The last time I taught English 12, I gave my students an in-class writing assignment as means of evaluating their ability to write an academic-style essay. The hope was to mitigate the potential for plagiarism, someone else writing it, or other forms of academic dishonest that by having students write during the class. Marking through one batch of these in-class essays, I came across one that was virtually textbook perfect in terms of the mechanics. There were some odd choices among the quotations, and there was little in the way of voice or tone, but the mechanics – they were flawless. Something seemed odd about this essay written in only an hour. Fortunately, the student came to see me for feedback. I pointed out the few areas where tone could be improved but otherwise complimented them on their near-flawless grammar. They thanked me and credited Grammarly for helping them edit. While I had not explicitly forbade grammar checking software, after all every word processor now contains rudimentary spelling and grammar checks, something felt dishonest about using artificial intelligence to check their grammar during the in-class setting. I was trying to assess the student’s writing ability, not the computer’s. However, upon further reflection, why shouldn’t students be allowed to use a program like Grammarly? Students in math class are often allowed, if not encouraged, to use calculators to help solve equations. English students should use the technological tools at their disposal to increase their ability to communicate effectively. The nature of my writing instruction and my assessment needed to change to account for technological advancement. The question became “how?” To figure out how writing instruction and assessment needed to change, I needed to understand Grammarly better, and how it could be embraced in the classroom.

Users can access Grammarly’s services directly through their website (www.grammarly.com) by either uploading documents or copying text, through a downloadable version, or installable plugins for a variety of platforms, such as Google, Microsoft, and several web browsers. Grammarly has been providing its editing services since 2009 through free and paid premium options (Dong and Shi, 2021). Both the free and premium service provide feedback on a user’s writing by highlighting various grammatical, stylistic, and tonal issues. It also provides an overall score based on correctness, clarity, engagement, and delivery. Each issue that Grammarly identifies is colour coded based on these categories. For example, a grammatical mistake that impacts the piece’s “correctness” is underlined in red and identified as a grammatical or spelling mistake. Along with the coded identification is a recommendation on how to address the issue and a grammatical explanation. Only the premium version, however, offers suggestions on how to improve engagement and delivery based on user-selected variables.

Although Grammarly does not disclose its actual software construction, it is designed as an artificial intelligence software that uses algorithms to process patterns of written language to identify grammatical issues and make suggestions for correction (Fitria 2021). The algorithm relies on an ever-growing body of work and user input to continually grow and adapt to stylistic choices in addition to the already established body of grammatical knowledge (Fitria 2021). Compared to earlier studies from 2016 that cited “250 error types,” a more recent 2021 study found that Grammarly has access to upwards of 400 grammatical structures (Dodigovic and Tovmasyan 2021). Even if students do not have access to the premium services that aid in style and tone, the free version can still provide instant potentially useful writing feedback.

Despite the program’s potential, the actual impact of Grammarly on student writing is mired in contradiction (O’Neill and Russell 2019). Some studies suggest that lower-level writers benefit most because feedback is instant, while others purport that the grammar suggestions are most impactful on upper-level writers who can understand and discern between suggestions (O’Neill and Russell 2019). Similar contradictions arise when looking at the research regarding its use with English as a Foreign Language learners compared to native English speakers (O’Neill and Russell 2019). Several studies suggested that while Grammarly generally improved students’ immediate writing scores, the actual learning of grammatical structures was generally left unchanged (Dodigovic and Tovmasyan 2021). This was largely dependent on how students viewed using Grammarly. Some blindly accepted everything it had to suggest, typically based on a lack of confidence in being able to understand the grammatical constructs themselves, while others were more selective and only accepted roughly half the suggestions due to distrust of the program (Koltovskaia 2020). The only students that seemed to gain the most from Grammarly’s immediate feedback were those that approached the program with a healthy level of scepticism, had existing grammatical knowledge, and were willing to research Grammarly’s suggestions when uncertain of the suggestions (Koltovskaia 2020). Student distrust of Grammarly is not entirely unfounded. In trying to determine the accuracy of Grammarly’s feedback, Dodigovic and Tovamsyan (2021) found that over seven essays input into Grammarly, the accuracy of identified errors ranged between just over 58% to 84%. Not being able to entirely trust the accuracy of the program seemed to lead to uncertainty of which suggestions to accept and reject. Even with this wide range of error detection, students have instant access to potentially correct basic mechanical issues they might not have noticed on their own. The issue is less with the program and more on how it can be incorporated effectively into writing instruction.

On a surface level, Grammarly has been suggested as a means of quickly fixing low-level mechanical issues, allowing teachers to focus on higher-level organizational, stylistic, and cognitive elements of writing (Koltovskaia 2020). From this perspective, Grammarly truly is the English subject’s version of a calculator. It does not matter if the student knows why the preposition is redundant or why 3×5=15; instead, it is important that the student can combine complex ideas and provide analysis in the form of an essay, or reason through the orders of operation in an equation. This perspective of Grammarly would only foster behavioural engagement from the student, but not holistically support student learning (Koltovskaia 2020). It would not help students who blindly accept Grammarly’s suggestions or reject half of them out of distrust. Students need to develop effective cognitive engagement, while also not being discouraged by the potential volume of feedback with tools like Grammarly to make the most of them (Koltovskaia 2020). While it should not be assumed that all students are inherently motivated to seek out extra explanation on their own in conjunction with the program’s suggestions, the next best thing would be to develop a mixture of behavioural, cognitive and affective engagement patterns in the classroom (Koltovskaia 2020).

One such suggestion to address these three areas of effective automated feedback engagement comes from Reva Potter and Dorothy Fuller (2008), who experimented with an action research project to combine Grammarly-type programs with student inquiry. They used student draft writing as the grammar check input and had students create a list of common errors they encountered. From that list, students selected the ones they were interested in addressing in their writing. Rather than simply having the program correct the work, students then explored the names of the issues flagged in their writing. The action research project encouraged students to actively explore the feedback the software was providing, rather than blindly accepting the corrections. They also explored the fallibility of the software and made a game out of trying to trick the software into false positive or negative hits. Students learned how to make effective use of their grammar check, while also developing the behavioural habit of engaging critically with the suggestions, rather than blindly accepting them.

Granted, Potter and Fuller’s (2008) study was conducted with grade seven students. When discussing the role of Grammarly and assessment in senior level English classes with my colleague and mentor, she too has altered her approach to writing instruction. Rather than try to assess against grammar-editing software, she has begun including more stylistic and rhetorical modes of effective writing in her instruction. Using a food metaphor for her students, she compares the minimal ministry writing standards to a bowl of unappealing oatmeal goop. It has all the basic nutrients one needs for communication and survival, but it is not very appealing. These can be relatively easy to attain through blind use of Grammarly – essentially my experience with the near textbook-perfect, but soulless write. Comparatively, like a beautifully plated display of sushi, she continued, people often want their food and writing to have a more complex flavour and pleasant presentation – hence the need for rhetorical and stylistic devices. Throughout the semester, her students have been finding and emulating famous examples of a variety of rhetorical devices. In doing so, her students are engaging more critically in how they use language and have begun to include those structures in their writing and discussions. While she continues to include mechanical coherence in her assessment, she can move away from it as a core benchmark of student writing. Instead, she can focus on the human element inherent in writing that critics of Grammarly-type programs have voiced – the nuances, subtleties, and design choices of communication (Roscoe et al 2017). Her students can use Grammarly, in addition to her instruction, to improve their writing in a more multifaceted way. She can then address the cognitive engagement (Koltovskaia 2020) with Grammarly in her individualized feedback with her students. This way her instruction and guidance complement and enhance Grammarly’s use among her students and does not reduce it to a blindly followed calculator. Rather than a nuisance that threatens to make writing instruction obsolete, it enhances students’ overall product through more meaningful writing.

Grammarly has immense potential to aid student writing. Its ability to provide instant feedback on core elements of writing means that discerning students have access to an additional mode of grammatical instruction to develop their writing skills. However, it is no magic bullet that will inherently improve student writing. Students still require guidance on how to effectively use such programs, as well as the desire to learn and improve. Simply relying on Grammarly to take care of student mechanics is not optimal use of the program. Writing instruction increasingly needs to take a multifaceted approach and utilize the effectiveness of programs like Grammarly by incorporating them into instruction. To truly get the most out of these programs, they must be combined with instruction and not just used as an English calculator that simply generates the right grammatical answer.

Dodigovic, M., & Tovmasyan, A. (2021). Automated writing evaluation: The accuracy of Grammarly’s feedback on form. International Journal of TESOL Studies, 3(2), 71. https://doi.org/10.46451/ijts.2021.06.06

Dong, Y., & Shi, L. (2021). Using grammarly to support students’ source-based writing practices. Assessing Writing, 50, 100564. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.asw.2021.100564

Fitria, T. N. (2021). Grammarly as AI-powered english writing assistant: Students’ alternative for writing english. Metathesis: Journal of English Language, Literature, and Teaching, 5(1), 65. https://doi.org/10.31002/metathesis.v5i1.3519

Koltovskaia, S. (2020). Student engagement with automated written corrective feedback (AWCF) provided by grammarly: A multiple case study. Assessing Writing, 44, 100450. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.asw.2020.100450

ONeill, R., & Russell, A. (2019). Stop! grammar time : University students’ perceptions of the automated feedback program grammarly. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 35(1), 42-56. https://doi.org/10.14742/ajet.3795

Potter, R., & Fuller, D. (2008). My new teaching partner? using the grammar checker in writing instruction. English Journal, 98(1), 36-41.

Roscoe, R. D., Wilson, J., Johnson, A. C., & Mayra, C. R. (2017). Presentation, expectations, and experience: Sources of student perceptions of automated writing evaluation. Computers in Human Behavior, 70, 207-221. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2016.12.076

Melissa Guzzo: Task 3 – Voice to Text

https://blogs.ubc.ca/melissaguzzo/2021/09/26/task-3-voice-to-text-task/

Much of Melissa’s reflection resembles my own experience with this task. We both focus on the complete lack of punctuation, the complete lack grammatical structure, and the lack of organization due to not having scripted the narrative out beforehand.

Where I have to disagree with Melissa is in her assertion that storytelling is a tradition of the past. I think we evoke oral story telling on a daily basis. A simple “how was your day” elicits a response that takes the form of oral story telling. There are many social situations that require oral storytelling on a variety of levels. This is not a bygone tradition in my eyes.

What I do continue to agree with Melissa on is the formality writing requires. Because it is often planned, edited, and lacking social context, it requires a high degree of structure and communal rules. The lack of context inherent in writing makes it appear more objective than spoken word, hence Melissa’s statement that people tend to put more stock into its validity.

Both Melissa and my experiences with voice-to-text seem to suggest that, while there is a connection between the modes of communication, they are inherently different and operate in different realms of understanding. To try and impose one onto the other often becomes unnatural.

Nick Hall: Task 4 – Manual Scripts

https://blogs.ubc.ca/etec540njh/2021/09/11/task-4-manual-script/

Nick’s hand-written piece was particularly interesting in part because of their beautiful penmanship. Their calligraphic, flowing script was a pleasant departure from my own childish block printing. But in reading their manual script, I realized that I had to tap into an even older form of handwritten literacy then what my own piece required – cursive. While I did learn it back in school, it so rarely makes an appearance in my life. Being able to read print versus cursive is an additional literacy skill to itself.

I found Nick’s reflection on the process to be a stark opposite to my own. He felt comfortable with the writing process out of a sense of habit. The confidence and beauty of their cursive makes that habit apparent. I also found it interesting that he accepts the flow and imperfection of their writing as part of the process. Where I was more focused on my grammatical mistakes and nonsensical sentences, Nick shrugs off those potential mistakes as part of the process, flow, and art of writing the story. It reminds me more of an oral tradition to just keep going with the story.

Lastly, Nick mentions the medium of writing in comparison to typing. He states that the choice of pen, the ink, and the need to refill their pen part way through writing all make the process a more intimate experience. While I hadn’t really thought about it at the time, I realize that I opted to write in pencil. Again, in my own reflection, I lamented about the poor grammar and desire to make editorial changes and I think subconsciously my choice for pencil reflects those insecurities in producing a hand-written piece. While Nick was more aware of these choices and the impact it has on the writing process, I completely overlooked that facet and focused on what I would have done with a keyboard instead.

DeeDee: Task 6 – An Emoji Story

https://blogs.ubc.ca/ddperrott/2021/10/16/task-6-an-emoji-story/

DeeDee raises a very interesting point about emojis in their reflection that they easily represent some parts of speech, but are virtually useless for others. This makes me think back to the early modules that focused on the history of written word. Typically written language began as representation for whole concept, but eventually had to be parsed out into functional sections and (generally) some type of phonetic alphabet allowing for more complex depictions of oral communication. Emojis in this case are, oddly enough, used in the reverse order. Certainly, for adults in this program, we likely learned to use written and oral language long before emojis ever gained prominence. To then reverse engineer written and spoken language into pictorial symbols to convey the same complexity is exceptionally difficult. Arguably, it is a near impossible task. Considering the general trajectory of written language, most had to find a way to over come the very problems that DeeDee identifies in their reflection.

Looking at the actual content of DeeDee’s emoji story, I find it interesting that both of us used a left-to-right, top-to-bottom directionality in our presentation. While I did experiment with alternate formatting decisions, I found that using English conventions for an English audience reduced the number of interpretive points a viewer would have to contend with. It looks like DeeDee used the same conventions. They do no mention where this decision was deliberate or subconscious, but it was very intuitive. It is interesting how one mode of literacy informs the automatic patterns of another.

Mike McDowall: Task 7 – Mode Bending

https://blogs.ubc.ca/etec540f2021/2021/10/22/task-7-mode-bending/

Right away, Mike’s mode bend is inherently different than mine. They changed their single photo and written piece into a more engaging video project and spoken-word essay. Their mode bend focused on themself as a learner rather than just the content of the original “What’s in My Bag” task. I appreciated how Mike conveyed this refocus in addition to their mode bend in their reflection.

Right away I noticed that Mike included a lot of place-based emphasis on the context of their bag contents. While I turned my bag inventory into a semi-narrative sound scape that let it speak for itself, Mike truly analyzed their task, altered the mode in a meaningful product that conveyed their personal connections. While the New London Group seemed to focus on communicative modes of representation, Mike adds to this notion be injection fieldtrips and place-based learning through experiential learning – something that would evoke multiple modes simultaneously. While Mike worried that there might be too many modes all at once, I think that their emphasis on place, and the number of modes inherent in being somewhere, would suggest that perhaps there too many is not an issue. I would imagine the smell of a fish hatchery, combined with an additional mode of information would make for a powerful learning experience.

What I most appreciated about Mike’s take on this task was the fact that they approached it from the position of a learner, rather than instructor. When I read through the New London Group’s argument, I viewed it primarily as a way in which instructors should diversify the mode of their instruction to better reach and engage a wider range of student. Mike’s product and reflection emphasize to me the need to also consider how students communicate their understanding and place themselves at the center of their learning.

Derek: Task 8 – Golden Record Curation

https://blogs.ubc.ca/540ddoherty21/2021/10/27/task-8-golden-record-curation/

Reading through Derek’s selection process to create a Golden Record playlist is an interesting one. Their method was quite different than my own.

I initially quite liked Derek’s reasoning for wanting to select tracks with human voices. Voice is often integral to human language. However, I began thinking about other modes of linguistic communication, and found it quite limiting in scope. What about sign language, braille, binary, computer code, iconography, music itself as communication? Fortunately, Derek does address this at the end of their reflection.

During my own track selection, I was very concerned about sound frequency. Human hearing can only hear a certain range of audio frequencies that also rely on pressure waves moving through air. Subsonic frequencies are the easiest to detect even when they can’t be heard, because they are often felt. While I certainly wanted to showcase the range of human voices, like Derek, I was concerned that an alien species might not be able to hear the range human vocalizations occupy. Afterall, to have human vocalization outside human hearing range would seem pointless.

I certainly do not think that Derek can be faulted for having a Euro-centric selection of human vocalizations. As they mention, the original record contained heavy bias towards Western music.

Grant: Task 10 – Attention Economy

https://blogs.ubc.ca/etec540dgm/2021/11/11/task-10-attention-economy/

It was great reading about someone else’s frustrations with this abomination of an interface. Grant had virtually the same experience that I did when clawed my way through the confusion and double speak. The places where Grant got tripped up playing the game were the same ones that I did.

Grant mentions a concern for digital safety that I had not considered. Not knowing where a clicked link will take the user is a real issue, especially for digital criminals who design their GUI to look official. Hiding downloads in seemingly innocuous links can be very problematic on unfamiliar sites. While this module focused on legitimate companies using patterns to manipulate users into binding user agreements or subscriptions, Grant’s point emphasizes the need for internet safety.

One of the elements that made this game frustrating, was the lack of pattern discernable by the user. Grant also emphasizes this point by repeatedly showing that each time they interacted with a new window, the intuitive action was never yielded the desired response. The true path was always hidden behind a strange technicality placed in an inconvenient position to the relevant information. Grant’s emphasis on these experiences makes me think that the true face of manipulation is not in sneaky double speak, but instead, in the habits users have formed. Those habits in turn prevent users from slowing down and paying attention. Once I slowed down, navigating the game became easier. The only real annoyance were the pop-ups I had no control over. I am not sure that any amount of awareness that Grant hopes for can substitute literacy and attention to detail. If habit overrides those thinking skills, internet manipulation will continue in different forms.

Dystopian:

A small droplet of drool forms in the corner of Timmy’s mouth as it hung ajar in vacant idleness. The tickle of moisture on the otherwise dry skin causes him to instinctively wipe it away with the back of his hand. The quilted glow of the multiple digital windows that crowd his computer screen reflect in his glasses despite Timmy’s head pointing into his lap towards his phone. He hardly notices the stiff strain caused from the ninety-degree angle he has created with his neck anymore.

Clouds of smoke erupt from a line of musket fire in a window containing a muted video, specs of black text peppered between a sea of ignored blue and purple hyperlinks in another, the required podcast his social studies 9 course had linked him to is discussing Britain’s victory at the Plains of Abraham plays unseen behind it all. Timmy’s journey of now forgotten windows are scattered elsewhere on the screen.

The information passively washes over Timmy while he busily defends his settlement in the latest popular freemium mobile game. His friend’s parents had just allowed him to purchase ten diamond coins for the game, a feat that had taken Timmy a week to collect. Timmy’s friend had used his newfound game wealth to hire extra units to attack Timmy’s base. Attack was imminent. The Plains of Abraham could wait. I bet if I attack his army before they get here, I can weaken them. Then he won’t be able to take my base. Timmy’s on-screen army moves away from the settlement to attack his frenemy.

The musket fire video ends and threatens to automatically start another about flintlock technology and how to load a musket unless Timmy makes another selection. Subject specific icons line the bottom of the video selections window. Timmy remains unphased by the countdown to auto-play. A string of advertisement plays prior to the next video due to his inactivity. The subject icons will remain once the video starts. Timmy still has time to select something else.

A pause in the battle raging on his phone causes Timmy to glance up. He notices to video icon options and holds down the key to open another window. He selects the history, science, and math icons. Three new video windows spring into existence to simultaneously show Timmy the historic development of firearms, the chemical compounds of gunpowder, and the mathematical equations necessary to determine projectile velocity and the effect of Coriolis force. God, this is boring. At least I’ll look busy.

Briefly forgetting the purpose of so many seemingly disconnected videos, Timmy switches the view on his screen to the current assignment with a single key stroke. He scans the assignment screen. His eyes only register every third word; subconsciously he has deemed the rest unnecessary for his aims. Refocused with purpose, he puts his phone down and ensures his data entry window is ready before returning to the muted videos.

Timmy takes note of a similarity between one of the videos and the podcast. He quickly selects the microphone icon on his report and dictates a few sentences that appear verbatim on the screen as he speaks. The software pauses momentarily and add the necessary punctuation and missing words are added. A portion of his text automatically highlights and prompts Timmy with a series of stylistic suggestions. Timmy ignores them and instead pauses the relevant video. He presses his finger to the screen until the video window blinks in subtle recognition. Timmy drags the frozen video frame and inserts it strategically into the short body of text. Wanting to convey the gravity and retrospective stupidity of Montcalm’s historic military mistake, Timmy adds “????????” to the end of the computer-generated version of his spoken word. Almost done.

Timmy returns to the wall of videos only to realize one of them has frozen. Frustratingly tapping the screen in a futile attempt to restart the broken video, Timmy raises his arm without breaking eye contact with the screen.

“Yes, Timmy? What can I do for you?” Mr. Francis asks calmly.

“One of my videos stopped and I can’t get it working. I’ve tried clicking on it, but it just won’t.”

“Alrighty, let’s take a look,” Mr. Francis replies, twisting his face in puzzled inquiry.

Mr. Francis presses and holds his finger on the frozen video until a series of menu options appear. He traces his finger through the options and selections to “Facilitator Access.” He taps the screen. A new window appears asking for “Facilitator Login and Password.” Mr. Francis enters his personal information on the digital keyboard and ignores the default selected terms of service box. He has never actually read what he agrees to each time he enters his code. The service code window appears. Scanning through lines of code with his eyes, Mr. Francis finds the issue, selects it, and replaces the selected value. Mr. Frances taps the “Accept” icon at the bottom of the newest window and it promptly disappears. The stalled video begins to play.

“Thanks. I’m almost done my assignment.”

“Not a problem, Timmy. Sometimes I wonder if these things freeze on purpose to give me something to do, don’t you? It’s ridiculous! Ah well. Don’t forget to include all the key words you think the grading software might need to register. I certainly wouldn’t want it to miss something you meant to include!”

“Will do, Mr. Francis,” Timmy replies audibly.

Meanwhile Timmy’s phone army had been defeated and his base captured. His pre-emptive strike had failed and left him vulnerable. “Aw crap! I thought for sure that was going to work!”

Utopian

Frank’s eyes methodically and purposefully move between the windows of information displayed on his computer screen. The computer had curated a buffet of information based on his Social Studies 9 question: “How did the British take control of New France.” The pinhole-sized camera above the screen tracks his eye movement. The software predicts which window Frank might find most interested based on where his gaze lingers longest. His eyes continuously return to the thumbnail image of British soldiers aiming muskets in line formation. The remaining windows automatically minimize, and the soldiers on screen come to life.

Frank’s eyes do not stray long from the screen for the duration of the video. The eye tracking software on his computer continues to passively monitors the subtle cues of Frank’s interest.

The video ends and a new selection is offered. The grey playback button slowly fills with red to signify automatic playback. In anticipation of Frank’s possible interests, based on other student selections, subject specific icons line the bottom of the temporary auto-play screen. He selects the science icon, and the new video window replaces the old. The answers to Frank’s additional questions and interests are at his fingertips.

Frank taps the microphone icon on his screen to begin dictating his analysis of the videos. Using the “Academic Tone” preset, his spoken words appear verbatim on the screen but quickly adjusts Frank’s colloquial speech into academic writing.

Satisfied with the tone of his written work, he pauses the associated video by pressing his finger to the screen until the video window blinks in subtle recognition. Frank drags the selected frame and inserts it strategically into his augmented text. Almost done.

Just to be safe before submitting to the auto-marker, Frank switches the view on his screen to the current assignment with a single key stroke. As his eyes scan through the assignment page for hints about the auto-marker’s algorithmic rubric. Unable to find what he is looking for, Frank selects the “?” icon and posits his question directly to the assignment: “What is the auto-marker looking for?” The program pauses in contemplation to Frank’s inquiry. A moment later several lines of the assignment page are highlighted to draw Frank’s attention. He surveys the supplied options. Unsatisfied with his answer, he raises his hand for assistance.

“Hold on, Frank. I’m just helping Timmy over here. His screen froze. It’ll only take a minute,” Mr. Francis asks calmly.

“No problem, Mr. Francis! I just want to know if I have enough for the auto-marker to register my work.”

“Sure thing, Frank. I’ll be right there,” Mr. Francis replied without looking up from his work on Timmy’s learning console.

Working through this GUI was an exercise in patience. Every step was frustrating and painful. Initially, after repeatedly clicking on the large green “NO” button that changed the regular mouse cursor to a selection hand, that usually means something is interactable, I clicked on the Bagaar logo in the bottom left corner and began exploring their website. Not knowing exactly what I was looking for, I went through all of their pages, found them on Google Maps, even sent them an email with false information. I wasn’t sure where exactly the game was supposed to lead me. Getting frustrated exploring their company page, I went back to the GUI and found that I needed to click “HERE.” Of course I also had already clicked “clicked,” which was underlined, as well as the light coloured “next page,” thinking those indicated selection points. So far, use of cursor change, font style and colour had all indicated interaction everywhere except where I was meant to go.

Finally, I got the password selection screen. An obnoxious “How can we help?” box blocked my view. Clicking “Send to bottom” makes it crawl painfully slowly down out of sight – temporarily. For fun, the next time it appeared, I clicked the help button, only to see the queue go up. Clicking again, I noticed the queue increased. The futility of the standard help text box was embodied perfectly in their little joke. But I digress, the timer above the password selection made the slow crawl of the help box an anxiety ridden experience and I watched it slowly sink out of sight while being acutely aware of the increasing timer.

I wanted to complete the game as quickly as possible, since it was clearly being timed, so I entered a quick password of nonsense, a fake email and domain, only to not have a capital letter, or number. Adding those, why won’t next let me progress? A hurry up counter blocks my view again, further making me want to rush through. I finally read the password requirements and notice that it needs a Cyrillic character. What the hell?! Not knowing how to type in Cyrillic, I Googled the alphabet, copied and pasted the first one I found. Still unable to move forward, I notice the double negative of having a checked “I do not accept the terms and conditions” box. This is truly a Bizarro universe. Everything I think I know does not work, and it seems like the only way to progress is to do everything the opposite of my assumed norm.

The second page again pushes more timers. The loading animation on the face creates urgency to upload an image. Of course this does nothing but satisfies the requirement for progression.

Choosing the three interests, I began deselecting after the first three, only to have all of the checks come back. Trying again, the same thing happened. Because I had my selection, I did not pay any attention to the other options; naturally, I missed the “select all” option in the far-right column. I also missed the “unselect all” button at the bottom of the same column. Finally paying attention to the options made the process much easier.

The third screen was by far the most straight forward. Entering in the information was easy enough until having to use a blind slider to select age. Combined with the need to find a birthday that matched the age became troublesome. Having an October birthday, I am used to scrolling toward the bottom of the list of months, but re-exploring the GUI, I noticed that they are actually sorted alphabetically, with April being the first month. Similarly, the birth year starts with 1900. Unless someone is 120 years old, they will inevitably need to do some scrolling. The gender selection also utilized reversed selection indication. Where I thought blue meant selected, in fact, white did. Again, how annoying.

The human verification made me chuckle. The creative ways they represented selecting glass or circles was fun. What was not fun was having to select every box and having to figure out that the selection box was above the image, not below it. This could only be noticed by scrolling up within the window. Fortunately, I have the habit of looking at where in a document or window I am, and inherently scrolled up. From there, it was just a tedious process to do twice.

Seeing Carlton do his dance was reward enough for suffering through the game. Seeing the large red banner asking if the site cookies were a problem, and again having reversed, double negative options was one last chuckle at the site’s play on my assumptions with GUIs.

At every step, something felt as though it was not quite right. Playing on my assumptions of interface designs made for challenge. It highlighted how entrenched those assumptions have become in online interactions. Clicking certain icons, fonts, check boxes, barely register. The constant error or lack of progression forced me to go through more carefully and examine what exactly I was doing. Going through a second time, I even decided to read the terms of service on the first page. Expecting to find some hidden joke, I found the dull nature and lack of content made me skim through it. When I tried to just move on, I found that I had to scroll all the way to the bottom to do so. I had made a commitment. But the mindlessness of engaging in those interfaces that collect information and allow user selection emphasized Brignull’s (2011) cautionary article on dark patterns. That being said, any time a credit card is involved in online interactions, the stakes are instantly higher as my money becomes directly involved. That does not necessarily protect against information gathering addressed in this week’s TED talks. The combination is certainly an insidious one; it is one that reminds me that behind all of our technological progress is often corporate and monetary interest. While it is fine to explore the merits of technology in education, I cannot help but wonder about the corporate interests behind my use of any of it.

Brignull, H. (2011). Dark Patterns: Deception vs. Honesty in UI Design. Interaction Design, Usability, 338.

The data web of song selections can be analyzed to determine participant preferences, but not rationales behind the preferences. For example, “Track 18: Fifth Symphony” by Beethoven is the most selected song with 16 of the 21 participants choosing it (myself included). On its own that data might suggest a Western bias, fame and recognition of the song, or overwhelming preference towards it. Given the varied possibilities for the popularity of the selection, rationale is difficult, if not impossible to discern. All that is evident is that the track is widely chosen. The second most selected was “Track 3: Percussion (Senegal),” and a three-way tie for third with “Track 25: Jaat Kahan Ho,” “Track: Johnny B. Goode.” And “Track 14: Melancholy Blues.” These, combined with “Track 18: Fifth Symphony,” may indicate a Western bias towards music selection given three of the five tracks are Western, however, the possible rationale for selecting them remain the same, and no definitive reasoning can be deduced. Just as the rationale for selecting any given track cannot be learned through this data alone, nor is the reasoning for not selecting a given track apparent. The reasoning is too broad to be inferred through simple numeric interpretation. Quantitative data like this cannot give qualitative reasoning for its results, especially when nothing is known about the participants making the connections.

However, the weight of the top three selections, if combined with a search algorithm would favour Western results. If our class data were to be the only information used on a search for something like: “best music,” “top tracks,” “songs to launch into space” or “earth’s greatest hits,” the results would suggest, and reinforce Western dominance. If these were the results of such searches, not only would Western music be overrepresented in a search, but would likely further be entrenched by those searching. By selecting those tracks, they would add further weight to the results, burying the remaining pieces of music into web searching obscurity.

Similarly, if communities are recommended based on the degree of connectivity, the potential for new music to permeate into that community become increasingly small as fewer and fewer members have outlying selections. Given that there is no way to know the reasoning for the number of connections shared with other members in my community, the relevance of the community is also uncertain. Similarly, with no directionality to the nodes, the relationship between members is also unknown. While I may share several track selections with other members, having no sense of preference or value associated with those connections makes them difficult to analyze. My belonging to a community based on connection alone might be problematic.

1. “Johnny B. Goode,” written and performed by Chuck Berry. 2:38
2. Mozart, The Magic Flute, Queen of the Night aria, no. 14. Edda Moser, soprano. Bavarian State Opera, Munich, Wolfgang Sawallisch, conductor. 2:55
3. Beethoven, Fifth Symphony, First Movement, the Philharmonia Orchestra, Otto Klemperer, conductor. 7:20
4. Japan, shakuhachi, “Tsuru No Sugomori” (“Crane’s Nest,”) performed by Goro Yamaguchi. 4:51
5. “Dark Was the Night,” written and performed by Blind Willie Johnson. 3:15
6. Senegal, percussion, recorded by Charles Duvelle. 2:08
7. Georgian S.S.R., chorus, “Tchakrulo,” collected by Radio Moscow. 2:18
8. “Melancholy Blues,” performed by Louis Armstrong and his Hot Seven. 3:05
9. Solomon Islands, panpipes, collected by the Solomon Islands Broadcasting Service. 1:12
10. Australia, Aborigine songs, “Morning Star” and “Devil Bird,” recorded by Sandra LeBrun Holmes. 1:26

My selections from the Voyager Golden Record were influenced in part by personal preference, as well as a desire to showcase methods of creating music. Going beyond tracks that I simply enjoyed, I tried to select ones that emphasized a more singular modes of making music – percussion, woodwind, strings, brass, or vocalization. The podcast also echoed my own pre-listening question of what frequencies would alien life be able to detect? By selecting different modes of music production, I hoped to cover a wide sound frequency range.

Redesigning the contents of my bag into a new mode of meaning was quite challenging. While it was fun taking sound bites of each of the objects from my original image, thinking about how to put them together in a way that might contain meaning was difficult. Creating the audio file required my own multimodal literacies to navigate unfamiliar software, social context to sequence the sound bites, and a technological understanding to be able to move between hardware and software. I found that I still relied on a little bit of language to separate more obscure tapping sounds of my fumbling with headphones from (what I felt were) more recognizable sounds of pens and highlighters on paper. Although I did record plugging my headphones into a jack, it wasn’t until I listened to the playback without the gestural context that I realized the click was indistinguishable from the highlighter cap. There was a bit more of a double click, so I did end up using it anyway.

Once I had the separate sound bites, I had to figure out how to sequence the random, sounds that, on their own, have no context. Not being familiar with audio file editing, this was an additional challenge. Getting the overlaying audio track was a challenge to itself, let alone controlling its volume while I overlaid other sound effects. As I sequenced each audio clip, I thought about my typical morning to create a narrative structure. This, I think gives the audio file its overarching context. Of course, in order to get the overarching context, a listener would also need to be familiar with the social and technological contexts of the sounds. The loud sipping and “aaahh” is typically associated with drinking, usually a hot drink. Truthfully, I used a cold can of diet cola; it felt strange to slurp it. The typing, and USB noises are only familiar to those with existing knowledge of those sounds. Even the USB music is distinct to Windows. A Mac user may not be familiar with what that sound was supposed to be. To understand their meaning as technology being used requires specific existing social and technological awareness.

I do question what happens to an individual’s understanding if they are taught to be literate in a multi-modal environment and one of those modes is taken away. Are they still able to derive meaning? I think my auditory mode of communication for this task expresses far less than my visual linguistic one does. It relies on fewer modes of literacy, but as such requires more social and technological awareness on the part of the listener to derive meaning. As the creator, I am left unsure if or how my audio mode will make any sense to the listener. At least with visual linguistics, I have reference for where communication broke down. Even I wonder what I meant when I go back and proofread.

I started “writing” my emoji summary with the title. Right away, I found trouble finding exact emoji’s to represent the actual words. I opted for a mix of direct substitution and similar sounding words to convey the title. Having no context, it would be difficult for a reader to determine which emojis are used as syllables, direct words, or conceptual similarities.

Similarly, the summary was difficult to construct. Trying to figure out how each image could be understood with no context was challenging. One of the more difficult aspects was not being able to use any proper nouns to differentiate each character’s role in the plot. Given how character-driven the story was, this felt problematic. I had to simplify the plot further than I would with a linguistic summary. Initially I tried to focus on the key ideas within the plot, but soon felt more comfortable relying on phrasal representations. I noticed that my use of emojis focused more on the ideas depicted, rather than direct word replacement or syllable construction. I also noticed that I tried to create an emoji mimicry of English syntax. Initially, it was difficult determining how to indicate grammatical structures with emojis, but the more I worked with the emojis, the clearer my chosen patterns became to me. While my choices may not necessarily be clear to anyone else, the more I used my invented emoji language, the easier it was to think in those terms. As I looked for more emojis to express new ideas, I found myself thinking how the idea would fit within the patterns I had already established. I did notice that my attempt at mirroring English syntax made for a heavily linear and directional representation. I played with position of visual phrases, but they did not feel intuitive or coherent enough in relation to the other patterns I had chosen. Trying to create idea breaks beyond simple sentences was difficult, and having no punctuation was extra difficult. Even the use of parenthesis would make creating properties and relationships between ideas significantly easier.

Since my usage of these emojis does not necessarily follow any standardized set of meanings, how someone approaches these visuals can seriously diverge their understanding from my intent. What might I assume might express a clear idea, may have an existing socio-contextual meaning that I am oblivious to, and further obscure it to someone else. Similarly, someone looking at the emojis from a literal standpoint would also have a difficult time discerning which are modifiers and which are integral concepts. This makes creating a true translation from English to an emoji language very difficult. While I can represent my thoughts in a visual medium, I feel as though I am ignoring potentially established iconographic meaning. I am also inventing a syntax and grammatical structure meant to mimic language, but I am doing so separate to any reader. Knowing that there will be an inherent degree of misunderstanding on these multiple levels is somewhat frustrating.

I find that whether I type  or write by hand depends on the task. While I do write the odd sticky note or reminder to myself, anything more than a few words gets typed. The difficulty in this task was more figuring out what I wanted to write about.  It has been a long time since I wrote any compositions or essays by hand. Growing up, writing by hand was the norm in school. I was fully expecting my hand to cramp as it did during exams, though that did not happen. Typing was reserved for final drafts and transcribing handwritten work into a more legible form. It also forced us to re-read and edit our draft one last time, allowing us to fix awkward wording and easy mistakes.

Thinking about not being able to edit in the moment, I chose to write in pencil. I found myself erasing often to fix a minor error here or there. But once I wrote something, I left it and did not go back to edit. Not being able to quickly delete, move text, or clarify ideas made me write it and leave it. I think I re-read it once and fixed only a couple of minor mistakes that just did not make sense: an extra word from where I changed my mind type of errors. Otherwise, it is a first draft write, and it will stay that way.

I found it difficult to organize the ideas as I wrote them. My paragraph structure is not good. I would like to be able to reorganize some of the ideas and ensure that it keeps a continuous tone throughout. I think that I moved between different styles as I was figuring out what exactly the piece was going to be. While planning can always improve writing, I wanted a handwritten piece to be spontaneous and not perfected prior to writing it. There is no spell check or drag and drop ability to re-organize thoughts. The media certainly influenced how I engaged with the process.

I prefer typing over writing. Not only do I feel that I can type faster than I can write, but being able to go back and edit with ease has become a necessity. Word processing has become so refined that even common typos get autocorrected without the need to go back. Just in that last sentence I wrote “the” as “hte” accidentally. In fact, the autocorrect is so powerful that when I tried to demonstrate my error, it corrected that too. I had to manually force it to accept my mistake! Writing by hand affords no such luxury.

While I did not receive the hand cramp that past experiences made me anticipate, I have never really had an issue typing for long periods of time. I’ve only ever had a small case of carpal tunnel syndrome from a job that required being on a computer for entire shifts. It only lasted a few days and was corrected when I practiced better typing posture. However, I have vivid memories of hand cramps from writing in school and university. The ease at which long pieces can be typed compared to the handwritten counterpart makes it my preferred choice.

Voice to Text:

I have always liked history in particular World War 1 history and when I found out that my grandmother’s brother was in World War 1 I started to ask a lot of questions about who he was. The story that I was always told was that he was crossing Canada to meet up with the rest of the family who had recently immigrated from England to Vancouver Island when when war broke out and he only made it as far as Winnipeg and when he found out that war had broken out he jumped he jumped off the train and it listed right away cuz he thought I was the Patriotic thing to do as a good British subject and this is always the family narrative that he got off the train and listed went off to war and then was killed at Vimy Ridge and that’s that’s where he was memorialized after the war so I was curious about who he was so I asked if there were any records of him and my mother through one of her cousins was able to get a picture of him at his death certificate along with the statement that he would be memorialized at Vimy Ridge his death certificate also had the year that they assumed that he was killed unfortunately he was missing presumed killed in action so there was no, confirmation. When I looked at these documents I realized that the date of his death did not align with when the Canadian Forces were at Vimy Ridge so this made me look into his military record because I had his enlistment number or his Soldier number I went to the Canadian War archives and I found his enlistment papers it turns out that he actually enlisted in the militia in New Westminster and his unit got Amalgamated with the Winnipeg rifles while leaving for Europe this already contradicted the family story so I dug a little bit deeper and was able to find where his unit was on the date of his death which was October 7th 1916 i’d rather than him being killed at Vimy Ridge I was able to figure out that he was actually missing presumed killed in action during the battle of the Somme at a particular point on the battlefield called regina Trench. So through a little bit of digging I was able to completely change the family Narrative of this great-uncle of mine. And in doing so it made more sense as to why his name was on the Vimy Memorial because the names on the The Monuments are actually names of those soldiers who they didn’t have a burial place and there’s no body to bury so finding out that he was missing presumed killed in action just made that part of the story make a little bit more sense well it’s super interesting was a couple of years later there was a news article talking about the bagpipes in the BC legislature at least bagpipes were found in I believe Scotland’s covered in mud and totally unrecognizable when we got cleaned up they were able to identify that they belong to a b c regiment from World War 1 and so they sent them back to BC and they were able to find that they were played at Regina Trench during the battle of the Somme in 1916 so when I went to the BC legislature I was able to see these bagpipes and it was interesting to know that a family member of mine had heard those bad bagpipes played on battlefield about a hundred years before and today was in direct connection to the historic artifact that was in the legislature and my own family history

Analysis:

The most problematic error with this transcription is the almost complete lack of punctuation. The program was not able to pick up on pauses for comma or period usage. It did put in the odd period, though it was very inconsistent. The program did allow me to dictate punctuation, but I chose not to interrupt my dictation with “comma” or “period” commands every time I knew I needed one. That being said, I found that while speaking through my anecdote, I often knew where punctuation was needed, however I did not think in terms of punctuated phrases. It was interesting to be aware of the need for punctuation as the words populated the computer screen while simultaneously being oblivious to the same system as I spoke. Thinking back to this week’s reading, as interesting as the history of written language was, the articles did not make reference to written grammar in terms of punctuation. They focused exclusively on the evolution of logography to syllable to alphabetical structures. Systems and rules of punctuation are needed to clarify interjecting ideas, clause separation, and contractions (if the language allows for them, English obviously does). Reading through the block of text with no real punctuation is incredibly difficult to follow.

I would also consider the tone of the written output of my spoken anecdote to be “wrong.” Aside from the lack of punctuation for clarity, the general tone is inconsistent. Some places have more formal structures, while others use slang such as “cuz” instead of “because.” The inconsistency, from a written perspective, completely lacks stylistic and tonal control.

Similarly, there are a lot of repetitions and redundancies that would need to be edited. The software also was not able to discern all the words, and sometimes used something close, like in the case of “listed” instead of “enlisted.”

Had the story been scripted, these discrepancies and repetitions could easily have been edited out. The story could have had a more logical flow, consistent tone choice, and even included punctuation dictation for more accurate written output.

Oral storytelling allows for more spontaneous thought compared to written expression. I did not necessarily know where I was going with my oral story as I told it – it all just came out and once it was said, it was said. In writing, the ability to edit, revise, punctuate and move ideas allows for more careful construction of language. The unscripted, unrehearsed nature of this story turned it into a rambling stream of consciousness without a clear end point. Remembering details often came too late and could no longer be added where relevant. Seeing my oral story become written word was a distressing process. It was difficult to fight the urge to edit and fix as it came out. While most other oral stories are gone once they are uttered, unfortunately, this abomination of text remains as proof of the ill-conceived words I spoke.

Even if the software had been able to punctuate my speech, obviously had it been a listener to my story, they wouldn’t have needed any to understand my tone or my interjections, nor would they have necessarily been bothered by the stream of consciousness style the story took on. Clear clause and sentence breaks come more naturally in speech, whereas choices in punctuation can alter meaning. Additionally, the fact that I was speaking the story, instead of writing it, meant I defaulted to a more informal, conversational tone. Rarely is this a problem when speaking candidly, whereas it makes for bad writing (most of the time).

Perhaps the most important distinction between written and oral communication is the context. Written communication often lacks context. The writer either has to create a larger contextual reference for the work, or the reader creates the context for themselves by seeking out certain pieces of writing. Oral communication generally creates context in its momentary social relevance. With a few exceptions, people generally tell stories for a purpose. The more appropriate the purpose is for the social interaction, the less context is needed as to why the story is being told at all. To use my anecdote as an example, there is little reason for me to tell that story to anyone unless I were talking with someone about a fairly limited set of topics. To just tell that story to someone for no reason would be socially odd. However, I could write a personal narrative about undertaking historical research to understand family narratives and leave that piece of writing for someone to read when relevant to their interest. As Plato suggested, the written form “can neither answer queries put to it nor distinguish between ‘suitable and unsuitable readers’” (Haas, p.6, 2013) and thus lacks a social component that would allow for listener participation to construct the flow and focus of the story. Depending on those two different contexts, my tone, focus, and crafting of the story would differ drastically.

The written version of my story is also only accessible to the literate, while my oral story can be accessed by anyone who can hear and understand it. Even if I assume high literacy rates among English speakers, someone might be able to read and understand the words used in a literal sense, but how will they read punctuation choices, implied meanings, tone, connotation, and any other figurative elements that might remain hidden below the literal meaning of the words? Those extra literacies can be barriers for clear communication, even for a literate individual. Oral communication requires its own set of literacies to understand layers of communication, however, the effects of tone of voice, pauses, and word choice are more accessible given the social and cultural elements that go along with storytelling.