Category Archives: Tasks

After reading about the GUI game and the task for this assignment I briefly opened the game to see how long it would take to play the game. I wanted to ensure I was scheduling in enough time to complete it.  After spending about 60 seconds clicking around the first level of the game I realized what the game had intended to do. Annoy the living daylights out of me!  So the next day I prepared for the game by making sure I was on a PC for easier maneuverability of the website and had a mindset of patience so I wouldn’t get frustrated.  As I progressed through the game I was becoming increasingly confident in my abilities. I would try and predict where the game was trying to pull my attention and look for less obvious solutions to progress. I struggled a bit but persevered through the levels. Upon reaching the final stage I attempted to figure out how to pass the level and after several failed attempts I threw in the towel. Had I had more time I probably would have continued to try and figure it out but life priorities took over and I had to stop. 

It was obvious to me that throughout the GUI game I was trying to notice and pick up on the manipulations of my attention.  Big bolded words, common webpage phrases like “next” or “help” were not so helpful. I tried to stay away from clicking those. My previous experience in using the web interfaces, and thinking I knew what to expect to click to progress, was actually a hindrance. You always had to click somewhere where you wouldn’t expect. Once I got the hang of the manipulations, I came to expect them and playing the game got a little easier. However, one unintended manipulation I had not thought of until reflection afterwards was the game’s ability to hold my attention and make me want to keep playing. I was so focused on thinking through the manipulations of the actual game I hadn’t thought about the game’s ability to grasp my attention and hold it. The game created small problems that were solvable through trial and error. This allowed me to progress to the next level and feel success. Everyone loves that feeling and games have the unique ability to do that.  I had not thought about the positive reinforcement of the game as a manipulation until I watched the TED talk by Tristan Harris (Harris, 2017), a former ethicist at Google. Harris discusses the thoughtful manipulation that many internet companies try to design to grasp and hold your attention. He explains that these companies are not afraid to try and evoke emotions like “outrage”, as it works really well at getting attention. The only issue is that these companies are then not accountable to the people they are making feel that way. They are only worried about how much time they can hold your attention. The companies do not worry about how it might make someone feel or how it is impacting these people’s lives. Social media, webpages, games all have an ability to grasp your attention and manipulate you in an attempt to continue to hold your attention. To think that there are rooms full of people out there working at ways to distract me from parts of my daily life, distract me from perhaps things that are very important to me, is a scary thought. The internet and technology in general is a very powerful tool that can manipulate text in very unique and strong ways.  I hope that society understands this power and is mindful of how easily manipulated we can be.

References

Harris, T. (2017, April). How a handful of tech companies control billions of minds everyday [Video]. TED Conferences. https://www.ted.com/talks/amy_cuddy_your_body_language_shapes_who_you_are

As stated by John from Google (Code.org, 2017), “Google came up with the most famous algorithm for choosing the most relevant results for a search by taking into account how many other pages link to a given page. The idea is that if lots of webpages think a link is interesting, it’s probably the one you’re looking for”. This is a prime interpretation that if many people are choosing this “website”, its popularity could be from similar reasoning.  In comparison to our statistical analysis based on our top 10 choices from the Golden Record, a “track” that was very popular could have its popularity strung from similar reasoning by many people. What this reasoning is will require further interpretation and analysis of data. Watch my video to learn more about my analysis!

References

Code.org (2017, June 13).  The Internet: How Search Works [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVV_93mBfSU&t=212s

Track List

Track 5- “Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F Major, BWV 1047: I. Allegro” (by Munich Bach Orchestra/Karl Richter

Track 6- “Ketawang: Puspåwårnå (Kinds of Flowers)” (by Pura Paku Alaman Palace Orchestra/K.R.T. Wasitodipuro)

Track 7-“Cengunmé” (by Mahi musicians of Benin)

Track 9- “Barnumbirr (Morning Star) and Moikoi Song” (by Tom Djawa, Mudpo, and Waliparu, recorded by Sandra LeBrun Holmes)

Track 13- “Sokaku-Reibo (Depicting the Cranes in Their Nest)”

Track 16- “Chakrulo” (by Georgian State Merited Ensemble of Folk Song and Dance/Anzor Kavsadze

Track 17- “Roncadoras and Drums” (by Musicians from Ancash)

Track 19- “Muğam” (by Kamil Jalilov)

Track 28- “Liu Shui (Flowing Streams)” (by Guan Pinghu)

Track 29- “Bhairavi: Jaat Kahan Ho”

Reflection of Choices and Criteria

I first want to preface that I am very aware of the privilege that I possess as a white Canadian and how this can cause unintentional bias in the way I develop criteria. The main parameter that I chose to follow when choosing 10 songs was based on geography.  I wanted to choose as many sounds from cultures from around the world with no regard for the period of time in which I chose them. If songs came from similar geographic regions, I chose one based on personal preference of listenability. As there were so many from European and Western cultures, I chose the first European song on the track list, which coincidentally was the first track, in an attempt to take out as much bias as possible. 

This process of narrowing down songs was an interesting experience. If I had the freedom to choose more sounds, I would focus on the first few tracks that included sounds from the natural world such as a whale sound and sounds of the earth. The experience of choosing these songs reminds me of Abby Smith’s (Brown University, 2017) comments that reflect the difficult task of librarians in choosing what historical information should be digitized and “what can we afford to lose?”. Who makes these decisions and what influences what we keep?  Will we forget to include something  that could be extremely useful to reflect back on from our past? Did I, in choosing 10 songs, ensure that I was reflective enough of all world citizens? These are questions that make selecting criteria so difficult. The cultural background and biases of people can influence the choices that we make and consequently result in decisions and choices that are narrow-minded. 

References

Brown University. (2017). Abby Smith Rumsey: “Digital Memory: What Can We Afford to Lose?” [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBrahqg9ZMc&t=2175s

What’s In My Bag Assignment- click here to see!

In the redesign process one of the first things I had to think about was the true intent of the “what in your bag” assignment. After carefully looking over the expectations I believe the idea was to give an opportunity for students in our class to connect, build community, and get to know each other.  The other large factor when redesigning the project was to think about how to incorporate audio as a form of text.   My first thought was to combine the visual and audio by taking a video of me explaining my items in the contexts in which I use them. I incorporated all these into a Prezi but found I didn’t touch on the auditory sensory system as much as I wanted to. This was perhaps one of the biggest challenges in this task for me.  I have not often tried various forms of auditory media and so I had to really think about how and what tool I could use to incorporate it. This is when I redeveloped my idea to integrate sounds that represent each of my items into my task. I switched to a Slide deck, which would let me embed sounds. While doing this the auditory files reminded me of that radio game show when you hear the sound and need to guess what it is.  I then morphed my “What in the bag” assignment one more time into a game where you would guess the sound and then watch a video describing and visually showing the context of how and when I use these items.

The benefits of engaging in the mode-changing process is you really start to look at how a learner will engage with the content you are presenting.  Are they actively or passively engaged? Active participants tend to be more engaged in their learning because they are participating in the learning process. The New London Group (1996) presented the idea that as we change in a “Post-Fordism” (p.66) world, education needs to change as well. The goal of educators is to create social-participatory learning environments.  This is when some of the best learning for today’s world can be done. The New London group goes on further to discuss critical factors that influence learning such as local diversity and global connectedness. Students have varying needs and desires when learning and educators must take into account things like age, interest, culture, and class dynamic.  Today’s youth and most adults engage with multimedia and social media on a daily basis in order to connect with ideas, people, and text in general. By integrating multiple forms of text and media, including audio, video, and a game, there is a far greater chance to engage readers than just written text.

References

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

I found this task extremely challenging as using emojis is not something I utilize often. Since I am not familiar with this “language” of emoji’s, I found it hard to predict which images would be available.  For example, I assumed that a baseball bat would be a common image that could be found. Unfortunately, the only bats available were an animal bat and a cricket bat.  As I attempted to put together my title and plot, I found I relied more on words rather than syllables or ideas to represent the text I was trying to convey.  I found these emojis much easier to find.

The saying “pictures can say a thousand words”, is true but the way those pictures are interpreted can be a problem to readers.  Bolter (2001) discusses the ratio of text to image found in multimedia pieces in current times and how writers continue to find the balance that best helps the reader understand their message. Images can express ideas, emotions, or thoughts that words cannot.  Words are very clear and defined and can provide clarity to the intended message when they go along with an image.  Kress (2005) states that “there is a finite stock of words [where words are] vague, general, nearly empty of meaning”(p.15). He goes on to express that there are some ideas or thoughts that cannot be expressed by words.  Given Bolter and Kress’ ideas, it can be stated that pictures or words alone do not provide the clearest understanding to the readers.  Together, pictures and words can provide the most clarity. In this assignment which only uses images, there is a lot of interpretation to be completed.  

In this assignment I did start with the title of the TV show as it provided context to the plot.  Without first knowing the title, and that it was a tv show, readers would really struggle to understand my explanation of the “plot” of the show.

I did not choose the TV show based on how easy it would be to visualize.  I simply have minimal time in my life to watch tv, movies, or read anything that doesn’t have to do with this course or the courses I teach. To try and write an emoji title or plot of some of the videos/readings we have done in this course, or my science courses, seems unmanageable.  I do make time to watch one specific “show” in the month of October. Lucky for me, there are endless “episodes” available this month, all of which are super engaging and usually thrilling to watch. You also don’t need to watch one show to understand or engage in the next.

References

Bolter, J. D. (2001). Writing space: Computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print (2nd ed.). Mahwah, N.J: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. doi:10.4324/9781410600110

Kress (2005). Gains and Losses: New forms of text, knowledge, and learning.  Computers and Composition, Vol (2(1), 5-22.

ANSWER KEY to emoji story

The picture is of my school bag that I take with me to school each day. It has a variety of items that I typically use on a daily basis at work.  The bag is not overly large in nature, as I don’t like to have to transport lots of items to and from school. The items are:

1. A water bottle- as a PE teacher, and teacher in general, it’s important to stay hydrated throughout the day. It is also spill proof which means I can chuck it in my bag and not worry about spills.  In the morning I am rushing to get my 3 and 5 year old out the door for drop offs. I cannot afford to spill anything.
2. Coffee mug- this spill proof mug contains my much needed second cup of coffee for the morning.  It is essential that it is spill proof as in the gym you never know when a ball will come flying and hit your mug across the gym floor (yes this has happened). A morning without coffee would be tragic.
3. Change of clothes- I typically workout in the morning and engage in physical activity in my PE class.  I don’t want to be the smelly teacher, so I shower and change before I head to my science classes.
4. Pens- always helpful to make quick notes or mark assignments at home. The highlighter specifically has become more important while taking my masters as when I read I like to pull out important pieces of information. This is an item that I need from school to bring home.
5. Advil- You just ever know when a headache will arise. I can get bad headaches from being dehydrated, over tired and or being in a loud gym. This Advil can help me through the day. This is also the cold and sinus plus version that can help with any allergens that may be bothering my sinuses. A smokey fall day in the Okanagan is not uncommon.  
6. Utensils- I typically pack a lunch, it is missing from the photo as I consumed it already for the day.  I always bring a reusable utensil to prevent having to use plastic.
7. School keys- these keys are essential to me moving about our school’s building and letting me into the rooms that I need. They are on a school lanyard that describes the pride I have for my school. 
8. A mask- pandemic teaching:) Can’t get anywhere without this thing!
9. Laptop- Most of my coursework is digital and its text is on my computer.  There is a sticker that is on my laptop, left from the previous user.  I have hidden it because I think it is Star Wars? But Star Wars does not represent me as I haven’t seen any of the movies.  I am not a big movie buff.
10. Notebook- this item is essential for me when going to meetings or working on my masters.  I process by writing and drawing mind maps. It helps me focus on what is important  and summarize thoughts.

When considering my items as text they do convey a lot about who I am and the activities that I like to do.  I would definitely say between the coffee, school keys and the laptop you would be able to understand that I am a teacher and these are some of my key daily tools. What might be strange is that I am missing “paper” as a teacher. This may describe my teaching style or literacies that I prefer as being more digital than paper to pen, or it describes the fact that my teaching is more participation based not needing as much paper. This of course is all just an interpretation. The athletic wear and water bottle describe me as being someone who enjoys physical activities.  I am physically active on almost all school days whether I am participating in my PE class or doing my own workout in the morning.

My items from a private point of view may have more meaning to me than to others.  The narrative that each item holds personally for me says a lot about who I am based on past experiences of my life.  When you see athletic clothing, you might think I have just started including physical activity in my life. My workout wear does not describe the adventure I have gone through in my life as an athlete. Those clothes do not speak to an outsider to say that being an athlete has shaped my life and who I am today. A picture of items just speaks to a stereotypical or practical use of the item viewed, but that is not to say that  all items might have a story or more meaning connected to them.

The text technologies in my bag that help me to engage in language and communication would include my pens and notebook, as well as the phone that I am taking the picture with.  My pen and notebook describe how I communicate with myself.  In order to work through or process other texts I must create text of my own. Putting ideas or text into my own words is critical to me fully understanding something. The phone, second to in person conversations, is an item that I use to communicate with others. Texting or emailing are two things I use my phone for quite often and help me to communicate to others.

15-20 years ago I was not a teacher but instead a student. Some of the contents would have been the same including a change of clothes and a water bottle. These physical literacies, which describe that I like to live a physically active lifestyle, have not ever changed from me being a student and teacher. I have been active my whole life. The “digital” contents that are present would not have been the same.  A laptop was not something I used very often when I was a student and all homework would have been printed instead of digitized.  As a student you may have also found a binder full of paper and likely a textbook or two.  As a student you would also not see me using a phone as I did not have one 15-20 years ago. My communication was in person or on a landline. Perhaps ICQ or msn messenger were around but I definitely didn’t use those often. If someone were to see my bag in future years I think similar changes would occur or not occur.  The physical fitness items would still be the same but digital technologies may leave more room for interpretation.  

If someone in the future were to look at my bag many of the contents I would say are timeless pieces of technology.  The athletic/ workout clothing would be easily understood, as would the notebook and pen.  Items that might prompt more confusion would be the digital tools and technology. Our current world is in a technological age where changes occur by the day when it comes to technology. Perhaps in the future my phone and laptop will have morphed form their typical uses of today’s times.  Its scary to think that these items could become obsolete in a matter of a few years.