant to the ear and showed impressive levels of talent, treating the record like a showcase of what humans are capable of (hence my selection of the Mozart piece with its impressive singing and my exclusion of Men’s House Song, which I found it be irritating). I also wanted to include examples of different languages, especially those in great contrast to each other (like with Johnny B Goode and Jaat Kahan Ho). It was important to include some non-Westernized music and their accompanying instrumentations, to help express the fact that there are many different cultures on earth, but in a small enough proportion to express that there is a shared experience central to a large population here on earth. I also wanted to express a sense of community – an important component to humanity – which is why I chose pieces with multiple instruments and/or singers, like in the case of Tchakrulo.

These selections were also informed by the idea that in preserving this record of humanity, we need to be careful not to present a monoculture representative only of the governing body involved (Brown University, 2017). I also placed an emphasis on attempting to provide as much variety as possible, which was part of the goal of the original curation of 27 pieces (Taylor, 2019). For that reason, I eliminated some songs, like the Peruvian panflutes, because of the similarities they shared with others (the panflutes from the Solomon Islands). Overall, my goal was to preserve as much of the original intent of the record as possible in a compressed format.

References

Brown University. (2017). Abby Smith Rumsey: “Digital Memory: What Can We Afford to Lose?”

NASA. (n.d.). Golden record/what’s on the record: music of earth. Jet propulsion laboratory – California institute of technology: voyager. https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/golden-record/whats-on-the-record/music/

Taylor, D. (Host). (2019). Voyager Golden Record [Audio podcast episode]. In Twenty Thousand Hertz. https://www.20k.org/episodes/voyagergoldenrecord

 

Mode-Bending (Task 7)

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With this task, I was challenged to change the semiotic mode of the “What’s in your bag?” task, redesigning it with the original purpose in mind. That purpose had been to share some information about myself and the literacies that I have, through an exploration of personal items. For the redesign, I figured one of the most personal ways to achieve that purpose would be to expose part of my digital side by answering the question “What’s on my phone?”. What I present to you then, is a short video looking at what my phone. Specifically, I focused on the apps that I interact with, and a portion of my internet presence.

As the New London Group (NLG, 1996) states, literacy pedagogy must now include those increasingly significant representation forms like visual images and mixed media, focusing on both understanding and the building of competencies in content creation. I figured that as an educator in today’s world of new media, it would be worthwhile to show the ways in which I’ve personally been able to navigate the digital world. The biggest revelation in doing so is the realization that I’ve situated myself within many different subcultures. According to NLG (1996), there is now “an increasing range of accessible subcultural options,” (p. 70), and I’m realizing how much both social media and my own proficiencies in content creation, have allowed me to interact with others based on different shared interests and join online communities that others around me choose not to engage in. It’s interesting how different my online experience can be compared to my friends and family, even if we do share some common interests. NLG (1996) talk of the ability to find one’s voice within these subculture communities, and especially in my informal role as a food blogger, I very much found that to be the case. One of the most rewarding aspects my food blogging experience was being able to share that voice with people around the world. Dobson and Willinsky (2009) talk of the ability for digital technologies to facilitate intercultural exchange, and nowhere do I find that evidenced more than when I look at the reach I’ve been able to have with my food blog.

In reflecting on the challenges of this mode-switching activity, I will admit that I struggled a bit with how much planning I should do ahead of creating the recording. Dobson and Willinsky (2009) addressed issues with the advent of word processing and the effects it has had on written output (thanks to aspects like the ability to easily edit text). For me, I considered whether I should create a script for myself ahead of time, and if editing the video would be necessary. The decisions I made regarding that obviously affected the quality of the video and the information I was able to convey. In the end, I simply made a general list of talking points and opted against editing. In this way, the activity reminded me quite a bit of Task 4 (Manual Script), where my editing options were limited (to either crossing out text or crumpling the page and starting over). I feel like that limitation helped me feel freer to create, knowing a few errors may slip in (including unintended omissions and my blunder in naming “Old Yale Blewing”) but ultimately the main message would still get across.

References

Dobson, T., & Willinsky, J. (2009). Digital literacy. The Cambridge handbook of literacy, 286-312.

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

An Emoji Story (Task 6)

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Before I dive into discussing this task, I must warn that there are likely to be some unintentional spoilers. Therefore, I highly recommend that anyone reading this ensures that they have already viewed my emoji story and have made their own educated guess as to which popular work I decided to encode in emojis. With that said, I can now delve into the process behind the result.

Admittedly, I cherry-picked the work based on how easily I thought I would be able to convey the general plotlines. In this particular work, there are a series of interconnected plots that I knew would be incredibly difficult to show connections between, but which are distinct and strong enough to stand alone. My hope was that by separating them out with spacing, it would be clear that these could be considered separate entities, expressed in small enough pieces for the reader to decipher meaning. I imagined that if the reader were able to find meaning in even just one of these smaller plotlines, it would allow them to “crack the code”, not only figuring out which work I was conveying, but also seeing and appreciating the way that I expressed the other storylines (and using them as confirmation that they are in fact correct in their assumption about the work I selected). A fear I had was that readers wouldn’t know that they’re allowed to read these separate entities as such, and that there might be an assumption that everything I included was meant to be linear. Kress (2005) speaks of discernable reading paths, and I struggled with how to express that although there is some order to how the story should be read (each subplot is generally linear in how they are individually presented), there are also many entry points that could be used to gain understanding.

A screenshot from the game “Concentration”

I decided very early on with this task that I would attempt to convey ideas as much as possible with each emoji selection, instead of piecing together sets of emojis in a way as to group syllables and create words, like in the classic game show “Concentration”. The example that has always with me from the video game version of that show – which I played a lot of as a kid – included a bar, a bra, a brick wall, and some tears, which were meant to convey famed journalist “Barbara Walters”. Even with focusing on conveying ideas rather than piecing together words, it still proved to be a very difficult task. Unfortunately (for this task, at least) emojis aren’t specifically encoded to mean one particular thing, meaning they missed Bolter’s (2001) ideal standard of having the “pictorial elements reveal transparently the information that lies ‘behind’ them”. There was ambiguity with each emoji I selected. As mentioned in Zaltman (2019), some gestures aren’t universally understood to mean the same thing. With using particular emojis there was a real risk that a misinterpreted emoji might derail an entire subplot being expressed.

I ended up asking my wife to decipher the work based on my emojis, and it was interesting to hear her critiques on the emojis that I selected. For starters, they displayed differently on her device. I created mine using my android phone, composing them as a message in Gmail. She opened them on her iPhone and was presented with different versions of the emojis which changed certain elements in ways that I believe affected the message. When she suggested that certain emoji choices could be improved, it was mainly because certain elements within the emojis I selected (such as a woman swimming) detracted from the message because of their inaccuracy. In the work I selected, the characters swam in their underwear, but I couldn’t find an emoji that expressed that, and I had to settle for a clothed version. Kress (2005) spoke of gains and losses from expressing messages via different mediums, and this is definitely an example of a loss.

I think the one benefit of expressing a story entirely through emojis (as opposed to simply using words or a combination where words are included to at least provide small bits of context), is that, as Bolter (2001) mentions, speakers of different languages would have just as good of a chance of interpreting the message I’m attempting to convey. I’m also interested in now attempting to decipher what my classmates have put together, keeping in mind my own struggles. I’m hoping that by reflecting on where I feared I may detract from my message, I’ll better be able to understand what they’re attempting to convey.

References

Bolter, J. D. (2001). Writing space: Computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print. Routledge.

Kress, G. (2005). Gains and losses: New forms of texts, knowledge, and learning. Computers and Composition, 22(1), 5-22.

Zaltman, H. (Host). (2019, July 13). New Rules [Audio podcast episode]. In The Allusionist. https://www.theallusionist.org/allusionist/new-rules

 

Twine Hypertext Game (Task 5)

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I’m Thinking of a Number Twine Game *

(Right click and select “Open in New Tab” to download the file. Can be run with any web browser)

Reflecting on the Creation of a Twine

In creating my first – and what I promise to be my last – Twine, I took a very slow approach that likely led to a lot of my frustrations and wasted time. Whereas I probably should have created a simple “choose your own adventure” style story and laid out different pathways first on paper (like an inter-connected storyboard), I instead jumped straight into the creation process using Twine, creating passages without a true idea of where my story would go. It definitely isn’t the approach that I would take a second time around, and as you can tell from “playing” my Twine (I use that term quite loosely here), I scrapped the story idea altogether in favour of a simple game. Part of the reason why I eventually opted against the “choose your own story” approach is because I grew to dislike the genre as a child. I purchased one from the famous Goosebumps writer R.L. Stein back in the day, and was disappointed at how, in order to feel as though I got enough value out of the book, I needed to retrace my steps and take each pathway, I needed to read all the words that had been written. It made for a convoluted process that took the joy out of the reading. Personally, I find that the multiplicity of reading arrangements that Bolter (2001) references, more commonly through book indices and internet hyperlinks, can be useful when looking for specific information, but a detractor when engaged in storytelling. Ironically, I digress…

As I struggled through trial and error to understand the components beyond simple hyperlinking, I became less concerned with creating an entertaining product and more concerned with showing proficiency at some of the slightly more advanced capabilities, like using the basic logic arguments to display different components on the same passage at different times, as well as attaching gifs and linking to external sites in new tabs. At certain junctures I wasn’t able to achieve exactly what I’d hoped to do, and I had to change my strategy as a result. One major issue that I found with my game design is that hyperlinks would change colours once the passage they linked to had been accessed. This meant that I couldn’t simply have a single linked passage for incorrect answers, because upon returning to the previous screen to try again, all of the incorrect answers sharing that link would change colour (making the correct answer obvious). I think little drawbacks like that issue really prevented me from taking my game further, and I think I ended up focusing less on the language and reading implications of the exercise and more on the technical components. Regardless, in the end it was an interesting and entertaining process attempting to create an interactive product using a program I was previously unfamiliar with.

References

Bolter, J. D. (2001). Writing space: Computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print. Routledge.

 

* small issue debugged Feb. 17, 2021

Manual Script (Task 4)

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A (Very) Brief Introduction

For this posting, I was tasked with creating a handwritten piece. To view the entirety of what I wrote (not just the first page, posted below), click here: Manual Script (Task 4)

My handwritten text exploring my past writing ambitions (scanned using CamScanner)

My Reflection

I found this handwriting task extremely easy to complete. By comparison, this typed reflection feels like pulling teeth. One of the things I appreciated about writing by hand (which I rarely do these days, as the majority of my communication is electronic) is that I needed to commit myself to the words on the page. I didn’t want to have large sections crossed out (which was the extent of my editing, as I wrote with pen rather than pencil), so I consciously took more time than usual thinking about what I was going to write. At the same time, I felt like I needed to be comfortable with whatever ended up on the page, for better or worse. I was forced not to look back and question what I’d previously written, but instead look forward as to how to connect that writing with the next thing I wanted to share. It was a freeing experience in that sense, not constantly worrying about how I could reword my last sentence. I’m the sort of person that will re-write the same e-mail (or grad school blog post) seven times over, painstakingly attempting to make the next iteration better than the last (hence the “pulling teeth” sentiment).

For me, that is one of the biggest differences between writing by hand and typing – with handwriting I am more committed to what I have written. It’s a bit slower to get each individual word out on the page, but that time also allows me to craft my thoughts more carefully the first – and hopefully only – time around. Unfortunately, handwriting can’t be disseminated as easily as digitally-typed text. As Harris (2018) pointed out in his podcast, contemporaries of Chaucer and Marco Polo didn’t actually get a chance to see their now-famous works because of – for lack of a better term – “distribution issues”. Likewise, though we can scan and photocopy handwritten texts, they aren’t as user-friendly for mass production and will likely need to be typed out for the sake of sharing (though some technologies are getting better at converting handwritten works to digital text). As much as I’d like to have the option of handwriting an e-mail to a parent and sending them a scanned copy, I don’t think it would be nearly as well-received as a typed version.

 

References

Harris, B. (Host). (2018, February 5). The Printed Book: Opening the Floodgates of Knowledge [Audio podcast episode]. In How it Began: A History of the Modern World. https://howitbegan.com/episodes/the-printed-book/

Voice to Text (Task 3)

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In this task, we were asked to tell a five-minute anecdote and have it transcribed using a text-to-speech program of our choice. Afterwards, we were to analyze it using some prompt questions. I’ve chosen to attach my transcribed anecdote within the Google Doc that I used to create it (with errors noted in red but without any editing), and have also attached a screencasted video which shows the creation process. The video, transcribed document, and analysis can all be found below:

Transcribed anecdote:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lgbdpULxZ5KEKu7QktUQ4XftWobJZWX2GrMgpfEotGg/edit?usp=sharing

Screencasted video:

 

Analysis:

As you can see from the included video, I used the “voice typing” tool in Google Docs for this voice-to-text exercise. When looking back over what was transcribed, the biggest thing that I noticed – and for which I originally attempted to account for myself – was the lack of punctuation. Originally I made attempts to add in punctuation and paragraph breaks myself, but it was tedious and took away from the flow of my “anecdote” (if it can be called that). Though I always feel as though I struggle with certain punctuation pieces like colons, semicolons, dashes and parentheses, I believe they are important to help convey the non-verbal pieces of speech. If you watch the video, you can see that on at least one occasion the tool’s interpretation of my speech changed as it attempted to interpret my words in a way that made grammatical sense (or at least I assume that’s why the text changed after the fact). With how powerful the tool is, I was surprised it didn’t also attempt to add in additional punctuation to improve the grammatical correctness. 

Looking to what I would consider “right” and “wrong” with the text, the main thing I notice is that the general idea is expressed accurately. It’s impressive that five minutes of speech can be translated with – in most cases – only minor, relatively superficial errors. That said, there were definitely some mistakes, all of which I noted in red. Some of the more noteworthy mistakes were: randomly capitalizing the word “probably”, interpreting the word “game” as “camera”, and simply not including the words “period” and “comma” (when used not for the sake of adding punctuation). The only section that I feel had enough errors to really confuse the reader was that part that reads, “you’re not even really supposed to play with those two birds because which different changes to the game without the wild card to a nectar resource they become just for the two powerful”. The error with “which” was more my fault because I said “with” and started to say “changes” before changing course and adding “different” in between, but adding the suffix “out” to “with” and interpreting “far too powerful” as “for the two powerful” likely did great damage to the thought I was trying to convey.

If the tool is designed purely to translate my words, then the biggest “mistake” would be omitting the many times that I said “uh” and “um” throughout the anecdote. Obviously the tool has been designed to omit those occurrences with the understanding that they generally detract from the messages that people are attempting to convey. Although I appreciate the tool doing this, I think that in certain instances – like if the tool was being used for script writing – where this could become an issue. There were also minor issues with some syncategorematic words (articles, prepositions, connectives and qualifiers) – such as “it”, “at” and “of”, which I assume was due to their – in most cases – monosyllabic nature.

Had the story been scripted, I likely would have taken the time to dictate more punctuation. As bad as (I feel that) I am with using proper punctuation, I always spend a good deal of time attempting to use it properly. As mentioned, I attempted to dictate punctuation on several occasions, but it detracted from the message, taking away my train of thought. If scripted, I wouldn’t run into the same issue and would therefore have more time to focus on adding in the punctuation properly. Other mistakes like that instance of “which” that I mentioned earlier likely wouldn’t have happened, as it stemmed from me being non-commital to my word choice. 

Reflecting on this experience and the comparison between oral and written storytelling, I think the major difference between the two is the degree to which you can polish the story when putting it in writing. The “ums” and “uhs” are removed, and there is time for reflection and review that generally adds to the clarity of the story. At the same time, written punctuation only goes so far to convey the non-verbal aspects of speech which can also help express the essence of what’s being said.

Overall, I found this to be a very interesting experience, and I am pleased with the fact that this tool was able to express my main thoughts without much trouble. It definitely performed at a higher level than I expected, and I am sure I will soon be discovering ways to incorporate this type of technology into my work.

What’s In My Bag? (Task 1)

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My wife and I in Krka National Park in Croatia.

The contents of my green MEC backpack.

The bag that I chose for this exercise is my green MEC backpack that I take with me to work daily, out on bike rides (technically it’s a cycling backpack), hiking up mountains, and while travelling. As it gets used for so many different purposes, its contents can vary greatly from one outing to the next. Thanks to the current state of affairs (the fact that school is in full swing and travel is highly discouraged), the contents of this bag have been pretty consistent for months, with minor changes here or there. Presently it includes the following items (pictured above): a work-issued Lenovo tablet PC with mouse and charger, my favourite graph paper notepad, tests to be marked, Jaybird Bluetooth headphones, a graphing calculator, a scientific calculator, hand cream, hand sanitizer, two dead batteries, a whiteboard marker, a pencil, my favourite black pen, wet wipes, white out, binder clips, paper clips, a sandwich bag with unmarked gel capsules (which I believe are Ibuprofen), a University of Waterloo clipboard, a quarter, a 100 Hungarian Forints coin, a black Klean Kanteen water bottle, and University of British Columbia stainless steel vacuum travel mug.

The majority of these items are the things that I need to transport back and forth with me from work because they are used both in the classroom and nightly as I work away both at the kitchen table. My tablet PC is the most important piece that I take with me every day. I wish that I could leave it at work, but between grad school and the additional demands of teaching in a hybrid model, there have only been a handful of schooldays this year where I haven’t had to put in extra time working at home. My Bluetooth headphones are the second-most important in terms of daily need, as they act as my microphone for recording remote lessons. Rounding out the necessities, my water bottle is crucial in a time where school water fountains are currently shut off due to Covid concerns. If I were to miss transporting any of those three things with me on a daily basis (along with my charger, of course), it would greatly impact my ability to do work and likely cause me an incredible amount of stress. The other items, as important as they are, are either easily replaceable or don’t have the same sort of consequences if not immediately available to me.

In terms of these items being “texts” that speak to who I am, the contents emphasize how much my life is currently consumed by work and grad school, with a hint or two about what I do with my freedom (like the Forints I collected in Budapest). Also, I don’t consider anything within my bag to be private or at odds with the image I outwardly project. I am a math teacher, and I carry calculators and marking, which sounds like a pretty likely combination.

As far as text technologies go, I communicate a lot with my students using my computer – through both e-mail and Google Classroom private messages – as well as by creating and displaying lessons. I consider myself to have a moderately high level of computer literacy which helps me to produce video content using screen-capture programs and annotation software. On a more analog level, I also place a high emphasis on providing handwritten feedback to my students, which is evidenced in the partially marked stacks of tests currently in my bag. Also speaking volumes about how I communicate is the near-empty pad of graph paper. I discovered this specific graph paper back in my days tutoring in Halifax and it has been a game-changer for me. I can be a very technical person, and I care a lot about the clarity of the information that I provide to my students, which is why I use graph paper whenever I can (and I encourage my students to do the same).

Were you to look at this bag (or its predecessor) 15+ years ago, the major difference would have been the laptop – twice as thick and without the same ability to annotate digital texts. Less obvious would have been the absence of the foreign currency, which eludes to the stories I hold of travelling Europe with my Canadian-Croatian wife and the world she has opened up for me.

Admittedly, there are many things that are often found in this bag that I wish had made their way in for today. I wish the majority of text technologies currently present – the textbook, tablet, graph paper and writing utensils – were removed and replaced with a towel and swim trunks (as in August 2019 when summers were spent swimming in the Adriatic) or a camel pack and sandwiches meant for consumption at the top of Mount Seymour. Hopefully soon enough I’ll be able to switch out the contents for another adventure, where the texts include maps of places I’ve never been, and the technology doesn’t readily connect me to my work e-mail.