For this task, I wanted to record myself struggling through this site, with my comments in real time, followed by a reflection of my experience.
Task 9: Network Assignment
Task 7: Mode-Bending
Victoria’s Digital Bag Redesign: MadLib
For me, redesign is synonymous with Universal Design for Learning (UDL). Principles of UDL help educators to provide diverse learners with multiple ways of engagement, representation, and expressions of learning (Flanagan & Morgan, 2021). This requires teachers to take lessons, assignments, assessments, and material, and redesign how they expect students to interact, respond, and engage with the materials. I think it’s very important to think about how we can redesign things to make them more accessible to everyone.
The original task that I created was an auditory and visual video describing the apps on my digital, mobile device. I redesigned this task to be completely text-based, with interactive and fun elements, which takes the user into a different type of informal and interpersonal discourse with me (The New London Group, 1996).
The live session on Saturday with our professor, Ernesto, really helped me think outside the box for this task. He suggested playing around and possibly creating a novel or even dialogue between items, which got me thinking about how I could engage my audience in a more personal way. I initially thought about taking the screen shot of my device’s home screen and creating an interactive poster that had clickable elements for all of the apps with descriptions and hyperlinks for the user to explore on their own. I chose not to go this route because it still included the visual element of my home screen, and I felt like it wasn’t quite mode-changing enough. I wanted to create something that was the completely different from visuals and voice.
I took the video that I initially recorded describing my home screen, uploaded it to Microsoft Word’s online transcription tool, and thought about how I could change the transcribed text to an interactive mode for my audience. I used a website called Flippity.net which uses Google Sheets to create simple online interactive tools, and that is where I settled on a MadLib. I had to redesign my original text to make it flow more like a story, but the overall process was simple and fun. I loved doing MadLibs as a kid, and I love that my task now has funny and lighthearted elements that shows the audience a bit of my quirky side. This redesign of my task also allows for an easy way to start a conversation with others by bringing up some of the hilarious sentences of their own personal story about me and my digital device.
References
Flanagan, S., & Morgan, J. J. (2021). Ensuring Access to Online Learning for All Students Through Universal Design for Learning. TEACHING Exceptional Children, 53(6), 459–462. https://doi.org/10.1177/00400599211010174
The New London Group. (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review 66(1), 60-92.
Task 5: Twine
Since taking the MET Digital Games Institute this past summer, I have been excited to try my hand at creating a Twine. After playing the goofy and entertaining Temple of No game, I decided to create a Choose Your Own Adventure (CYOA) style of story with different paths that the story could take. It took me a while to decide my topic, but I eventually settled on the Three Little Pigs story because it illustrates a simple example of something that most students could relate to and create quite easily. The whole process of creating this Twine took me about an hour, start to finish.
Knowing that I wanted to create multiple paths in my story, I initially started to write my story directly within the program. However, the coding part of Twine was quite frustrating and I decided it would be better to switch to a flow-chart to focus on the contents of the story itself. Coding could wait until I had all of my story paths complete.
I used Lucidchart.com to create a flow chart for my story.
With the story finished, I did a quick YouTube search for a Twine tutorial which taught me that I could code my entire story with links and passages. As I began to transfer my story into code, I realized that my original ideas could be made into more efficient paths, helping the story flow better. It was also interesting to see how much more creative I could get with dialogue and story elements once I got the hang of linking passages in Twine; I was inspired to create a more humorous ending in the midst of the process.
In the future, I’d like to explore more of the styling features of Twine, such as adding pictures and text effects, and using hidden text. I would also approach my story creation from the perspective of world building rather than a CYOA style. Frank (2019) found that most students gravitate towards the static CYOA style of writing, which limits their creativity. Instead, if students build a virtual world, they are opening up the ability to interact and explore with a more dynamic narrative, increasing creativity and critical thinking (Frank, 2019).
References
Frank, D. (2019). Walking simulators and interactive fiction in the composition classroom: Reading, writing, and making. Press Start, 5(2), 72-87. https://press-start.gla.ac.uk/index.php/press-start/article/view/154
Task 2: Voice to Text
The day of my wedding was a special one because first of all I got married George Ewing during COVID-19 and I got married in my backyard and I also got married to my partner on our 10 year anniversary so we started dating May 28th 2010 in high school and we got married on May 28th 2020 the day was pretty chill I didn’t really have to worry about setting anything up or really organizing anything I was lucky enough to have a friend who’s mom was a wedding planner and she had a garage full of decorations so she just came over that day and made a beautiful arrangement in our backyard my sister in law is a hair stylist so she was able to do my hair and one of my best friends is a train makeup artist so I got my makeup done as well originally I was just going to wear jeans cardigan and like a nice shirt because I wanted to I didn’t have a wedding dress some button house somewhere some way along the way someone convinced me to wear a dress I’m pretty sure it was my mother in law that convinced me to wear a dress we took some pictures in the front of my house we had this beautiful blooming white cherry blossom tree well I guess it’s not cherry blossom it’s whatever the white the white blossom version is we had about 20 people there in our backyard it was super casual we had little bubbles we had four or five dogs there that was the best part that dogs were able to be at the wedding and a friend of mine made us some cake pops so we had cake pops for dessert we had pizza for food and we had some corona beer obviously to commemorate the time my father in law actually married us so that was a super sweet touch and yeah we just spent the rest of the night dancing hanging out sitting around a fire roasting marshmallows it was fantastic the nice part about it was that we had so little people that everybody wanted to say go around and say something so it was just kind of like a round table of congratulations and stories of how everybody knows us and it was just really sweet Originally we were not going to have a first dance because we didn’t want to but again somehow someone somewhere decided that we were going to have a first dance and so my sister in law just played a random song that was it was a Spanish song my partner is Colombian and we danced to it I still don’t know what the name of our first dance song is but it was sweet song as the evening went bye and it started getting darker our decorations really popped we had little fairy lights everywhere and we have this nice like patio really long patio with a nice big tree and so there were lights and things hanging from it and so it was just super sweet and that’s my wedding after I got married by the way I changed into a cardigan pants and comfy shoes because I didn’t want to urge us so yeah that was my COVID wedding
How does the text deviate from conventions of written English?
The first thing that I noticed about this big block of text is that it lacks punctuation. There are no periods, commas, colons, semicolons, question marks, or exclamation marks. There is no way to clearly define the sentences within the text, and the lack of punctuation makes it difficult to understand the flow of the story. The formatting of this story also deviates from what we are used to in written English. There are no topic sentences or paragraphs to help the reader identify different ideas or sections of the story. Further, the text has no title, giving the reader no indication as to what kind of text they are about to read.
What is “wrong” in the text? What is “right”?
WRONG: “The day of my wedding was a special one because first of all I got married George Ewing during COVID-19″
- Right away, the first thing that is wrong in this text is the inclusion of the name “George Ewing.” I think that I was maybe saying um and stumbling on my words at this point, but this causes a problem because to the reader, they may think that I’m getting married to someone named George Ewing.
WRONG: Dates – May 28th 2010 and May 28th 2020.
- The “th” is used incorrectly; if I had said the 28th of May 2010, then it would be correct.
WRONG: “I didn’t have a wedding dress some button house somewhere some way along the way someone convinced me to wear a dress”
- This was supposed to say “but somebody somewhere…”
WRONG: “as the evening went bye and it started getting darker”
- This made me giggle, because I guess the evening is sort of saying “bye,” but this word has the wrong meaning. I think the app took this same sound (phoneme) and misinterpreted the meaning (Gnanadesikan, 2011).
WRONG: “I changed into a cardigan pants and comfy shoes because I didn’t want to urge us so yeah”
- Again, I think I was stumbling over my words and was probably saying um.
RIGHT: Spelling vs. numerals for numbers
- It’s interesting that the app spelled out the words for numbers from 1-10 and wrote the numerals for numbers larger than 10. I didn’t even know this was a rule of writing; I thought you were supposed to write all numbers as words.
RIGHT: Capitalization and Spelling
- Capitalization is correct for proper names (COVID), dates, or countries. It is interesting that the one word that is capitalized is Originally… when I was telling my story, I paused long enough for the app to recognize that I was starting a new thought.
- Spelling for the most part is perfect, with the exception of “bye” as mentioned above.
What are the most common “mistakes” in the text and why do you consider them “mistakes”?
The most common mistakes in the above text are instances where I said “um” or “uh” and the app registered it as words that I said. They are mistakes because they do not belong in the context of the story. I think another common mistake is the absence of a personal voice- there were times in the story when I paused, laughed, or exclaimed to really emphasize a point, but the text did not capture those feelings; the writing recorded the “language, but not [the] actual speech” (Gnanadesikan, 2011, p. 9).
What if you had “scripted” the story? What difference might that have made?
If I had the chance to script my story, I would have had the opportunity to be more deliberate by carefully crafting my words (Gnanadesikan, 2011). I would have spent time brainstorming the pieces of my wedding that I wanted to talk about, and they would flow and connect with each other in a logical way. I tried my best when speaking to describe the day exactly as it was, but in the moment, time escaped me and I forgot things here and there. If I had been able to physically write down my story, I would have been able to reread, rearrange, or remove ideas, again contributing to a better flow of the story. A script would have allowed me to choose different words to describe my experience, and I wouldn’t have needed to pause and scramble to fill the silence with a quick word on the fly (for example when I said “um” or “like” or “super”).
In what ways does oral storytelling differ from written storytelling?
Gnanadesikan (2011) points out that written stories are visible, permanent, and able to be analyzed for as long as the text is available, while spoken language only lasts for a short period of time. These two forms of storytelling allow meaning to be conveyed differently. Written storytelling gives the writer access to a vast vocabulary that allows them to sound more eloquent than their oral counterparts (Ong, 2002). Although punctuation and creative writing can give written words a voice, oral storytelling immerses the listener in the story on a deeper level. Tone of voice, gestures, intentional pauses, and facial expressions can all reinforce the message and meaning of a story (McCulloch, 2019). The listener can be actively involved in the story by asking questions, making the process more interactive and meaningful for both the listener and storyteller. Contrast this with written storytelling, which Haas (2013) mentions can “foster forgetfulness,” leaving the reader to derive meaning on their own with potentially unanswered questions (p. 6).
References
Gnanadesikan, A. E. (2011). The writing revolution: Cuneiform to the internet. (Vol. 25). John Wiley & Sons. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444304671
Haas, C. (2013). Writing technology: Studies on the materiality of literacy. Routledge. https://doi-org.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/10.4324/9780203811238
McCulloch, G. (2019). Because internet: Understanding the new rules of language. Riverhead Books.
Ong, Walter, J. (2002). Orality and literacy: The technologizing of the word (2nd ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203426258