1. https://blogs.ubc.ca/sworley/2023/10/19/etec-540-task-7-mode-bending/
Simon, I really appreciated the way the entertainment value of this faux podcast engaged me in the subject of “Artifacts Unearthed: Unlocking History’s Mysteries.” The interaction between the host and the guest gave it a sense of distance and objectivity that wouldn’t have been as effective if it had been done as one person. The “future podcast” format made me wonder, too — would a purely audio experience be efficacious in the future for sharing historical artifacts or would an audio podcast of this type also have technological enhancements to allow people to see the objects that are being discussed? This podcast “unearthed” four found items, which were two laptops, a pair of Airpods and a deck of playing cards. Through the “expert guest”, an archaeologist, who was interviewed for the episode, we were first introduced to the question of why the satchel would have not one but two laptop computers in it, “meticulously protected in their case.” The guest makes the assumption that this is because the owner had a clear divide between their work and their personal life, and that no charger cords were required because they were mobile yet always close to a source of electricity. The third item was the Airpods, a set of earphones suggesting that listening to music privately was important to the owner. Finally, there was a deck of playing cards that suggested how games and family time was important to the owner in addition to their work. The guest does not explain how he inferred the use of these items simply because of their inclusion in the satchel, which raised a question in my mind: Would the podcast host and his guests understand why someone in the past would need separate computers to separate work and personal life? Or why they might need to listen to music privately instead of out loud? Or would they even understand what playing cards were in the past? No doubt many objects have obvious affordances that help us guess how they might be used in an obvious way, but technological devices usually need to be used as intended before their use can be understood. To me this is a good illustration of how “digital information is not eye-legible: it is dependant on a machine to decode and re-present the bit streams in images on a computer screen (Smith, 1999).” By changing the mode from visual to audio, however, it provided a way to dramatize how people in the future might attempt to understand historical artifacts as well as how they might make reasonable assumptions about them that might be completely incorrect without additional cultural research for better context.
2. https://blogs.ubc.ca/nisrine/2023/09/16/whats-in-your-bag/
Nisrine, your approach to this task, identifying your bag as a digital bag “embodied in my trusty iPhone” was intriguing to me because it reflects how many of our tools and resources have been digitized and can be carried with us in a hardshell case that incorporates mobile technology, cloud-based apps, WiFi connectivity and telecom networking — our analog calculator is replaced by a digital one, our note pads and pens are replaced by word processing apps, our fold-out maps by digital mapping, our music is digitized and playable via the phone’s speakers or attached earphones, our cash is replaced by a cash app, and our ability to make phone calls is mobilized so that we have little or no need for landlines. You pointed out what a transition this was from only 20 years earlier when your bag would be a physical one that carried analog objects. Your detailed explanation of how and why you use the various apps on the iPhone provided an understanding of your personal values and activities as well as how important it is for you to use for voice and text communications. Another insightful aspect of your post was that our digital footprints or “digital breadcrumbs” as you called them could reveal so much about our culture, our activities, our health, our relationships, our travels and so much more. I realized that the digital footprints are truly “what’s in our bag” and that the hardware itself, the phone casing and its inner components, will be only a visual and perhaps tactile curiosity in the future while the real stories about us will be told by our digital records. My compliments to you for taking a chance in this task to highlight a digital bag, which is a multimodal tool, instead of a bag with various physical contents.
3. https://blogs.ubc.ca/jillmet/2023/10/21/task-7-mode-bending/
Jill, in this post you altered the mode of the “What’s in my bag?” task into two sensory forms, but in a complementary way — in one, your audio description of four objects in your bag are based on tactile descriptions that might evoke how they would feel if we were touching them. Secondly, another audio recording of the sounds the various objects in your bag would make when you are touching them or moving them. You invite us to guess what the objects might be based on the familiarity of the sounds they make when you touch them. You said that you found the task challenging because of the number of times you had to re-record it to fix errors and you said it made you reflect on multi-literacies and the issues we have with so many streams of media vying for our attention. This made me reflect on how guessing the objects based on verbal descriptions and tactile sounds required a considerable amount of attention yet without any reward, as it might if it was gamified. In terms of digital literacy, are we becoming so spoon-fed by multi-modal media so that most of our cognitive apprehension, comprehension and discrimination skills are not being exercised regularly? The tactile and olfactory dimensions of sensory experience are not something the digital world has been able to deliver very effectively (if you do not include video games or mobile devices that have some haptic effects). Even virtual reality (VR) has its limitations and augmented reality (AR) only overlays digital effects on our view of our physical environment. Will generative artificial intelligence (AI) someday be able to express tactile and olfactory simulations for us, even if they are only liminal versions of reality? Thank you, Jill, for introducing a tactile version of this task that not only challenges us to listen carefully and analyze what we are hearing, but also helps us reflect on the evolution of digital literacies as per Dobson and Willinsky (2009).
Bridget, I was visually stimulated by your use of Genial.ly to create colorful slides that delineated the three main criteria for your Golden Record music selections. It seems that you made an effort to have almost equal weighting in each of the criterion, with three songs under the “Music with lyrics” category, four songs under the “Music without lyrics” category and three songs under the “Powerful musical scores” category. I thought that this division may have helped simplify your song choices to some extent and the categories made a lot of sense to me — music augmented by language, purely instrumental music as a language of its own, and music that stirred human emotions in a powerful way. It also led me to a few questions about the actual choices, though. For example, would an acappella vocal performance (such as the Peruvian Wedding Song, for example) be considered music with lyrics even though it has no instrumental music? Or could a vocal performance with no lyrics (the American Navajo Night Chant, for example) be considered music without lyrics? I also wondered about the three choices of powerful musical scores. All three were from classical European composers — Stravinsky, Bach and Beethoven. You cited Patel’s assertion that “Music affects humans on a much deeper emotional level than language (2012)” but I was not able to understand why you considered these composers’ music more affecting emotionally than many of the other musical selections on the Golden Record. It also led me to wonder whether this category’s assumption that “complex music patterns can elicit powerful emotions” held a personal or cultural bias that might be challenged. We tend to be more emotionally impacted by music that connects with our own culture and has associations with deep personal experiences we have had with it.
5. https://blogs.ubc.ca/clarissesetec540blog/2023/10/29/task-10-attention-economy/
Clarisse, I am impressed that you were initially able to complete the User Inyerface exercise in 20 minutes because I struggled with it for about as long and seemed to be unable the progress any further despite my efforts, so I gave up and wondered whether it was even possible to complete the challenge successfully. This was a little humbling for me because I work in user experience design so that has been my profession for many years. Perhaps I gave up too easily. Now that I know it is possible, I almost feel like returning to it so I can try to advance in the game and see some of the other elements I never reached, such as the “selection of images.” Your insights about the user experience of the game were detailed and perceptive, including your comment about “applied deception” and how the confusing and unpredictable user interface actually gave you a feeling of being unsafe and that it might “compromise my personal information”, as anyone would feel about a site that might have a virus or was phishing for personal information. I would have been interested in learning more details about your strategy for completing the game — for example, what were your thoughts about every user interface element and interaction, and how did you resolve your confusion about them? I also found it interesting when you said that the game was “intentionally designed to manipulate basic user literacy” — I agree that there was manipulation, but most websites could be said to “manipulate” human behaviour because they are presenting people with often limited options and specific directions. I think the game was actually designed to subvert the user experience by undermining everything we know about websites from personal experience and at least a basic understanding of user experience design for the web. Thank you for your reflections, which prompted me to di deeper into my own assumptions about the game.
6. https://blogs.ubc.ca/codyp540/2023/11/22/task-12-2-unprompted-prompts/
Cody, your Unprompted Prompts for Task 12.2 using the Bing AI image generator attracted my interest because I have used an AI Midjourney app to generate images using positive and negative prompts. I was hoping to read a little meta information about what your experience was like in choosing and refining your prompts for Bing’s generative AI app. Prompt #1 explores (in a rather unnerving way) a speculation about humans trying to create a failsafe pill that would address all forms of diseases, only to realize that such a remedy would eventually address the propagation of the human race as a form of disease itself. In the end. the algorithm prescribes a pill that is supposed to provide a lifetime of nutrition instead sneaks in a deadly toxin that would actually end the human race and thus prevent the propagation of its many diseases. This illustrates how an algorithmic approach to solving human problems (versus, for example, solutions based on quantum computing) could ironically make us fail to survive as a species. Prompt #2, about a post-apocalyptic world governed by AI that is unable to experience the human motives and sensations of alcohol consumption is a humorous reminder that digital computing as we know it cannot experience everything in the natural world. The last prompt is about a candy that is eaten in a future society that has broken down, and the issues around it are “class” and “feelings of resentment.” It was interesting that this prompt elicited a negative reaction from you because of current issues of class and social resentment. I was sorry that you did not explore it further in spite of your discomfort, just to see whether you might have found some way to express the reaction your felt. We associate candy with something pleasurable, maybe something we only have once in a while, as a reward for ourselves. Too much candy is literally sickening, while too little makes life a little more dull. How about a candy that is highly addictive but not life-threatening but is only made available to the working poor and people struggling to make a living in developing nations? Perhaps it could be an “opium of the people”, as Marx said (Wikipedia, n.d.) that motivates them to work for their oppressors while being almost enslaved by their need for the candy.
References:
Dobson and Willinsky. (2012). Digital Literacy. In Cambridge Handbook of Literacy (pp. 286-303). Cambridge University Press.
Smith Rumsey, A. (1999, February). Why digitize? Council on Library and Information Resources. Retrieved August 12, 2022.
University of British Columbia. (n.d.). UBC Blogs. UBC BLOGS. https://blogs.ubc.ca/webspaces/
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