LINKING ASSIGNMENT
- How has your colleague’s experience differed from yours? And how do you know?
- What web authoring tool have they chosen to manifest their work?
- How does their tool differ from yours in the ways in which it allows content-authouring and end-user interface?
- What literacies do their site privilege or deny in comparison and contrast to yours?
- What theoretical underpinnings are evident in your/your colleague’s textual architecture and how does this affect one’s experience of the work?
- How do the constraints of the course design manifest in your architectural choices? How have you responded to the pedagogical underpinnings of this course design in your own web space?
Lynda Yearwood – Manual Scripts
Lynda’s experience with her manual writing was very different from mine. First off, writing is her preferred method of writing whereas mine is typing. She found that writing by hand allowed her to slow her thoughts down naturally and allow for her ideas to flow, whereas I found that I had to intentionally slow my thoughts down and pre-plan my writing. I wonder if this was due to the differences in times that we were brought up? Not saying that she was brought up in the dinosaur age as she mentions she is a dinosaur, but she might have been brought up in a time where writing by pencil and paper was the more practiced means of writing and I was brought up in a time when writing on computer technology was beginning to take over. Thus, exhibiting the culture and period that our different text technologies were practiced (Bolter, 2001). We have also integrated the different text technologies into our lives, as we could maneuver through different means of text economies (Bolter, 2001), but that doesn’t mean we must prefer the newer and more used method of text.
As she mentioned that mistakes and scribbling wasn’t something she minded or edited, it made me wonder, if our culture and experience affects the way we interact with mistakes and messy writing? This is because, I felt the need to make sure that my writing was neat and that mistakes were kept at a minimum, as I grew up when technology had already taken over, spell check and grammar check was already in place. Thus, I carefully crafted my words and process (Gnanadesikan, 2011). This could be interpreted to mean that our “period” and culture has its own text economy (Bolter, 2001) which can be seen as a language of its own or semiotic mode (Dobson & Willinsky, 2009), that shapes the we that we think (Boroditsky, 2001).
She mentions that there is “speculation that many of the scribes in monastic scriptoriums were in fact incapable of reading the texts they were copying,” (Yearwood, 2021). I found this contradictory to Gnanadesikan’s (2011) idea that ideas are written down to be remembered and read. What was the point in writing then, if not to remember what was written?
Karen Wang – Emoji Story
https://karenw0801.wixsite.com/mysite/post/task-6-an-emoji-story
Karen used wixsite to author her work. This allowed for the blog-like visual that I was familiar with or the social media style of scrolling through the different posts. This style, allowed for users to get a glimpse of what each blog consists of before having to click into it for more details. It also showed the number of views and comments the blog post received, an important element to youths in a participatory-culture society (Kafai & Peppler, 2011). My choice of site, UBC blogs, was more of a web page style, where users click on the different titles to be redirected to the different pages. This gave no glimpse to each page, forcing users to actually access each page. It gave it a sense of rigid, professional user style, where as Karen’s seemed more friendly.
Karen and I were similar in our Emoji Story in that we both used words to represent the title but differed in that I used English to write my emoji story and she used what I am assuming is Chinese. That makes me think, that her site privileges Chinese literacy. As the title of my show is “Squid Game” in all the different languages that it is offered in, my choice of movie made it so that I did not deny access, but that is not due to any choice I made in the representation.
Based on my assumption of the language, if I am correct, it puts me at an advantage in decoding her emoji story. This draws similarities to New London Group (1996) where they explained that culture and experience shapes how someone experiences language in the different semiotic modes. Immediately, when I saw the flower I thought Mulan and the girl and sword reiterated my thoughts. I had a bit of bias, as I saw that her last name was Wang, I immediately assumed that she used Chinese to write her emoji story before reading the description. After reading the description and she hinted that the flower represented the family name, I knew for sure it was Mulan. Due to my experience and culture (New London Group, 1996), this was something I knew, allowing me to better understand her representation. This also reminded me of Boroditsky’s (2001) ideas that language shapes our thinking. As my assumption was that this was in Chinese, I was able to shape my thinking to understand her writing. It’s interesting how I realized I can shape my thinking to an English perspective and shape it into a Chinese perspective based on the situation. I can also see that, without knowledge of the Chinese language or culture, this would be near impossible for someone else to decode, because nowhere in the English name is “Flower” mentioned. However, as Karen begins to explain the plot, she used ideas rather than words, decreasing the gap to the knowledge for English speakers. I also realized that, one must have saw the movie to understand the ideas in emojis. Again, reiterating the importance in life experience and culture in the experience of semiotic modes (New London Group, 1996).
Karen’s comment that pictures and images can have the same effect as writing really stuck with me. It was something I thought was possible when doing the assignment, but hearing the words and same idea come from a peer, made it that much more powerful. It was something I have been doing with my grade 1/2 class without even realizing. That is, allowing them to write words mixed with pictures to explain to me their thinking. It allows for “reverse ekphrasis” where their spoken words can become pictures (Bolter, 2001).
Victoria Cameron – Voice to Text
A difference that I had from Victoria’s Voice to Text, was that she had paused long enough for the voice to text to acknowledge that “Originally” was the start of a new sentence or thought. However, even though it was the start of a new thought and the program picked up on using capitalization, there was no period that came before it. This made me wonder if we had a difference in speech pace that may have affected the differences in what our voice to text picked up or if it was the difference in the applications we used? Victoria’s experience reminded me of Gnanadesikan (2011) who did mention that computer technology is limiting in character production, so I wonder if this was the case for why punctuations were missing in both of our experiences with voice-to-text. As there was no mention of what tool she had used for her dictation, it is difficult to assume if the tool itself afforded differences in our experience.
Also interesting was Victoria’s take on the difference between oral and written storytelling (which also made me think of the importance of oral storytelling within Indigenous cultures). She mentions the power of oral storytelling, how gestures, questions, answers, expressions and pauses can give the story meaning whereas written stories requires most of the interpretation from the reader (McCulloch, 2019). In this aspect, I may have to challenge her. Even though gestures, questions, answers, expressions and pauses can give meaning to a story, these gestures, questions, answers, expressions and pauses can be interpreted differently by different people, again, depending on their lived-experiences and culture (Dobson & Willinksy, 2009; New London Group, 1996) . She mentions that the listener in an oral story is actively involved by asking questions, but in a written story the reader is also actively involved making their own meaning and interpretation by including their culture and experiences of literacies. She also argues that written stories fosters “forgetfulness” (Haas, 2013), as readers are left with unanswered questions. Personally, I feel, if I am able to make meaning of my own from the story I have read, critically think about the questions that I have about the story and explore the answer on my own, rather than just taking a story with all the answers given to me, I would be in a position that I would not forget the story. Rather, due to the authentic and meaningful experience, that story may linger with me. Her theoretical underpinning of the power of oral text over written text may influence visitors to her site to see more value in oral over written text, rather than seeing ways to utilized written text to create that same intonation (such as an exclamation mark or “…” to demonstrate pauses) and also emotions from it. With that said, I can also see how she may think that oral stories are more powerful, as in Indigenous cultures, the message of the story isn’t lost as it would be if the story was written.
Jackson Liang – Curation Assignment
https://www.insideouteducation.ca/s/stories/golden-record-curation-assignment
Jackson and I focused on two different ideas: Jackson on the polish-ness and naturalness of the music in the golden record, I on the cultural relevance of the music. Even though we focused on two very different analysis of the songs, we still made 5 similar song choices. This interested me as I never once took to think about how the music was polished or natural. She mentions that she was never into classical music due to her background and experience which she situated in part due to being a child of a first-generation immigrant. I too am a child of a first-generation immigrant family, but I have had a lot of exposure to classical music due to my school and choice of joining the band or any musical affiliation. This drew both similarities and differences to the ideas of how culture and life-experience affect the way in which we experience the different semiotic modes (New London Group, 1996). Although, yes, our culture and life-experiences due affect our experience with language, there are intersectionalities that don’t make two experiences exactly the same. This difference, reiterated this importance of avoiding generalizations and suspending biases when looking at someone’s experiences and expecting a certain reaction based on it.
Jackson talked about the missing element of music: the unpopular and unliked music. She mentions the implications are a mal-adaptation of history (Brown’s University, 2017). Although the focus is on different ideas, I can see how her interpretation can also sum up what I noted as missing from the curated songs. That is, not every culture, language or country is represented in the curated songs, misrepresenting what life on earth is like.
The polish-ness of the songs reminded me of the podcast, where it mentioned that mathematics was a strong reason for the choices in classical music (Twenty Thousand Hertz, n.d.). If you were familiar with math, you would understand how the answers are fixed, the same, but the process to get there can differ. For adding, some can use mental math, composing and decomposing numbers, ten frames, number lines, base ten blocks, etc. Jackson’s interpretation gave me a different perspective on the music. Although, the song itself that goes into the golden record may be fixed, each person’s interpretation or reproduction of that song will differ. Thus, drawing similarities to Dobson and Willinsky’s (2009) and New London Group’s (1996) analysis that experience with the media is dependent on different factors of a person.
Grant – Attention Economy
At first, I was amazed by Grant’s attention to detail and ability to avoid the attention grabbing buttons in User Inyerface, read carefully and actually follow the instructions. I think that is where I failed in this activity, as I was unable to proceed carefully and my rushed personality continued to be sucked in by the attention seeking icons, similar to Harris’ (2017) that my brain was trained to have its attention directed or that I preferred the visual mode over written (Dobson & Willinsky, 2009). Grant was able to critically pick up the contradictions in the big attention grabbing icons from the written words. For him, he was able to pick up on the written literacy, as I was sucked into the attention grabbing icons and imagery, which could be seen as a different semiotic mode (New London Group, 1996). This is why, our experience within this task differed. I was stuck on the second page with the ticking timer and Grant was able to “apply for a job at bagaar.be.”
In Grant’s walkthrough or description of his experience with the site, he provided visuals to help readers understand what he was talking about, almost like “ekphrasis” where his words can be seen describing the pictures or the pictures are describing the words (Bolter, 2001). His videos and pictures privileged access and understanding to the different experiences he was accentuating, giving readers the context of what he was explaining. This is similar to Dobson and Willinsky’s (2009) ideas as he supported the ability of users to understand the information. As I used only written words with one photo that I barely explained, I denied readers access to what I meant or was trying to explain, especially those users who have never before accessed this site. I denied my users the visual mode of representation and context (Dobson & Willinsky, 2009) as well, I only used one language, the written and English language. Thus, access to my description would be limited to those who are shaped by the English written language, similar to Boroditsky’s ideas (2001).
Grant displays anger in Tufekci’s (2017) explanation that algorithms are used to shape our political, social and personal thought. This anger and connection made me think how Dobson and Willinsky (2009) saw that different semiotic modes were a different type of language or literacy and Boroditsky (2001) saw language as shaping our thought processes. Would he also be angered at his spoken language for the way it manipulates his thinking? Of course, this is farfetched and an over-analysis. My point is, his anger made me think of algorithm as a language and although it seems planned and manipulative, all language in a sense manipulates and changes the course of our thinking and perception.
Angela Beckett – Mode Bending
Angela, alike myself, used UBC Blog to author her weekly tasks. So, our setup on the main page were very similar. I can only assume that based on my experience within her blog, that she may have experienced the same frustration as I had. That is, our difficulty to resize images or move images freely and effectively. Thus, our content may have been presented in a way that could deter users from continuing due to the oversized images and undersized fonts, or it could attract the more visual users (Dobson & Willinsky, 2009).
Angela chose to use VideoScribe, whereas I used AdobeSparks. Rather than using actual images, she opted for abstract visuals: drawings of the original. Personally, I feel that drawings or icons are very cultural-based. That is because one must have seen the drawings as a representation of the real object before, in order to understand it. This is similar to both Dobson & Willinsky’s (2009) ideas and New London Group’s (1996) ideas that experience with the different modes of language is dependent on one’s culture and experience. As drawings may not always represent real-life objects to the fullest. Thus, this mode may deny access to some users. As I chose to use a mixture of signs, real-life images and drawings, it could provide access to a variety of different viewers depending on their preferences. My choice of using both Chinese and English writing and spoken language, different visuals, music and tone of voice, it privileges more users as it allows access. As Angela’s was strictly in spoken English with no written and drawing imagery, it denies other audio and visual preferences.
Angela’s experience also differed from my own in this mode-bending exercise, as she explained that she was focussed on cutting down the length of her mode and making the information succinct, and finding a mode-bending application that was different from her previous and easy to use. Her focus was on gestures and the English linguistic (New London Group, 1996) as I focused on diversity and identity. Due to these differences in experience, it translated into the difference in privilege and denial as previously mentioned.
How do the constraints of the course design manifest in your architectural choices? How have you responded to the pedagogical underpinnings of this course design in your own web space?
References:
Bolter, J.D. (2001). Writing space: Computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print [2nd edition]. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Dobson, T. & Willinsky, J. (2009). Digital literacy. Retrieved from https://pkp.sfu.ca/files/Digital%20Literacy.pdf
Gnanadesikan, A. E. (2011).“The First IT Revolution.” In The writing revolution: Cuneiform to the internet (Vol. 25). John Wiley & Sons (pp. 1-10).
Harris, T. (2017, July 28). How a handful of tech companies control billions of minds everyday [YouTube]. TedTalk Conference. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C74amJRp730
Haas, C. (2013). Writing technology: Studies on the materiality of literacy. Routledge. https://doi-org.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/10.4324/9780203811238
Kafai, Y. & Peppler, K. (2011). Youth, technology and DIY: Developing participatory competencies in creative media production (Links to an external site.). Review of Research in Education, 35(1), 89-119.
McCulloch, G. (2019). Because internet: Understanding the new rules of language. Riverhead Books.
Tufekci, Z. (2017). We’re building a dystopia just to make people click on ads. Retrieved from (Links to an external site.) https://www.ted.com/talks/zeynep_tufekci_we_re_building_a_dystopia_just_to_make_people_click_on_ads?language=en (Links to an external site.)
Twenty Thousand Hertz. (n.d.). Voyager golden record. Retrieved from https://www.20k.org/episodes/voyagergoldenrecord
Brown University. (2017, July 11). Abby Smith Rumsey: “Digital Memory: What Can We Afford to Lose?” [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBrahqg9ZMc&feature=youtu.be