text – Tech, Text & Thoughts Regarding

LINK 5 – A GENERATIONAL DIVIDE IN MANUAL SCRIPTS

Week 4 prompted some ETEC540 students to write a diary-style entry or reflection of approximately 500 words. Typically, this is no sweat for a graduate student, but the challenge this week was that this writing must be done manually. It’s interesting to me that me and my colleagues seemed to endure much of the same experiences despite a seemingly large generational gap between us.

When it comes to manual script writing, there seemed to be a consensus from a majority of my colleagues on a number of aspects:

1) Most, if not all, of our professional writing is computer-generated and typed using a device

It seems clear that the most effective and ‘professional’ way to communicate in our various occupations is through computer-generated text. Greg Patton articulated that the writing he does for work, which was characterized as ‘formal’, is done overwhelmingly on the computer. Deirdre preferred typing when dealing with assignments, lessons, or “anything that requires professional or formal” types of communication. Ying, interestingly enough, characterized manual writing as “reserved for the most special recipients, those truly worth our time… only done on heartfelt messages like love letters and thank you notes”. I will certainly be rethinking the next time I need to send a text to my partner, or perhaps my boss: “Maybe I should hand write this and mail it?”.

Our current culture has dictated that the most suitable means of communication is through some form of digital text. Why? I think Deirdre summed it up pretty well: Typing affords users an unparalleled speed in comparison to manual scripts, furnishes users with the ability to edit and correct text leaving it unblemished, and bestows writers with a simple mechanism for sharing and sending information. Although Ying’s criteria is well-intentioned, it positions those who regularly receive non-manual scripts as ‘unimportant’ and creates a false dichotomy between individuals who inhabit a hierarchy of ‘importance’ and those whom an individual considers “worth their time”. Consequently, I found it shocking to hear that “career excellence is impossible with a child” and “women who place career over their children are ostracized by society”. First, I think the portrayal of career excellence here is exceptionally vague – What does excellence look like? I’m not sure this is a completely objective term. Is this a concept that applies to both sexes or only women? As for the repudiation of career-driven women from society, I’d be interested in hearing exactly what benefits are stripped from individuals who find themselves in this position. Would this ostracization occur if the career was the sole means of facilitating a suitable life for a child? Do men also find themselves excluded from societal advantages if they are exceptionally career driven? Is this truly a gendered issue or is this simply about the choices we make with respect to careers and families?

2) There is aesthetic beauty, ugliness and physical limitations to hand written material

Perhaps overwhelmingly mentioned was the inherent aesthetic of hand written material. Ying alluded to the fact that hand written material should be reserved only to those special to you, which also implies there is a certain charm and desirability to it. Perhaps Deirdre elucidates a more responsible criteria: hand written material is simply reserved for something or someone more personal. With that said, the intrinsic beauty embedded within manual writing can turn unattractive quickly when a manual script is marred with corrective edits, scratches, or misspelt words. Ying does a great job in expressing how these textual imperfections make the product look tarnished, draws unnecessary attention, and potentially leaves evidence that reflects lower intelligence levels (although not entirely convinced of that last one – should we consider students who have severe dyslexia to have lower intelligence levels?).

Using a pencil with an eraser, although helpful in eliminating these aesthetic blemishes, will not aid in producing a completely flawless product as scars are still left behind, albeit minute. Fundamentally, there is no room for major error in order to manufacture a beautiful piece of writing. Moreover, it needs to be legible! The physical limitation manifests itself specifically in hand muscle cramps or corporeal damage like the writer’s bump Deirdre mentions. These are factors of manual script writing that simply slow us down.

3) Written texts are mnemonic in nature

Both Deirdre and Greg conceded that written texts are most helpful when the desired effect is to remember something. Greg describes his habit of leaving numerous post-it notes on and around his desk in order to remind him of certain tasks or items. Likewise, both Deirdre and I claimed to write out our grocery lists; we do this in shorthand or point-form as a means of saving time and mental/ physical energy. Research suggests that there are mnemonic elements related to the tactility of the written word:

“Writing is a process requiring the integration of visual, proprioceptive (i.e., haptic/kinesthetic), and tactile information… There is evidence that writing movements are involved in letter memorization… that is, we write in order to remember something” (Mangen, 2015).

Despite all these similarities, there was a stark contrast I noticed when analyzing the generational divide between us all. Greg, for example, conveyed that he is consistently able to write faster than he can type. He concedes that his typing skills are lacking, and that he uses “2-3 fingers” to type words on a keyboard. Along the aforementioned lines of writing and tactility, Greg iterates that he appreciates the “feel of holding a finished copy in his hand… [he] thinks this is because [he] is an older guy and hasn’t embraced technology to some of the younger generation’s degree”. Comparatively, both Deirdre and I find ourselves on the farther side of the millennial spectrum and we both can remember working with both pen and paper, and a computer in school. The manual script exercise made us feel nostalgic, while Greg simply felt more comfortable, even in a position to excel. We certainly did not feel like we could write faster than we could type as we both spoke about the rate in which we could produce typed text.

To me, it’s evident that there is a tangible generational difference in perception, ability, and comfort when it comes to manual writing. Writers from an older generation are forced to embrace new media and harness novel tools in order to survive, at least in a professional context. Comparatively, millennial writers for example, are unique in the sense that they were born into a transitional age, wherefore these tools no longer were novel, but rather, sensible and commonplace and used in conjunction with their counterparts. It’s no wonder the written word is thought to be reserved for the personal; the new generational members were not around when the written word was the commonplace medium for textual communication.

Bolter, Jay David. (2001). Writing space: Computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print [2nd edition]. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Mangen, A., & Anda, L., & Oxborough, G., & Brønnick, K. (2015). Handwriting versus keyboard writing: Effect on word recall. Journal of Writing Research. 7. 227-247. doi: 10.17239/jowr-2015.07.02.1.

Task 11 – Algorithms & Predictive Text

I think it first serves us well to understand that algorithms are rooted in nature and within collective organisms, not within computers. It is unwise to understand algorithms as explicitly applied to computers, robots, or codes.

In its most basic form, an algorithm is simply a methodical set of steps that can be utilized to make calculations, realize a determination and/or choose decisions. More often than not, the perception is that algorithms are contextualized as codes embedded within the language or computers, but similar to McRaney’s assertion that prejudices are inherent within the way human beings make decisions, so too are algorithms intrinsic in the way we survive. At a neuroscientific level, what are emotions other than biochemical algorithms vital for the survival of all mammals? What is the process of photosynthesis other than mother nature’s algorithm for plant growth? Artificial Intelligence (A.I) simply mimics the most basic human configuration for decision making; all we have done is project our humanistic operations and behaviours into an artificial medium (Vallor, 2018).

With that said, I do believe we are currently sitting at a significant crossroads where we may be implementing technologies, specifically with respect to A.I, without recognizing the potential unintended consequences. Cathay O’Neil speaks about this concept at length and focuses her line of thought on judiciary matters, educational administration, and fundamental hiring practices. It seems only recently have we begun to recognize the implicit biases A.I technologies seemed to have inherited from their creators. Examples are endless: Legal analysts are rapidly being replaced by A.I, meaning that successful prosecutions or defences can rely almost wholly on precedents reconfigured as algorithms, and even predict future criminals based on certain human factors (see: Machine Bias Against African Americans). The job market increasingly relies on A.I tech to filter CV’s. Most human eyes will never fall upon a prospective employee’s resume again, effectively placing people’s livelihoods at the mercy of machines (see: Amazons AI hiring tool biased against women). Ultimately, these algorithms are caricatures of our own human imprints.

So when I think about the predictive text feature on my phone, and the created sentences generated by the prompts, I can’t help but feel that there is a piece of me in there somewhere. I have a Google Pixel phone, and used the predictive text feature in the messaging app. I find that the feature is excellent when I need to correct a spelling error, or suggest the next potential word while I am in the process of texting, but I did not find it helpful at all for this exercise. When given the freedom to produce its own sentences, it failed to construct anything coherent. For the record, I do not think any of these predictive text iterations sound remotely like me.

My instincts tell me that the predictive text feature analyzes the words and phrases used the most within my texting app and generates the next most likely option. I found small successes when formulating two to three word phrases, but outside of that, there was much left to imagination. Take this example here: “Everytime I think about our future together with any of these documents, I have been in the future of fashion technology and services” . ‘Future’ appears twice in this sentence, and I can at least understand it’s relativity to ‘technology’ and ‘services’ for example. Alternatively, I haven’t the slightest clue where it got ‘fashion’ from.

This second example makes a little more grammatical sense, and is slightly more eloquent in its delivery, but the fact remains that I simply do not text like this. There is a high degree of formality in this rendering, as if I was speaking to a workplace superior. I found it interesting that both examples incorporated elements of documents and attachments. Perhaps a reflection that I’m working too much… Moreover, these predictive texts are fairly good at sensing when there truly is a link available (often when a link is sent, there will be a mini-previous provided), but of course, there was no link sent.

Perhaps the most interesting example to me was the following predictive text that was typed but not sent. I wanted to provide an alternative perspective and make available a sort of ‘behind the scenes’ image to illustrate what predictive aspects were offered to me:

The most striking feature in this image is the predictive emoji being offered: the smiley with a cowboy hat. Not only do I question the emoji’s particular relevance within this predictive body of text, but I can confidently say, without a shadow of a doubt in my mind, that I have never once used the cowboy hat emoji in any context whatsoever. I am dumbfounded by what algorithm decided to offer me the cowboy hat emoji as an option here.

I struggled to discern these types of predictive patterns in academic articles, novels, or anything of the like (perhaps I’m just being naive in that sense), however, I did seem to recognize similarly structured sentences in social media infrastructure, and online ads. For example:

Perusing Facebook permitted me to acknowledge some potential predictive text, within a specifically targeted predictive advertisement. I don’t spend that much time on Facebook, truthfully, but I know that this being a sponsored ad, I was obviously a target of a number of specific algorithms designed to place this ad in front of me. The text in the ad strikes me also as predictive: “Classic men’s clothing Built For the Long Haul and the modern man.” Something about it just doesn’t seem human – Why are there capitals in the middle of the sentence? Why does the modern man portion seem like it’s just been tacked on at the end? Perhaps this is where my predictive text got fashion from…

Conversely, I am aware of automated journalism as a concept gaining much traction. I think it’s important to echo one of O’Neil’s sentiments about the rise of A.I powered machines; that we shouldn’t attempt to employ A.I as a means to eliminate human enterprise, but rather as a tool to empower it. In reading the aforementioned A.I generated news column, I do find it to be extremely ‘bare-bones’ in the sense that it is only relaying specific facts, rather than injecting a creative or original tone into the story. Perhaps this is a mode reserved more effectively for sports or finance news stories.

One of the ethical dilemmas we tend to find in this particular arena is simply: what is truth? We are inclined to think that journalists are held to high standards and are bound to their journalistic commitment to spreading what is true. But it’s no secret that in recent years, we’ve seen a decline in ethical journalism and the overall journalistic standards in the industry. Is this a journalist’s fault? Can we blame A.I for this? It’s a difficult area, but they both seem to have a hand in the rise of fake news, and the fall of ethics within journalistic standards.

McRaney, D. (n.d.). Machine Bias (rebroadcast). In You Are Not so Smart. Retrieved from https://soundcloud.com/youarenotsosmart/140-machine-bias-rebroadcast

O’Neil, C. (2016). Weapons of math destruction: How big data increases inequality and threatens democracy (First edition). New York: Crown. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQHs8SA1qpk&list=PLUp6-eX_3Y4iHYSm8GV0LgmN0-SldT4U8&t=1032s

O’Neil, C. (2017, July 16). How can we stop algorithms telling lies? The Observer. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jul/16/how-can-we-stop-algorithms-telling-lies

Santa Clara University. (2018). Lessons from the AI Mirror Shannon Vallor. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40UbpSoYN4k&t=1043s

Task 6 – An Emoji Story

In keeping with some semblance of linearity and order, I did start with the book’s title. Perhaps this was me instinctively appealing to the traditional written word, influencing the reader to follow a strict order of comprehension while needing to interpret word-signifiers (Kress, 2005). This notion may not specifically apply when ‘reading’ emojis. Even still, it became increasingly difficult to keep the sequencing of ideas consistent and transcribe every word itself, or the meaning of a word collection for that matter, into strict hieroglyphic-type structures. Before attempting the emoji-transcription, I wrote out what I would have said had I been asked to write a description of the book and its plot. From there, I worked on assigning suitable emojis to express what would have been said through text.

Kress asserts that “words are (relatively) empty entities – in a semiotic account they are signifiers to be filled with meaning rather than signs full of meaning, and the task of the reader is to fill these relatively vacant entities with her or his meaning” (Kress, 2005). Although I do not wholly agree with this characterization of words, I do think it is exceptionally true for this exercise and our interpretation and communication through the use of emoji images. This task was certainly harder than I expected it to be, and I did choose this work based on how much I presumed I would be able to express through image rather than text.

As I reflected on this process, it became clear to me that I was attempting to translate each word into an image; this strategy quickly proved near impossible. I then began to assign an emoji symbol to a number of conceptual ideas, hoping to illustrate a collection of words and meanings with a singular image. This proved to be slightly easier but still exceptionally challenging considering there are a finite amount of emoji symbols; I quickly learned that not every word/ concept has an emoji. I began asking: “Why isn’t there an emoji for this??” (A cannon or for example, or an equal sign!). Moreover, it was difficult to organize ideas and sentences without punctuation; I opted to indicate a new sentence by writing on a new line, evoking the image of the scroll once again. There are a number of emojis that include words in them, such as “soon”, “back”, and “top” and I may have got away with a technicality on using those – Although they are considered emoji symbols, they do have specific text incorporated in them. I also appealed to a number of mathematical symbols and used them as one would use an article in the English language. Funny how there is no equal sign emoji…

It’s clear that at first glance, the meaning of my ‘emoji book review’ is ambiguous and leaves much up to the reader to interpret. I couldn’t help but relate this to the Egyptian hieroglyphs example that Hayles describes as negotiating meaning among several images. No one emoji indicated one word, rather it was a collection of them that produced some approximation of meaning:

Meaning was thus negotiated among several images, and it was their interrelation that determined significance rather than a one-to-one correlation between mark and sound (Hayles, 2003).

Similarly, my emoji synopsis reflects the same type of idea. It is a grouping of images that creates one meaning, word, or sound and those meanings are negotiated by the reader. Different readers may come up with different interpretations, but with that said, I believe the central essence and meaning of the ‘text’ will be maintained. Kress describes a similar idea when dealing with the computer screen as the contemporary canvas: “it is dominated by the logic of image—means that the practices of reading becoming dominant are the practices derived from the engagement with image and/or depiction in which the reader designs the meaning from materials made available on the screen” (Kress, 2005).

To view this notion practically, I look at the Google Doc in which I currently am writing these words and perceive an overwhelming number of symbolic representations, each of which have meaning and purpose in the creation of these words. The “X” means to close a specific window, the “B” is to bold letters, the “paperclip” means to link, etc. I’m sure there are some symbols that many users are simply unsure about and are uncertain about their purpose. Can they assume their meaning based on the icon? Can the same be said about emojis? I think the difference here, however, is that each one of these symbols indicates a specific action in relation to word processing, whereas emojis were not designed to be used to transcribe the written word but rather to primarily express a human emotion.

Hayles, K. (2003). Deeper into the Machine: The Future of Electronic Literature. Culture Machine Vol. 5, online.

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

Task 5 – The Championship Twine

You can download and play my Championship Twine here:

Championship Twine.html (This one does not have the music/ sound effects due to the file size restrictions on the blog)

In Bolter’s third chapter of Writing Space, he mentions a familiar practice: “Teachers of writing often encourage their students to sketch out topics and connect them through lines of association, an activity they have sometimes called “prewriting” (Bolter, 2001).

Funny enough, in my own creation of the Twine game’s story, I did not formulate elements that were mapped out previously; instead, I sort of generated the narrative as I went. With that said, effectively the entirety of the game itself is reflective of what can be characterized as ‘pre-writing’. In the same manner a pre-writing activity asks the author to create a type of organized progression of ideas to follow when producing the final product, so too does the twine game follow a noded design pattern that weaves together a narrative. Alternatively, the hypertext structure undoubtedly challenges the reader’s sense of traditional narrative and diminishes the conventional linearity of storytelling (Miall & Dobson, 2001). Personally, for the first time in a long time, I can clearly recognize how this type of educational tech tool could be explicitly implemented into my practice, especially when teaching language arts.

Consequently, I decided to write a ‘story’ on a topic that I am extremely passionate about. As a coach of young men, I understand that in sports and game situations there are hundreds of decisions that need to be made. I thought that would be a fun narrative adventure, however, incidentally, I recognized towards the end of the narratives creation that much of the embedded terminology would be difficult to follow for someone who doesn’t commonly follow this particular sport. I considered changing the narrative completely, however, Miall & Dobson’s words echoed:

“…attention was directed towards the machinery of the hypertext and its functions rather than to the experience offered by the story. We can see that as a result these readers largely failed to engage with the literary qualities of the text.” (Miall & Dobson, 2001).

Ultimately, it seems that players of the game are more concerned with the aspects of ‘winning’ or getting to the end than they are about the literary elements in the narrative structure.

Definitively, I felt that I wanted to go above and beyond the standard derivatives of a Twine game offered to users who consider themselves beginners. I wanted colours, sound effects, music, and potentially images. To do this, I had to learn a bit of basic coding, which at first glance, was incredibly daunting. I used the following video to understand the meaning of CSS and HTML ‘language’ and took in upon myself to learn a few fundamentals that I ended up using in my Twine game. Prior to this game’s creation, I knew the basic conceptual framework of coding but never put anything into practice. After learning and applying those skills to this game, I can’t help but this of Kamin’s words: “Even someone using text processing through the mediation of clerical help senses that something is happening to us, something more than a mere increase in the ability to edit writing conveniently and efficiently” (Kamin, 1984). Now, I understand that Twine isn’t necessarily a text processing tool, but I certainly feel like my ability to edit ‘writing’ (in the computational coding sense) has increased, and I’ve adopted a new outlook on the effectiveness, utility, and significance of that type of ‘writing’.

Bolter, J.D. (2001). Writing Space: Computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print. Mahway, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Chapter 3

Kamin, J. (1984). The think tank book. Berkeley: SYBEX.

Miall, D & Dobson, T. (2001) “Reading hypertext and the experience of literature.” Texas Digital Library.

Task 4 – Manual Script Analysis

Analysis

Much of the writing I do, both personally and professionally, is done by typing on my laptop. With that said, I do make an effort to write manually every so often (I write in my day timer, will write out the grocery list…etc). I tend to find manual writing more time consuming, susceptible to errors, and more difficult to process coherent and organized thoughts despite the perceived beauty in handwriting. My hand also became cramped after a while… Alternatively, there are certain advantages to hand-written text: I will find myself effective with shorthand point form notes, but when that style of writing is pushed to encapsulate narrative elements, the cohesiveness and clarity breaks down. Research suggests that there are mnemonic elements related to the tactility of the written word:

I think this is certainly true when it comes to the grocery list, but I also think this extends to greater notions within writing. We write narratives to remember stories. We write essays to remember ideas. We write down our thoughts to share and analyze information. Is our memory more likely to fail us when we type instead of write?

I think one of the more fascinating aspects about writing developments is the divisions between types of writing mechanisms today. For example, we can utilize mechanized forms of writing, we can type on a computer keyboard, or we can type on our touchscreen smartphones or tablets. When using those ‘primitive’ forms of writing, changing text and eliminating errors comes at an aesthetic and temporal cost. We are forced to scratch out mistakes, scribble out errors, and use symbols and arrows to indicate forgotten words. There is a physical limitation as well as alluded to earlier with the cramped hand. These aspects, coupled with the slow and measured approach to writing out articulated ideas makes this mode of writing time consuming and difficult to keep up with the flow of information in one’s mind. Moreover, one must continually practice writing to ensure it’s completely legible!

I certainly think the choice of media makes a difference here – Using a pencil, for example, affords the user less of an aesthetic cost (depending on how you view aesthetics of writing I suppose). I also chose to use a sheet of paper instead of a notebook to eliminate that fine motor challenge of attempting to fit words into the margins so close to the spine. There are certain liberties that come with typing such as the ability to delete any sentences, words, or ideas very cleanly, or insert missing words or letters with no visual evidence. Ultimately, I would lean towards typing as my preferred form of writing – It’s affordances and flexibility with respect to the aesthetic and temporal costs far outweigh the mechanized writing form.

Bolter, Jay David. (2001). Writing space: Computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print [2^nd edition]. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Clement, Richard W. (1997). “Medieval and Renaissance book production “. Library Faculty & Staff Publications. Paper 10. https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/lib_pubs/10

Mangen, A., & Anda, L., & Oxborough, G., & Brønnick, K. (2015). Handwriting versus keyboard writing: Effect on word recall. Journal of Writing Research. 7. 227-247. doi: 10.17239/jowr-2015.07.02.1.

Scrolls, Codices, & Rear-View Mirrors: History’s Textual Parallels

It seems the evolution of the written word and the manufacturing of the materials needed for it has a long and convoluted history. The scroll, for example, was the main mechanism by which writers housed and organized the written word, often on one of three primitive writing materials: papyrus, parchment, or paper. It warrants considering the differences between the three:

Papyrus: Made from the stems of the papyrus plants native to Egypt. Prepared by cutting ribbon like strips and placed on top of one another to be pounded together into what we would consider a sheet. Difficult to write on due to its rough fibrous nature and was liable to fall apart over time.

Parchment: Made from the untanned hides of animals. Became the more desired alternative to papyrus due to its ability to endure longer and because it provided a smoother writing experience. Used in roughly the same period as papyrus, but the dynamic relationship between these two types of writing styles allows for the interpretation that papyrus and parchment could be indicators of social status.

Paper: What we know as today’s paper was originally manufactured in China. Production is believed to have originated from pounding rags in water and tree bark. The fibres and pulp would collect on a mat screen and dried in the sun.

The scroll itself refers simply to a rolling up of one of the aforementioned writing materials. Inherently, there are both advantages and disadvantages to this mode of writing technology but it’s clear the disadvantages vastly outweigh the benefits, otherwise, we’d still be using scrolls. I believe the most evident benefit the scroll has is its portability – Scrolls were quite easy to transport, however, they took up a lot of space when trying to store. Additionally, scrolls made it difficult to locate desired passages or sentences as there were no ‘page numbers’ to accurately locate and organize written ideas.

Consequently, like most media, advances and enhances to the technologies typically have some evolutionary birthmark if we look close enough. Marshall McLuhan famously contended that most new media innovations evoke content fundamental to the earlier forms of related media. He called this the rear view mirror effect, whereby individuals use old terminology or concepts to aid in the navigation of innovative forms of technology.

“Ordinary human instinct causes people (…) to rely on the rear-view mirror as a kind of repeat or ricorso of the preceding environment, thus insuring total disorientation at all times. It is not that there is anything wrong with the old environment, but it simply will not serve as navigational guide to the new one. (Through the Vanishing Point, xxiii)

This is an idea I’ve touched on in a previous blog posting – It’s no coincidence we still liken the power of car engines to the measurement of horses; it was once the horse drawn carriage. It’s no accident we use the metaphor of a ‘library’ to characterize a collection of online digital artifacts, or how the primitive stone tablet once used to record information has been borrowed to now refer to handheld technologies. This is certainly true for the scroll as well: Think about how we “scroll” from top to bottom through material on our phones or when we read through websites just as the early scroll users would have done.

Moreover, it seems the same issues plaguing the early scroll writers are pervasive in our own culture as well. One of the problematic design aspects of the scroll was it’s deliverance of uninterrupted information; it was essentially one remarkably long page of writing. Today’s websites seem to be running into the same debate when dealing with web design; there are cultural consequences in relation to the selection of such design. For example, continuous scrolling web pages enable higher degrees of interactivity, especially within an ever-increasing mobile society.

When the scroll evolved into the codex, so too did the function of reading and thought. Rather than invoking continuous principles of writing, the codex brought about discontinuous thought and paged writing. I recall Lera Boroditsky’s article about how language shapes thought and her research that outlined how people from the Kuuk Thaayorre culture viewed representations of the past and present differently from people who thought and read in a more linear fashion (Boroditsky, 2011). The move to the codex, first and foremost, codified information for accessibility and ease of future retrieval. It could be opened to any point in a text, was much more durable than its counterparts, and also permitted the use of both sides of the paper. Perhaps most importantly was the cultural positioning and societal stature that the codex reflected of its owner, especially in the context of Christianity. It’s worth noting that the invention of the codex did not wholly overtake the use of the scroll. In fact, it wasn’t until the invention of the printing press that the use and manufacturing of codices truly took off.

Through a socio-cultural lens, the printing press revolutionized, and in some ways, democratized knowledge by making widely available written text. With its inherent ties to Christianity (the first book manufactured was the Bible), the production of books increased literacy levels throughout Europe while simultaneously increased membership of the Christian faith. I can’t help but wonder the various ‘new literacies’ we currently obtain when innovative technologies are presented to us…

Boroditsky, L. (2011). How language shapes thought. Scientific American, 304(2), 62-65

McLuhan, M., & Parker, H. (1968). Through the vanishing point: Space in poetry and painting. New York: Harper & Row.

Task 3 – The Boy and The Spoon: A Speech-To-Text Analysis

The Boy and the Spoon

Truthfully, I went to great lengths to experiment with this task. I used speech-to-text technology to record various conversations I had with colleagues at work and analyze if and how that conversation evolved. Those results were quite funny. I recorded a phone conversation with my partner to demonstrate how accurately speech-to-text would pick up speech output from other technologies. It was surprisingly more accurate than I anticipated. Ultimately, I decided to use a recording of myself narrating a story told within The Alchemist to my English class (they were thrilled I was able to involve them in this task).

I’ve taught this book a number of times and so the story about the boy and the spoon is one that I am quite familiar with and can recite from memory. It’s a story about balance and how that balance contributes to happiness in our lives. I typically close with asking my students what the oil is representative of and we have a discussion about what this story means, and how it can be applied practically. The text of my narrative is as follows:

So I want to tell you a story that appears in The Alchemist the story about happiness it's a story that's good that gets related by Santiago throw to Journey so there is a young boy who lives in a village and he wakes up and he philosophizes about life and decides that he wants to find the answer to what is happiness and how do I achieve it so we asked his that he asked his father where he can find the answer to this question his father tells him that he can ask the wise man there's a wise man that lives not too far from their Village and he would need to track in Journey to see the wise man and ask him the secret to happiness so the boy undertakes this journey outside of his town walks a long way down ashley finds this Grand Palace if he thinks that you walk up to the Palace knock on ask the wise man a question and you'll find the secret to happiness but that's not what happened in fact he walks into the palace and he sees this man surrounded by Merchants Travelers journeyman they're all talking and having a diet after a long wait the boy lee has his opportunity to ask the man of the secret to happiness and the man responds to him son before I answer your question I want you to take this spoon to give the boys spoon fills it with oil and he says I want you to walk around my palace with this spoon and not drop not one drop of oil so the boy grease and he walks around the palace he spends 4 hours walking around this beautiful palace tapestries paintings and fountains Gardens and all the things he walks through and finally he comes back to the wise man with his spoon full of oil and the wise man says well what did you see and the boy cannot respond he didn't see anything he was focussed his entire time on not spilling the oil so the man says well I can't answer your question just yet in fact I need you to continue to walk around my Palace and I want you to come back in 4 hours time and tell me all the beautiful things that you've seen in my Palace so the boy continues with the spoon walks around the palace sees the beautiful tapestries the forest the gardens The Fountains the paintings and sculptures finally comes back relates to the old wise man what he had seen and the old old wise man asked him what happened to the oil because in the process of him taking in all the beauty and experience around him he spilled all the oil and he says son that is the secret to happiness the secret to happiness is balance balancing the oil and with all of the things and experiences that surround you in life what is the oil

Analysis

When we tend to the deviations within this body of text, the most glaring issue is the absence of basic English grammatical conventions. Rarely, if at all, do we see the use of periods, commas, quotation marks, question or exclamation marks. Paragraphs are not used at all to space out and organize ideas. Capitalization is used haphazardly and there are a number of ‘misheard’ or missing words that fundamentally change the context of the story or create confusion in its plausibility. Perhaps this is the English teacher in me but the entire story is one long run-on sentence. The aforementioned absences of grammatical conventions is what I would consider ‘wrong’ with this text when we look at it from a purely textual perspective. These deviations from the customary processes of written English diminish the significance, impact, and overall meaning of the narrative when it is read. Comparatively, when we speak to one another, we do not mention or indicate the use of a comma, period, or any other grammatical symbol through word, rather it’s expressive, implied, and embedded within our spoken language conventions. This is not something that is available with speech-to-text technology, at least not accurately. To indicate a period or comma, one must say it as they speak in order for the technology to pick up on it. Imagine speaking like that to another human being…

Perhaps that is my mistake in not effectively speaking the language needed to successfully operate speech-to-text technology.

When I related this story to my class, I was animated in it’s retelling, utilized various modes of intonation, gesture and volume, and injected fierce emotion to keep my audience engaged. It does not seem that this recording captured these elements at all. I’m not entirely sure I consider this a mistake, but I certainly feel like this recording did not do my performance justice. This experiment revealed to me the relationship between grammatical conventions and spoken emotion, body language, and intonation. Speech-to-text technology, and writing itself is unable to effectively capture the elements used in spoken storytelling. Despite the symbols used to appeal to these sentiments, it doesn’t seem like our writing can ever truly re-animate the aspects of spoken word; it may be able to inform the way we read the written word. Walter Ong mentions this idea in his book Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word:

“It would seem inescapably obvious that language is an oral phenomenon. Human beings communicate in countless ways, making use of all their senses, touch, taste, smell, and especially sight, as well as hearing … Some non-oral communication is exceedingly rich —gesture, for example. Yet in a deep sense language, articulated sound, is paramount (Ong, 2002)”.

Body language accounts for an overwhelming percentage of effective human communication- these are factors that embody hand and facial gestures, voice volume and intonation, unconscious reading of facial muscles, and eye contact among various other things. Consequently, these are also aspects of communication that cannot be effectively paralleled in text-based communication. Even despite the rise of emoji usage, icons meant to convey the unspoken and emotional fundamentals of communication can’t convey these aspects to the same degree. As Ong suggests, there is something unique about human articulated sound that results in deeper meaning.

An interesting aspect of the story I’ve chosen was that it is a narrative that is written down. It is a story that can be found within The Alchemist. I decided to relate this story from memory and it’s revealing to see the differences. Had I chosen to tell the story using the written version, I feel as if my re-telling would be more measured and rhythmic; I would essentially be following a script of symbols annotating for me the ways in which the story should be related. With the recollection from memory, I felt that I was afforded a lot more freedom to narrate the story as I saw fit. I was able to repeat certain aspects, emphasize important plot points with visual or verbal gestures; ultimately the story became my own to tell.

Similarly, it was interesting to see that when the narrative body of text was compared to the recording of myself and my colleagues having a conversation about the different assessment strategies we use as humanities and science teachers, the narrative recording was exceptionally more accurate. I think it warrants a mention that my colleague has an incredibly strong English accent and I’m convinced this played a major role in the inconsistencies of the following text-recording. This was another aspect of speech-to-text technology that can could be perceived as ‘flawed’: it’s inability to pick up on accented language, or dialectic speech.

As an individual who is capable of speaking dialectic Italian, it comes as no surprise that accents and dialectics can lead to miscommunication. Many times, when I speak to other Italians, my utterances are often met with looks of confusion or laughter; it’s not seen as speaking the true or purest form of the language. Thus, I wonder if the same can be said for the following recording; my colleague is heavily accented, and this gave way for severe confusion when reading our recorded conversation.

Okay so basically give you copper sources i'm going to go out to eat on some questions on the sources cited fast one strand Moltres chase I was wondering the true then anisocytosis be by Sousa Center might as well stop by if you detox metals to write summary about you understand about similar Behavior drivers I meant turn you up spelling punctuation that's all that they remarked on I was an English teacher. So it's has nothing to do with the content where am I 3 secret right now we didn't surprise you points so i'm not response you should read through the achievements on side honestly each section using the comments the qualities that make demonstrate as instructed during standardizing you can. Why are these statements heavy guy assessment objectives identify and cut right explicit and implicit information ideas Lexington 5 evidence from the text explain, what is use language instructor to achieve effects in infants read this using relevance of a terminology cuz of views this is more about the structure can the rating men it is both content pupusas all this is what you have in a response receptive. Play relevant summary some attempts of summary limited summary hot mop English papers and the arts for that reason like is so much judgment made on your point or there is but I mean you do follow some type of criteria right it goes back to what we were talking about there with with the strands in the the compass talking about right so if if a student is able to relate to me that he understands Canta knowledge if you can apply it and like make inferences like that saying there then that would be the inquiry if you can apply it to something outside extra-textual or even something else in the text there's application and communication just overall is he able to to to express himself in writing when you have those pillars I feel like it's a lot easier to understand what you're looking for mean enjoyed English stop the stop of The Green Mile what was The Green Mile yet was when Tom Hanks it all the old Tom Hanks is in the whose wagon wheels are killer man they're so killer

Degrees of Literacy: Evolution of Writing’s Contractual Beginnings to the Hypertext

I’m always wary when a chapter claims to base much of its analysis in a domain conventionally perceived as an extension of “Marxist or neo-Marxist examinations” and then attempts to veil the terminology with different nomenclature. The red flag, for me, occurs when these examinations are coupled with mentions of French postmodern thinkers like Jacques Derrida.

I think Jacques Derrida was an exceptionally brilliant thinker and there are many things he put forth that I agree with. For example, one of Derrida’s central claims was that of deconstruction; the idea that there are a near infinite number of ways to interpret an event or a text. I believe this to be technically true, however, when you begin to couple this type of thinking with the aforementioned neo-Marxist viewpoints, we begin to run into a potentially dangerous paradigm depending on how far you push this ideology. Further, despite the agreement that there may be a near infinite number of ways to interpret an event or text, there remains only an incredibly small percentage of those interpretations that can be considered tenable by any reasonable standard.

Having studied Walter Ong in years past, it was refreshing to review his distinction between primary and secondary orality and contrast it with the theories of Havelock who insists it’s essentially impossible for a literate mind to conceptualize what primary orality would even look like. I can’t help but wonder if any members of primary orality would be able to function in or comprehend the secondary or even tertiary evolutions (I would consider this the digital age we currently find ourselves in) of language we are experiencing today. Regardless, all these thinkers share the same central tenant – that writing is a technology invented by human beings and that technology has evolved over time. But why? And what relationship does it have in shaping our cultural makeup?

Gnanadesikan’s article was the most impactful to me when dealing with this concept – Outside of its readability, it formulated the most convincing argument: despite the Platonic arguments of a binary relationship between speech and text, writing has a foundation in memory. Writing has a contractual beginning; one that was invented out of necessity to track, record, and mark information. This information has its roots in both economic and psychological purposes: Early forms of writing reflect records of information pertaining to taxes, trade agreements, but also extends to the grand narratives and mythologies of societies. Weaving together the Haas article, this is essentially what the West was built upon: the importance of having the spoken word written, as if that made it unbreakable. That word exists solely in the ether until it is written down and made physical.

Ong’s line of thought supports this – Before material information was present, all one could do was ‘recall’. He also claims that writing was invented in urban centres, thereby lending to the theory that writing is a central cornerstone in the flourishing of any civilization. Perhaps one of the most fascinating ideas developed by Ong is his characterization of new media:

“A new media never wipes out the old, it always reinforces it, but it changes it, so that it no longer does what it used to do the same way. You must know the new medium or you can’t use the old…“

When it comes to our newest form of media (digital media) I am compelled to think about all the changes it has brought and the changes that it has brought about. I stand by a previous claim about one of the more undervalued and revolutionary changes brought about by our new digital media: the hypertext. The hypertext has created fundamental changes when it comes to the storage, retrieval, and obtaining of information within digital realms. It transcends the existing barriers of physical texts and has transformed the internet itself into something like a disentangled book. At the most superficial level, the layering of digital information through the transcribing of data nodes has, by and large, increased the speed with which digital text users can access information. I wonder what other deep cultural changes this may have produced…

Gnanadesikan, A. E. (2011).“The First IT Revolution.” In The writing revolution: Cuneiform to the internet (Vol. 25). John Wiley & Sons (pp. 1-10).

Haas, C. (2013). “The Technology Question.” In Writing technology: Studies on the materiality of literacy Routledge. (pp. 3-23).

Ong, Walter, J. Taylor & Francis eBooks – CRKN, & CRKN MiL Collection. (2002). Orality and literacy: The technologizing of the word. Chapter 1 .New York; London: Routledge.

Our Brain on Language: Internet Linguistics and the Emoji

This week’s readings and lecture by Dr. Lera Boroditsky prompted me to think deeper on the effects of language on learning, culture, and incidentally technology. One of the less articulated questions towards the end of the lecture video revolved around the potential and perceived changes to our languages as a result of novel technologies in the hands of our youth. Having done an ethnography assignment in ETEC565 focused specifically on my own classroom, a cultural study in ETEC521, and a multitude of other related projects regarding language and learning, I can fully recognize the impact language has on conveying culture, on one’s learning, and how one thinks and perceives their environment.

With that said, I’m interested to delve deeper into an idea that Gretchen McCulloch has spoken about: To what extent is the emoji not only changing the way we communicate, but the way we express ourselves, and ultimately, the way we think? To what extent is an emoji exchange also a language exchange?

I would encourage all to watch Gretchen McCulloch speak on Internet Linguistics here:

Gretchen outlines the introduction of emojis as a series of codes that didn’t initially work for every mobile provider; in fact, it was a process that needed standardization. In a way, what the Unicode consortium was doing was creating a codified ‘language’ where users could utilize a way for each device to essentially ‘speak’ to one another effectively. Isn’t code a computer ‘language’? I also appreciated how McCulloch characterized emoji use as a cultural mirror; a way in which to analyze our habits and proclivities as a society. Most interestingly, (and relevant considering our brief study of the OED last week) in 2015 the Oxford English Dictionary named the “Face with Tears of Joy” emoji as the word of the year, which in itself is somewhat problematic because it now begs the question whether or not an emoji is a word, let alone a language.

If we are defining language strictly in the sense of organizing words and sounds to create structured meanings for comprehension and knowledge exchange, then no, I don’t believe emojis are a language. However, if we are defining language as a mode of expressive communication between two parties, then emojis may be the most universally understood language in the world. What is language other than a tool of communication?

Clay Shirky, concerned primarily with the economic and and social effects of technology, commented on many McCulloch’s claims, saying:

“The most visible medium for written English was print, our metaphor for language was the book: fixed, authoritative, slow to change. Now that most written English is informal and online, our collective metaphor is shifting to language as a network: fluid, collectively negotiated, constantly altered” (NY Times, 2019).

With this said, I cannot think of a time prior to our current era where our collective metaphor has functioned in a world simultaneously ruled by both physical books and online content. I’m not sure that we are shifting to language entirely based online, or trying to adopt a middle ground and balance the current tensions between the two.

Task 1 – What’s In My Bag?

My name is Carlo Trentadue and ETEC540 is my final MET course before I round out the program! Born and raised in Toronto, I moved out to the west coast in 2018, where I currently work as an educator and member of the administrative leadership team at a private school in Vancouver.

I chose the bag I use on a daily basis and let me say firstly, I’m thankful for this exercise because it prompted me to do a thorough cleaning and reassessment of my need for some of these items. Most of the contents of my bag permit or enhance my daily responsibilities. For example, the laptop is central to my work as it affords me communicative abilities through email, academic organization and management, and overall connectivity to the digital world. The day timer and manuscript folder reflect a non-digital type of literacy, in a more literal sense, and provides me a platform to keep personal and professional events in order. I believe these to be representative of the ‘standard literacies’ we should be equipped with in today’s professional working society.

An interesting “text” I’ve considered here is the gym gear. It represents a literacy that is unique in comparison to the other digital technology pieces in this bag: a type of physical literacy. Subsequently, I think the masks evoke a type of literacy as well; one that symbolizes the current spirit of the times and the willingness to participate and demonstrate awareness in the circumstances we find ourselves in with respect to the current public health climate. It’s clear that many of the pieces in this bag have literal text on/in them, but I feel that text, in a way, is more than letters and words, rather it’s a reflection or symbol of understanding and communication.

There is an abundance of digital, print, and physical technologies in this bag. Of the one’s considered text, I think the most overwhelmingly obvious aspect is that most, if not all, are written in English. There is, however, a number of printed technologies (ie – stickers, packaging etc.) that reflect some degree of multicultural exposure. The gift cards have both English and French writing, while one of the stickers from Costa Rica is in Spanish. Zooming into the computer decals proved to be interesting as one indicates I am on #TeamPixel. I found this quite telling – Not only does this text reflect a mobile and technological literacy, it also asserts acumen in a specific software or operating system and claims there may be competitive circumstances involved. Centred in the image is a brown leather folder that houses a manuscript I’m currently collaborating on with a partner.

Truthfully, I think the narrative constructed by the contents of my bag are consistent with the narrative represented in the image I outwardly project. I also think it’s easy for me to say that, and would be more interested to hear what others think when they glimpse a photo of me and compare their impressions with that of what’s in my bag.

This bag certainly would not have looked the same 15 years ago – I think the digital technologies would look a lot more archaic, and that there would be an overwhelming amount of text technologies present, like textbooks and notebooks. Alternatively, if an archeologist were to assess these contents many years in the future, I feel the most glaring object in terms of defining our current cultural spirit would undeniably be the mask. The mask reveals that there is a potentially fatal threat in our daily lives that we are battling through. It symbolizes safety, commitment to others, respect, and to some degree a willingness to sacrifice for the greater good.

Ultimately, I can’t help but think that future archaeologists would think many of the current cutting edge technologies that I house in my bag to be archaic in themselves. It will be interesting to look back on this image in 20 years and reassess the text, the technology, and my thoughts regarding.