Manize’s Algorithms of Predictive Text

Manize’s example of text algorithm to predict what she will say next is an interesting example of how we are aware of predictive text without fully understanding the algorithms behind the predictive text. The reason why I chose Manize’s task was that I’ve used this activity in my class when I talked to my students about the digital footprint, online safety, and how addictive the internet can be. Aside from talking about YouTube videos, which many teenagers could relate to easily since they noticed that they simply couldn’t stop watching video after video. One activity we used to showcase how computers collected data to find out what we’re interested in was through text typing. Most grade 6/7 have cellphones already and those who didn’t own a cellphone used the classroom iPads for this activity. The outcomes were quite interesting and the students that used the classroom iPads had unexpected outcomes. None of the sentences the students created was what they had hoped to present, similar to Manize’s experience. The majority of the class ended up looping the same group of texts over and over again. Meanwhile, the students that used the classroom iPad had a more interesting outcome and we assumed that with more people using the iPad for various uses, the iPad had saved a wider range of vocabulary for text prompt. Aside from Manize’s examples of text algorithm, she also included many useful information from the weekly videos and reading materials. Her task was a reflection of an interesting activity with information and her own opinion regarding this topic.