[2] Reflection on Anne’ Site Design and Twine Task

[A] Platform, Design, and Literacies

Anne uses her domain, so it is hard to tell which platform she is using. Unlike working under the umbrella of UBC WordPress blogs, having her domain may enable more control and flexibility (for example, installing plugins); she may grow her website as much as she needs without any hindrance .One key difference between Anne’s website and my own is that her website isn’t specific to Etec540. It is likely to be used as an e-portfolio (i.e., a showcase of her accomplishments in MET courses) as it includes separate menus of her artifacts in Etec565G courses. I find that integrating various courses in one platform is a thoughtful idea, particularly, if someone is considering Etec590. However, even if one doesn’t plan to take Etec590, building a site of all MET studies can help finding the connecting lines between the various courses. Also, it may be relevant to one’s future (Scott, 2013). Her design inspires me to consider doing something of the sort in the near future.
Both of our layouts privilege the standalone structures (links to separate tasks/pages) rather than the flat design (i.e., the scroll of text). But, our navigational options are different. Anne presents her Etec540 coursework in a single dropdown menu located at the top; the items are arranged in chronological order and easy to navigate through (similar to my display), the only drawback is that it is a bit lengthy (holds 12 items for Etec540) which may be disruptive for the site’s look. Another difference to highlight, Anne doesn’t use sidebars which makes more room for the content and improve the readability.

[B] The Twine Task

The twine task is one of the fascinating assignments in the course because of the variety of scenarios we all came up with to complete the job. Being aware that Anne has completed Etec565G (2020 summer institute), I wanted to see how a more knowledgeable peer would employ Twine. As a starting point, I highly appreciate that Anne created the “Visit the Live Twine” hyperlink. It made the game more accessible and easier to execute than my Twine game, where the visitor needs to download and extract the Zip file before commencing with the game.

It seems that our Twine games belong to the same category, using the tool for educational purposes, but we have diverse representations per the learning objectives and audience characteristics. Anne’s learning objective is clear to the player upfront. She stated that “you’ll see how hypermedia and digital tools allow designers to focus more of their cognitive abilities on higher level intellectual and creative processes” (para.4). In her twine game, she introduces the player into a particular real-life design scenario (business card design project) and demonstrates her provision in an orderly visual steps towards the goal . In contrast, the learning goal in my game is abstract, wrapped in a fictional story. My production assesses the learners’ knowledge and comprehension (if he turned to help) in a simple and interactive manner. 

Anne and I used different story formats. Hers is most likely “Harlowe 3.2.1”, by default, this format provides forward and back navigation buttons. My story format is “Sugar Cube 2.34.1”  which has no navigational buttons, but, I added a “Start the game” link to enable the user to play again incase he/she failed. Our navigational options facilitate exploring and trying out the different navigational paths without placing a high intellectual demand on the players while playing (Dobson & Willinsky, 2009).  

Anne’s game privileged visual over textual literacy throughout the demonstration videos (i.e., the screen recordings) embedded into her story. In contrast, My Twine story is primarily based on a verbal logic involving sequential and linear unfolding of meaning that most written stories follow and my visual accompaniment were just supportive components but nothing essential. The difference between our representation reveals the visual-based versus text-based orientations.

Lastly, it was interesting to see the interactivity between the learning process and our professional experiences manifested in the given reflections. Whereas, Anne thought of hypermedia and technologies as means to augment design intelligence. I thought of them, as means evoking modular thinking related to software development.