[11.3] Algorithms of Predictive Text

Being fluent in both English and Mandarin, I tried predictive texting keyboard from Apple using different platforms. I was surprised to see that the Mandarin keyboard provided me with far more options of words and phrases to use. I was able to compose a sentence that better describes what I really wanted to say. I wonder if it makes a difference in other languages as well.

While Jocelyn only used English, it is interesting that the predictive texting gave away that she is a mom of more than one daughter without even knowing her. It’s probably based on her previous typing habit and words and phrases she used before. It is probably similar to the algorithms social media Apps use to track our browsing habit to know what kind of posts should appear on the homepage as soon as we open the App, so we are more likely to keep clicking and spend more attention on it.

I had similar experience about auto-correct, and I usually find it annoying half of the times. It keeps wanting to correct the acronyms or the Pingyin I used to speak in Mandarin without changing my language input source.

Jocelyn also discussed about the benefits of predictive texting on struggling student writers. In contrast, I have expressed my concern of the ELL students relying too much on this feature instead of improving their own brainstorming and fundamental writing skills, such as spelling, sentence structure, and proper transition words. A couple of them just could not write even a complete sentence with properly capitalization and a period using pen and paper. Sometimes, they asked if they could complete the writing task on their phones as it checks complete capitalizations, punctuations, and spelling for them.

Linked with Junel Lapinskie

Tasks

I thought I was one of the slowest to complete the game, then I realized a few of my collogues actually didn’t even make it to the end after visiting their blogs. I took a screenshot of the page marked with a timer and someone dancing, assuming it is the end. Again, the image was followed by paragraphs of written reflection favouring reading and writing literacies.

While looking at Junel’s page, she posted multiple screenshots about some key steps throughout the process of the game accompanied by her thoughts. It feels like I’m walking along the game with her while she explains further. I see that she was also annoyed by the constantly popping-up timer clocks as I did.

If I get a chance to do a similar assignment, I would probably use videos. I would be interesting to use software such as Loom to record my screen while I play the game and also use the front camera on my laptop to record my face with a verbal explanation. I thought that would be more engaging for users to see the level of frustration based on my facial expression and my voice and tone. They can experience the game with me and watch how it tricked me and all the mistakes I made.

Linked with Junel Lapinskie.

Tasks

We both chose to use screenshots from Palladio followed with written words to explain. Now I’m reading my post again, I found that this kind of layout is not very user-friendly as they have to constantly scroll up and down to refer to different parts of the images to be able to understand the written text. Using genially again would be easier for the users.

Meanwhile, Junel only chose 2 screenshots: one from all the parameters shown with many nodes representing a track or a member and edges to show their connections. Later, she shared the screenshot of the top 5 choices of tracks without the parameters she used. I wish she could’ve include that in her blog so the audience can replicate the process. I noticed that she actually counted the edges and nodes one by one to see the strengths of each connection. This is due to the unweighted network Palladio uses. We could use the data below to see the numbers of connections. However, visually, the network does not reflect them directly. I wish Palladio could use weighted edges and nodes.

We both agreed that the visual does not reflect the reasons behind any of the choices and we can’t possibly know background of the participants for this survey. I’m actually quite into the field of effective data visualization to see explore how different ways of data representation can add a context and to tell the true stories behind just numbers, nodes, or edges. I saw some fascinating exhibits, which involve the audience to engage and co-create the projects. I wonder if it would be the trend for data scientists to collaborate with artists for a better visualization.

One of my favourite examples of data visualization:

What made me – Dorota Grabkowska & Kuba Kolec, 2012

Linked with Jane Wu

Task 7 – Re-What’s in my bag

When I was reading Jane’s post (I went back to check her original post for Task 1), I made a lot of connections with her. I was also working in a BC offshore school in a southern province of China at the time, but only for a year comparing to her 9 years of service. I chuckled a bit when I saw her package of tissue paper as It was a big problem for me when I forgot to bring tissues to public washrooms in China. Things have changed a lot in the past 15 years though, I would say 90% of public washrooms in China are now providing free toilet paper. I also commented on COVID situation and how convenient the digital payment is in China now in my post. The only thing you need to go around in China now are your keys, ID card and your smart phone. People rarely carry around wallets anymore. I brought this habit to Vancouver as well by using Apple Pay instead of carrying around actual bank cards. A lot of places even accept Alipay and Wechat Pay. So much more convenient!

I noticed that Jane also took a picture of everything in her bag followed by paragraphs of explanation in words in her original post. One difference I liked was that she listed out all the items in her bag right under neath the picture just in case it is not clear. It is interesting to see how bags (to me, is a very personal item) reflect personal, cultural identities and are able to connect to others in this sense. It makes me feel like I start to get to know Jane even I have never met her in person. It made me turn to look at the mode-bending version of her bag.

She also chose to use genially to add multimodalities to her post. I liked how she added notes on her original picture and created the interactive buttons so her audience can click and listen to her voice. I think it gives more of a personal touch about Jane on top of her personal items in her backpack. I also liked how she noted what had changed in her bag over the last few months, so did her life.

I noticed she switched from teaching to working for an ed tech company. I wonder what has changed to make her switch from paperless note-taking using iPads to pen and notebook. I tried taking notes using devices, but it just doesn’t work. I always carry a multi-colour ball-point pen and some kind of paper (lined paper, back of scrap paper, half-broken notebook, etc) to write down daily to-do’s and random thoughts. Even thought I would misplace them here and there and it makes my place super disorganized.

I do hope she could include more modes in her genially interactive image besides written text and voice messages. Maybe add some videos, website links, images, etc.

Linked with Emily Wu

Task 6 – An Emoji Story

I used to play guess the movie title or song title game using emoji with my cousin all the time, especially during Christmas time. We also challenge each other for guessing the famous Chinese proverbs represented by various emoji’s. It is always the other way around, from emoji’s to words. And I remember I would try different strategies, such as rhyming words, homophones, meaning represented by one or multiple emoji’s, etc. I really struggled when I had to translate a movie, filled with characters, dialogues, different plots, into a series of emoji’s.

Same with Emily, I also started creating my emoji story using the webpage and realized there were limited selections, so I also switched to my phone. Layout is very simple for both blogs.  Visual wise, we both chose to make a screenshot of the emoji story and post it on the blog with written reflections on the bottom. This makes the audience have to switch back and forth between the visual and the blog text.

We both started with title. I thought mine was quite straightforward as long as one has watched the movie. I couldn’t really guess her title right away, but I noticed that Emily listed out all the characters in the movie at the beginning, this reminded me that the intro songs in the beginning of a movie usually list out the main casts as well. She also used “+” signs to use multiple emojis to describe a single character. I also listed out the main characters in the title, but without giving too much detail for each one.

I see from her reflection that she had trouble describing the entire movie so she had to omit some parts of the plot and only included the major event. I’m not sure how she did the process, if she remembered the key events from her memory and she used emoji to write out the idea straight away. For me, I actually managed to find a script for the entire movie and I was trying to translate the key words into emoji so I could have a fuller picture. What I noticed was I was literally typing the key words and trying to see if a suitable emoji pops up. This actually reminded me of my personal experience leaning a different language. When my English proficiency is low, and all I did was think, read, and write in Mandarin then translate my best into English. I remember my English teacher used to say, the moment that he knew he became proficient in English was when he realized he was thinking in his mind and talking to himself in English, instead of Mandarin. This makes me feel like my written words-to-emoji translation speaks to the fact that I’m not proficient to express my ideas not using words at all.