Category Archives: Weekly Tasks

Speculative Future #1:

https://view.genial.ly/619423e950419a0d7f199cb3/interactive-image-speculative-future-1

In the year 2035, the crisis of overpopulation has take a greater toll on both the environment and society. Frequent shortages of food, shelter, and resources are making living conditions far worse than ever before with many families struggling to survive and succeed in this day of age. The World Health Organization (WHO) and United Nations (UN) had emergency meetings in order to figure out a solution that will reduce the issues of overpopulation across the globe. There were many ethical debates of sterilization, human nature, and the right to have a family. However, many knew of the dire situation that the globe was in. There was not enough resources for everyone to have the right to reproduce. It decision was either let the human population continue to do what they did and have Earth be inhabitable in the next few decades or find a harsh solution that will save Earth. There needed to be a drastic rule to ensure the survival of humanity and a better world for the future children. WHO and the UN came to a conclusion that all parties agreed with. Everyone in the world will be injected with a chip that contains all their personal data including: financial status, career, education, health, family history, political views, social media use, personality, and references. The information can be updated in real time through a central database that is tied to the government. Since the chip flows through the blood, it cannot be taken out once injected. This chip is also able to detect whether someone is pregnant or not by using the hormone levels as an indicator. Each government has created a new law where in order to produce a child, parent(s) will be required to apply for a permit. To apply for this permit, parent(s) will need to go online to their government site and apply. The government will use the data on their chip and put in into an algorithm that will decide whether to approve of the permit of not. The algorithm is trained to determine the likely hood of the child being successful and being a contributing member to society. If the chip detects that someone is pregnant without a permit, the chip is able to release medicine that will induce an abortion. If the initial medicine fails, there is a GPS tracker on the chip that will enable government entities to find the person(s) and perform a procedure.

Lucy was in high school when this law was implemented and knew from then she wanted a child. Now, in the year 2051, she is an adult who wants to have a child with her partner Brent. Lucy worked very hard to ensure that she increased the chance of the algorithm approving of her permit. She attended the best school in her area, has a well-paying job, a great genetic history, clean social media, and grew up in a good family. She volunteered for great causes and donated money whenever she could. She showcased her good deeds as much as possible in order to increase the chances of her good deeds being noticed. Brent is also the same. They worked very hard in order to increase their odds as they have some of their friends got denied a permit, even though they thought they were qualified to be parents. The process of waiting for the approval of the permit was stressful. The qualifications were never made clear. It appeared that it was entirely up to the AI to decide whether to approve or not. A few weeks go by and finally Lucy and Brent get a notification.

They were denied.

Lucy and Brent were devastated. They did everything that was “right.” What could be the possible reason for this decision? Was it their social media use? Was it their careers? Was it their race? The media told people that the AI was non bias in terms of race and sexual orientation. What could they do to improve the chance of approval in their next application? The main focus of the AI was to ensure the child will live in a supportive household and grow up to be a contributing member to society in a positive manner. With all this in mind, why were they denied?

Speculative Future #2

https://view.genial.ly/619426abc5d9760d8b0e9fe0/interactive-image-speculative-future-2

In the year 2020 due to the Covid pandemic, online and hybrid learning was taking off across the board. Teachers noticed that those students who use to not excel in face-to-face (F2F) learning were excelling, while some students who excelled before were now struggling. There was another group of students who still had the same performance level in either mode. Researchers were researching on this phenomenon and started to look into the characteristics of what makes one excel in online learning versus F2F. What is the difference in personality traits and learning styles? What factors affected this?

With the popularity of online learning, researchers, educators, and the government worked together to train an AI to decide what mode of learning students should be taking starting from the beginning of high school. Three options were provided for students: online, hybrid, and F2F. All involved entities decided to train the AI using data points such as: grades, students behaviour, IEP’s, personality, work ethic, learning goals, and teacher comments. With these data points, the AI will determine which mode of learning the student will be in for the year. Each year, the AI will use new intel to determine whether the student will stick with their past mode or be switched to a new one. The goal of this to maximize learning potential in a student. This would likely help governments cater resources to the needed areas. Those who needs more help would get more through F2F, while those who were more independent would be able to achieve more independence in online/hybrid modes.

It’s the year 2042, and Isabella is just starting high school. She has heard about how the pandemic changed how students received their education. She was hopeful that she would start the new school year learning F2F. She enjoyed how elementary school was taught and loved the interactions with her peers and teacher. Two weeks before the start of school, she was notified of her results. It was determined that she would be starting her first year of high school online. Isabella was not very happy with the results as she felt that the AI failed to consider her social personality. All her friends got F2F, which meant that she would not be with them for the school year. However, she had no choice but to follow through with it. Though initially she hated the thought of not attending class in person, by the end of the first term, she was happy with progress. She was achieving her learning goals and performing well! She was able to make friends online and developed a strong friendship with them. They would meet up with each other whenever they could. With her first year of high school done, the AI used the new data to access students again. Two weeks before her second year of high school, Isabella got her results… F2F. She was shocked as to the change in mode of learning. Her performance was the same as before high school, so why did she have to attend F2F? The new friends she made had a mix of hybrid and online. However, she did not want to judge her results as she had a good experience with her previous one even though she was sceptical at first. With an open mind, Isabella started the new school year F2F. As it turns out, the AI was once again, correct in the decision made. Isabella began to question whether the AI knew her better than she knew herself. She honestly thought that she would know herself more, but clearly not. Is the AI collecting more data than what is being told to them? Is the government not being transparent? Or has the AI received enough data from various data sources that it is almost fool proof? Whatever it may be, it is clear to Isabella that something was being done right.

The first thing I noticed was how the algorithms labelled each person. Those who  I thought had committed crimes that were not as “bad” were the ones that fled. My criteria for releasing suspects was that if their crime did not correlate with direct bodily harm to another person or if they had a medium to low risk of violence. However, this proved to not be the best case. There were many suspects that fled when I released them, hence my higher fear bar. There was also one rape charge where I released the suspect because the algorithm determined that they were low risk for all 3 categories (though for me rape was a heft crime). However, this turned out to be wrong as the suspect did not show up for the hearing.

I had to slightly change my criteria for detaining/releasing people as my fear metre went up. I became more “trigger” happy after I had multiple suspect commit more crimes or not show for the court date. This added pressure required me to detain more and more people as time went on for crimes that I thought were not as severe. I also noticed that the AI generally had higher risk ratings for those who were Black/Hispanic versus White. Also, the trend between most of the suspects is that they are in poverty/cannot afford to loose their job/income/healthcare. Only a few suspects had stated concern over their family/personal life. Majority were financial reasons. O’Neil (2017) mentions that algorithms target those specifically in poverty. Because of this, minorities are targeted relentlessly for the position they are in, largely due to historical factors that they are unable to get out of. Trusting AI to determine risks is not the way to go.  AI get trained based on who and what information was provided to them. Afterwards, AI’s can train themselves based on what they have learned. If this is done, the AI will have accumulated biases based on the biases in society. If communities and governments truly care about crime, targeting the issues that bring poverty is the key to reducing crimes. If people were living an overall satisfying life where they can afford the basic necessities without issues and have healthcare covered, there is less reason to commit crimes.

When trying to complete this task, the biggest thing I noticed is how difficult they make it for you to move onto the next page. I spent way more time than I expected to fill out questions and provide simple information (especially the “I am not a robot” part). The overall format of the site was counterintuitive. The next button is on the left (instead of the right), they asked reverse questions,  made it difficult to close any pop ups or tabs, and made pop ups reappear frequently. All the functions (eg. Speed of pop up disappearing, how frequent pop up reappears, bad design, hard to find buttons) forced me to spend more time on the site. Based on this weeks module, a platform will likely do this to ensure that you stay on the site as long as possible so that they can gather more data on your actions (which can later be used by others or sold off). This makes me think about the design of a platform. For me personally, if a site has too many pop ups and is difficult to deal with, I will not use the site and will quickly close it. However, in this case, I needed to use this site, which is why I tolerated the pop ups and design of it. This made me realize that much of the data collection has to be done behind the scenes so that consumers do not need to deal with the constant disruptions in using the platform. This realization is what makes it concerning. If I enjoy the site, I will spend more time on it. If the site/platform has algorithms that work behind the scenes to capture my data, the better the design of the site, the more data they can collect. Just like the TedTalks mentioned, there is some good in it, but there can be consequences that are detrimental (eg. Government invading citizens privacy, addictions, marketing etc).

For the first part, the thing I struggled with was creating a password that met all the criteria’s that it listed. I even had to search up what Cyrillic character was because I never heard of it before. Also, the help tab kept getting in the way (I like my screen to be free of any pop ups) so I kept clicking on it to go down. But it went down slowly throughout the whole time. Furthermore, I noticed that the “cookie” pop up wouldn’t allow me to click “Yes.” I had to click “not really no” for it to dissappear. It never gave me an option. Additionally, the “I do not accept the terms” were counterintuitive to what I am use to. I had to unclick it to “accept” the terms.

On the second page, I had to create a profile. They made this difficult to fill out since the age scroll tab had to match your birthday. It was hard to locate the correct placement of the age and led to frustrations (and more time spent trying to find the correct number). Also, when picking the country, they used flags instead in black and white and closely spaced together, which means that it would take a longer time for me to find the correct country. I also struggled with the gender tab. Usually, when something is highlighted (in this case blue), that is the choice you picked. In this case, it was the white colour that indicated your chosen gender.

For the third page, I initially started to deselect all the ones to start from scratch in order to pick 3 choices. However, I noticed in the last column, there was the option to select or unselect all. Because of this formatting, I spent more time on this page than necessary. Since English speakers/learners read from left to right, or up/down a column, they used this knowledge to ensure that I would not see select/unselect all option until much later.

The last page was what fustrurated me the most. For the words, they picked  words (eg. Glasses, circles, light, bow) that had multiple meanings depending on context and what they want. The pictures they showed for each word essentially fit the critieria that they laid out. However, I did not know if I was picking the right now. I had to keep repeating the same things over and over again for what seemed like 5-7 minutes before I was able to complete it. Going back and forth between the same words made me question my interpretation and I would switch my selections for the pictures every so often. This made me spend a lot more time on the site.

When you first look at the visualizations, there are large amounts of nodes and edges that make it difficult to see all the links between nodes (participants) and the music pieces that they chose. When you chose a community, this “cleans” up the data a bit and makes it easier to visually see the links between nodes. The big thing I noticed is that the generation of communities by the software is based on the similar music choices made by each node (person). However, the visualization doesn’t capture the reasons behind the choices made by each node. It only shows that there is a link between each node and the music choice. It doesn’t show why the link was made between each node (eg. Personal choice, genre, instruments, beat etc). Hence, there is a lot of information missing from this graph. We would need the raw data and the posts made by each person in order to capture the reasons behind their choices. We can only infer why the responses are similar, but without the raw data, we cannot truly know. A graph doesn’t show all the data points and the reasons behind the responses.

One thing I noticed is that this graph is not a weighted graph. Instead, I would categorize it as something that is more closely related to unidirectional graph (every though there are no arrows). Each link within a community “points” from a person (node) to a music piece (the other node). I say its unidirectional because the music piece didn’t choose the person, the person choice the music piece.

The biggest takeaway I had from the statistic courses I took was how easily data is manipulated. It is very to change parameters so that you get a certain conclusion from the data that fits with what you are looking for. Algorithms are affected by the biases of people that create them and train them. The way someone gathers data, the types of questions, things that one omits, includes, or assumes, and types of programs used all affect what the graph/data shows. This makes it very easy to manipulate and cater your data to an objective. We often seen stat headlines (eg. 60% of people agree that pineapple shouldn’t be on pizza) that only includes the conclusion. Unless we get to read on method and procedures of the study and the raw data, there could be tons of reasons that the conclusion was made. In the pineapple on pizza example, it is possible that the type of questions asked forced people to answer the question or pick a “side.” The program used could have also analyzed data so that a certain outcome was achieved. This can group people in certain ways and either empower them or divide them.

In a political context, this type of “community” forming algorithm can have positive and/or negative impacts. If we look at the issues of conspiracy theories/anti-vaxx/misinformation spreading, it because of how the algorithm works. Just like how this program which the curated music lists connected people and made communities, people who have certain searches will have websites/groups shown to them who have similar searches (like the Google algorithm using Spider). This can lead to confirmation bias and spread of misinformation when you have groups of people validating each other’s thoughts. The algorithm is trained to provide information and data based on what other people before have searched and clicked on. All the hyperlinks that are connected to a page is what the algorithm uses to showcase potential things a person wants to see. On the other hand, finding communities that empower and help others is very beneficial. There are tons of online platforms that cater to people looking for certain things.  Of course, this is assuming everyone has an agenda and is trying to manipulate things to suit their interest. While there are tons of people that do that, there are also tons of other people who are just trying to find answers and avoid as much bias as possible.

In terms of “null” data points, unless the data is being included in the graph, I don’t see it being reflected in the data. The limitation of the internet, algorithm, and search engines is that they are unable to make changes without actual data points given. They can’t reflect on things without having data given to them. It is possible for them to use the data given to them to infer possible reasons, but unless concrete data is given, telling them “these are the reasons,” it will be hard to accurately interpret. That is why it is important to have data sets/points that show the reasons why something was chosen and why something wasn’t chosen. This allows for a full picture of the graph.

The parameters and criteria I used to pick out the 10 songs were based on culture and instruments used. Each song I picked out had to include at least one piece from a different cultural group/country that was on the Golden Record. I also made sure to include different genres (eg. Country, Jazz, Classical etc.) in the list.  The importance for setting out this type of parameter and criteria is that I wanted to showcase the different cultural instruments and sounds, as well as showcasing different genre styles. This shows that the human race is unique with many differences, all are beautiful that evoke different feelings and emotions.

Song List:

• Beethoven, Fifth Symphony, First Movement, the Philharmonia Orchestra, Otto Klemperer, conductor. 7:20
• 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
• Bulgaria, “Izlel je Delyo Hagdutin,” sung by Valya Balkanska. 4:59
• Japan, shakuhachi, “Tsuru No Sugomori” (“Crane’s Nest,”) performed by Goro Yamaguchi. 4:51
• Australia, Aborigine songs, “Morning Star” and “Devil Bird,” recorded by Sandra LeBrun Holmes. 1:26
• “Dark Was the Night,” written and performed by Blind Willie Johnson. 3:15
• Mexico, “El Cascabel,” performed by Lorenzo Barcelata and the Mariachi México. 3:14
• Senegal, percussion, recorded by Charles Duvelle. 2:08
• “Melancholy Blues,” performed by Louis Armstrong and his Hot Seven. 3:05

When I was redesigning, I used Task 1 as the basis for my redesign.  The order of discourse “ and other related discourses shape and are shaped by each other” (The New London Group, 1996, p. 74). I used the Task 1 discourse to guide myself in my discourse for Task 7. My discourse was influenced by my initial discourse. I looked at Task 1 to gather the purpose of the intended task. After gathering the intended purpose of the task, I labelled what I initially did for Task 1 using Figure 1 from The New London Group (1996). In Task 1, I used visual and linguistic design. Hence, for Task 7, I refrained from using either modes of meaning. Instead, I focused on one of the requirements, which was audio design. From that, I decided to use music, which was one of the elements listed to showcase the purpose of Task 1. In Task 1, the purpose was to reflect/describe how the contents of our bag showcase our personality/who we are. So for this, I took the main purpose (showing who we are) and created a music piece instead as my tool using GarageBand. In Task 1, my bag showcased my simplistic personality. So I decided to create a simple musical piece using one of my cultural instruments that I use to play when I was younger (Guzheng). Combining both my cultural upbringing and my personality allowed me to showcase who I was in a different mode while still achieving the outline goal (showing who I am).

Based on this weeks module, there are two potential benefits of mode-changing. One is hybridity which “highlights the mechanisms of creativity and of culture-as-process” (The New London Group, 1996, p. 82). Another is intertextuality which “draws attention to the potentially complex ways in which meanings […] are constituted through relationships to other texts […], text types […], narratives, and other modes of meaning […]” (The New London Group, 1996, p. 82). For hybridity, it allows for people to create new practices and conventions by taking previously established modes and combining to suit their propose. This allows for creating new boundaries and conventions (The New London Group, 1996, p. 82). For intertextuality, text from other previous works can be used in a certain context where people are able to get the meaning based on the historical use of it. For things, mode-changing pushes people to be creative and use their past experiences and knowledge to develop meaning. It enables people to include their cultural upbringing and their own thoughts into it. It allows for people to showcase their individuality and thoughts.

One of the challenges of mode-changing is that it may require motivation in order for the benefits of mode-changing to occur. “There is ample evidence that people do not learning anything well unless they are both motivated to learn and believe that they will be able to use and function with what they are leaning in some way that is in their interest” (The New London Group, 1996, p. 85).  Just because someone engages in mode-changing does not mean they enjoy the process and actually learn anything meaningful if it does not serve them.

Reference:

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

For this post, I definitely relied more on words and ideas. For most of the emoji’s I would type into my emoji tab on my iPad to see a list of emojis that come up for that particular word I typed in. When there weren’t any emoji’s that came up when I typed a certain word, that is when I would manually look through the emoji list to see which one gives the best portrayal of the message I am trying to get across. Sometimes, I couldn’t find an emoji for the idea/word I was trying to get across. So I would find an emoji that closely portrayed the word or idea I was trying to display. Often, I realized I had to use a combination of emoji’s to showcase one word or an idea. Finding the combination of emoji’s can sometimes be time consuming since I am trying to think about how the reader may interpret what I am trying to say. What may make sense to me, may not be for another. That’s why my main goal for this story was to make it as simplistic as possible while capturing the major events and ideas within the plot. I also relied on the context in which the emoji’s were used. For one of the emoji’s used in my story, there is a more accurate emoji that could have been used (when referring to the word associated with the emoji). However, currently, one of the other forms of the emoji is being used to advertise it, which means that the meaning would be more profound if I stuck to what is being used to advertise it across platforms.

I started with the title because I believe it helps aide the reader in developing a sense of what the story may be about and provide some identification. A title can provide a glimpse of what is to come. Of course, sometimes there are titles that do not match the plot at all. However, in my case, the title gives more context to the story line and provides hints to the reader.

I didn’t choose the work based on how easy it would be to visualize. The plot of this story is something I recently interacted with and really enjoyed. The whole plot resonated with me and I really enjoyed how the writer wrote and directed the characters in the story.

Task 4: September 28th, 2021

In elementary school, I usually wrote by hand. When I got to high school, I would write by hand in class but typed out my assignments and essays at home. Currently, I only type and rarely write by hand. I found this task a bit difficult as my hand started cramping up not even a few sentences in. My hand was getting sore trying to write my letter neatly and at a consistent speed. When I made a mistake, I crossed out the word that was wrong and then wrote the correct one next to it. If the mistake was easier to fix, I would write the correct letter darker and on top of the incorrect letter. I edited my work as I went along, stopping and pausing to look each of my sentences. The choice of media did not play a part in how I edited my work. I have always edited my written work as I went along. I feel that the most significant difference between writing by hand and using mechanized writing is the fact that my hand has to move across the page as I am writing manually. It requires more movement on my part than if I typed it out. When I am typing, the only thing that is moving a lot are my fingers. Furthermore, my whole hand is participating in typing while writing manually only allows for one hand to be in use. I prefer to use the mechanized form of writing because my writing is not the neatness. Instead of focusing energy on writing neatly, I am able to get more words down and change it up more easily when I am typing. Lastly, writing mechanically catches any spelling errors that may be in place and edits my work more easily.

Task 3:  September 21st, 2021

Transcript:

Hey it’s either funny story to tell you this will happen when I was in grade 6 and at this point I went to China with my family so my brother and sister mom and dad and we went to a circus to watch the show So what happened was shortly before the show started my sister had to go to the washroom so at this point I am in grade 6 right so I’m about 1213 years old and my sister at this time since we’re ten years apart she was two or three years old and so I carried my sister to the washroom and then apparently this is what my brother and mom told me when we got back from the washroom so mind you we all speak Mandarin right but because me my brother and sister look I guess white they they assumed that we wouldn’t understand them so when I came back my brother my mom told me this story ascentia Lee when I got up to take my sister to the washroom was like 2 ladies behind us and then apparently they were talking to John they were like oh look at that mom taking her daughter to the washroom ‘cause I guess they were just curious because seeing like white people there and funny thing happened my brother he turned around and he was like no that’s not my no that’s not her mom that’s my sisters and then apparently the two ladies in the back were pretty shocked and not so yeah my mom told me that story afterwards so yeah I notice this happens quite a bit when I every time I go back to China that the age difference between me and my sister because it’s pretty large especially when we were younger I looked more mature for my age so I would get a lot of comments about oh is that your daughter with you when they were referring to my sister and I always have to correct them no that’s my sister not my not my daughter there’s also another incident where this is when I was in grade 10 and then my sister at this time would have been in kindergarten and was picking her up from from kindergarten when were in China for the summer again and the teacher she looked issue she saw me and she was like oh your mom is here and then I had to look I had to look at the teacher had to tell her again no I’m the sister I’m not the mom and the teacher looked horrified but my sister she decided to play into the I guess like the joke in that it was like Oh yeah my mom’s here she thought it was funny I was not too impressed considering I was only in grade 10 and yeah There was also other incidences were I would take my sister out for like lunch or whatever every time we were in China and that and there will always be some type of comment or whatever all your daughter is so cute how old is she and my sister just look at me and I have to always feel like no that’s my that’s my that’s my sister not my daughter and then the people would be like oh how old are you then then I’ll tell them like you know I I’m 16 not not in my 20s or 30s and then the first one always be horrified in love and yeah and then they’ll be like oh that how old is your sister and then I would go into the whole spiel about how like where we’re from like how did I learn Mandarin what am I doing in China right now and yeah they usually are interested in background story and they’re impressed when I guess someone who is white looking or white passing speaks Mandarin and lot yeah Yeah then also there is quite a few incidences where people would ask like if like I clear was real because like they haven’t seen someone with like hazely green eyes and then since my sister which was younger had curly hair people would ask if that was real as well because it’s kind of rare to see people with curly hair at that time Oh yeah and I also remember a story where this was back I think in the 80s or 90s when my dad went to China for work in that and he went to a Barber shop at that time to get his haircut with my mom and what happened was this was the first time they’ve ever like seen like a foreigner a white guy in that an at that time my dad had grayish brownish hair but The thing is a changed colour when it got wet right so it went from like a lighter colour too it’s only a very dark colour when it got wet and people were so shocked about that that they had random strangers kind of like all around my dad just looking at how his hair colour changed and I think that’s funny how like so many things have changed from now even to so China has opened their borders there’s more and more foreigners which which is which is nice to see and also in the bigger cities people aren’t as shocked when they see foreigners but times when I visited smaller villages in that and different places where there’s like no foreigners or very little you definitely get looked at a lot more just because they’re not used to seeing people with different features and lot

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The text deviated quite a bit from the conventions of written English. I use Microsoft Word voice over in order to record my anecdote. In written English, there is a lot grammar rules that needs to be followed, such as quotations for quoting what someone else or you say, question marks, periods, spacing between quotes, and commas.

In the text, there are many grammar errors. Firstly, there is absolutely no periods anywhere to indicate the end of a sentence. Secondly, there are also no commas for when I am listing things that happened. Thirdly, when I am quoting what my brother and mom said, there are no quotations at all. When I had a rhetorical question in there, there was no question marks. There are also some words in the text that I did not say or are missing. The addition or omission of certain words makes the sentence incorrect. The one thing that the text got right was the spelling of “colour” (per Canadian English) instead of American English. However, in Microsoft Word, they still have the word underlined in red (I know I can add it to the dictionary list, which I did later). It also got most of the sentences and words correctly, but the missing punctuations make it hard to read and follow along.

The most common mistakes in the text is the lack of punctuation. These are mistakes because the rules in written English are strict in regards to how text should be written. The organization of text, grammar, and punctuation are followed in written English to make it easier to read and determine what is going on. Based on the rules we were taught in school, the text above deviates greatly from what we learned. Breaking these rules in English would count as a “mistake.” When I was in elementary and high school, grammar and punctuation were things that we got marked on. If there was an error, we would get comments or marks deducted from our work. The way the system works tells students that this is a mistake and must be fixed.

If I were using Microsoft Word voice over with a scripted story, there would be less errors in terms of omission or addition of words. I believe the pauses and also the fumbling of words while I was recording my anecdote created errors in the text. If it were scripted, I would not have pauses or fumbling of words. This can decrease the amount of “errors” I would make. Also, my pronunciation of words from my mind may differ than if I were to read something directly. In terms of grammar and punctuation, based off the tool I used, I do not think it would differ much. It appears that Microsoft Word does not add the punctuation automatically. Instead, if I said a sentence (eg. I like bubble tea.), I would need to say “I like bubble tea period” in order to have a period at the end of my sentence. The tool also doesn’t seem to allow for direct quotation marks.

Oral story differs greatly from written storytelling. In oral stories, we use our voice, the volume, and tone to show our emotions and convey meaning. In this weeks module, while listening to and reading Julias Caesars, the way the actors said the lines sometimes differed from the punctuations and tone indicated in the written text. At one line (“Oh judgment!”), there was an exclamation mark, however, the actor did not raise his voice. Instead, he had a more solemn, low, and quiet voice, which is not portrayed by the punctuation in the text. Furthermore, written story telling does not demonstrate the potential dialects that exist when something is spoken in a dialect. Ong (2002) mentions that “of the some 3000 languages spoken that exist today, only some 78 have a literature” (p. 7). This quote made me think about Shanghainese, a dialect spoken in Shanghai. The only way to know how to pronounce the words is through oral language. There is no “written text” to show that “this is how you pronounce it.” All the written words used is Chinese (Mandarin). I remember hearing that Shanghainese was beginning to die out in the mid to late 2000’s. Due to this, schools in Shanghai began teaching the Shanghainese dialect in order to preserve it. Furthermore, in written storytelling, we can “see and touch such inscribed ‘words’ in texts and books” (Ong, 2002, p. 11). For oral storytelling, there is not such thing. In terms of my grandparents and mom speaking to me in Shanghainese, instead of thinking about the words (eg. the character since I know very little written language in Mandarin), I rely on having an image of some sort in my head.

Overall, I find this interesting that there is such a key difference between oral storytelling and written storytelling. My biggest takeaway from this weeks module was that written language is based on oral language. However, oral language is what we use to truly tell stories with emotions and convey meaning.

References

Ong, Walter, J. Taylor & Francis eBooks – CRKN, & CRKN MiL Collection. (2002). Orality and literacy: The technologizing of the word. New York; London: Routledge.

Task 1: September 8th, 2022

This is the bag my mama bought for me in 2019 and I have been using since then as it is small and easy to carry around. In this bag, I have my wallet, phone, hand sanitizer, hand cream, Vaseline, keys, and Swiss Army knife. I need my wallet in order to hold cards and my phone so that I can stay connected with others. I started carrying hand sanitizer after the pandemic started in order to clean my hands. I have always carried Vaseline as I use that as my lip chap and started carrying hand cream since constantly washing/sanitizing my hands irritates my skin. My house keys are for my place and the Swiss Army knife is for times when I’m out and need to open and/or cut something. These items might be considered text because they often have text on them. In most packagings, there are usually text on it (whether that be the brand name, a quote, design etc.) The items in my bag inform others that in my day-to-day life, I do not need much to enjoy myself and am organized (only bringing what I really need to be comfortable). When thinking about the course, I would say that my phone and credit card are the “text technologies” in my bag as they are able to provide text information to myself and others using technology. They both allow me to create and share information and ideas with others (eg. social media, reading, posting, blogging on the phone; the cards in my wallet allow me to purchase things that enable me to do the things listed before). These items give the idea that I engage with others largely through technology. I make plans with friends and family using text technologies. I do not see it as the main form of communication, but an aide in helping plan face-to-face interactions. The items in the bag do not say too much about the literacies I have as I do not showcase it. I prefer reading paper books and interacting with text on larger devices at home away from distractions. However, if I am posting things online with my phone or messaging others, this showcases my “text style” and literacy style. Though, the way I communicate and the type of literacy language I use with others depends on the context and relationship. For example, when it comes to employers and meetings, I would use formal language. When I am speaking with friends and family, I use abbreviations and informal language. Furthermore, the items in my bag show others the image I have of myself. I don’t like clutter and am organized and simplistic. I only need what I consider necessities in my daily life to be comfortable and happy. Since I am only 25 years old, my bag would have been very different 15 years ago. I probably would have not carried anything but Vaseline and cash. Archeologists who may look at my bag in the future may imply that I lived during the pandemic as hand sanitizer was not a popular thing to carry beforehand. Furthermore, they would hypothesize that skin issues/care was of importance as I have two items that involved moisturizing.