[4] Reflection on Jasmeet’s Site Design and Mode Bending

[A] Platform, Design, and Literacies

Jasmeet and I are utilizing UBC Blogs. In contrast to my layout, Jasmeet employs the standard navigation top menu which makes it more facile to navigate her site than mine. Another difference is that she uses a static header image. My complain about the image choice is that I wasn’t able to recognize its relevance to the course. However, it might have a personal value that I am unaware of.

I was highly drawn to Jasmeet’s memes (i.e., incorporated tasks three and five) that represent visual and linguistic meanings. I thought they were an excellent example of the hybridity and intertextuality concepts as per the New London Group (1996) explanation. In addition, I always appreciate that appropriate humorous content, they are catchy and make the message more memorable (Shatz, 2006). In task 3, her meme was able to summarize the limitations of the voice-to-text transcription and the variation between oral storytelling and written scripts. In task 5, the meme signals that we need to see hyperlinks as writing technology. In this essence, whenever we want to divide the text into unitary topics and organize these units into a connected structure, we will turn to hyperlinks where it is always easy to create and maintain “a perfect hierarchy” (Bolter, 2001, p.23) and make connections.

[B] Mode-Bending

Grounded by the New London Group (1996) reading, my aim for the “Redesigned” of Task 1 was to make a design that is multimodal as I could; I composed a production that rests on the visual, audio, linguistic, and perhaps gestural designs. Conversely, Jasmeet changed the semiotic mode to a single mode (aural). In her recording, she provided a narrative description of her bag contents and her profession along with the sound effects; she didn’t mention the names of the items. In a sense, Jasmeet’s production is a guess game, a stance of an abstract representation. I avoided looking back at the original task while listening and tried to identify the items from the narration and sounds. I marked down a cell phone, laptop, book/notebook, pencils/markers and mask and thought that she might be a school teacher (from the children voices). After finishing the audio, I went to the original post to see how close I was, I was 100% correct. From this experience, I speculate that the audio mode was able to create the same mental image of her bag and who she is as a professional, with a couple of additional advantages: Firstly, the specific sounds provided a better sense of the materials that the items are made from. Secondly, her voice and sounds have helped to generate a more visceral and emotional response in comparison to the image and text of the first post.

Now, I wonder if the site visitors read my abstract poem without the concrete imagery, sounds, or reflection in the post, would they be able to guess the items of my bag in the same way I was able to know Jasmeet items? Will they be able to even know that I am talking about my bag? It is quite difficult unless the reader belongs to Etec540 community. Here I recall Kress (2005) phrase again: “Semiotically, words are signifiers, not signs: When used in representation they become signs -of the maker and of the receivers and/or remaker” (p.15).

By looking at our experiences in this task, one can arrive at several conclusions. Firstly, corroborating Kress (2005), digital technology in a revolutionary way have changed how knowledge is communicated and represented. Secondly, each semiotic mode has its own affordances and potentials for making meaning; when combined they may give more capacities to express and represent things. Lastly, the learning process is becoming more complex than ever and will require the development of multimodal literacies (Cope & Kalantzis, 2009). Furthermore, there is a urgency to reconsider the historically dominating monomodal textual assessment techniques and adapt the the new culture of recognition and knowledge (Kress and Selander 2012).