Speculative Narrative #1:

The following is a text-to-speech radio ad for a new AI technology that supports Personalized Learning:

Introducing the Personalized Education Learning Experience (PELEx); a new software that customizes a student’s learning plan to fit their unique requirements. This cutting-edge technology uses artificial intelligence to identify strengths, knowledge gaps, and problem areas to tailor every student’s learning experience according to their needs. PELEx transforms teaching and learning into a highly efficient practice, supporting all students for success. Gone are the days of a one-size-fits-all model. PELEx supports all learning types, and gives students the best tools they need to succeed. Remember, education is for everyone. Contact us to learn more about how PELEx can give your students their brightest future.

 

Speculative Narrative #2: Virtual reality

Below is an example of a course description from a higher education course in a Bachelor of Nursing within the next 30 years:

NURS 880x: Critical Care Practicum (Virtual) – 3 credits
The goal of this clinical course is to advance the nursing practice through hands-on clinical practice and patient-nurse interaction. Students will experience and explore a variety of nursing practices by participating in clinical rounds and advanced case studies through the lens of cutting edge virtual reality technology. The goal of the course is to enhance the breadth and depth of clinical decision making, critical thinking and in-hospital interactions before entering the hospital. Students will be exposed to challenging scenarios and will be given the opportunity to learn and evolve their skills before advancing to their in-hospital clinical practice.

Inspired by: https://www.ubisimvr.com/

I’ve participated in online activities that use predictive text for entertainment purposes a few times in the last few years. It always seemed as though the predictions made were based on recent conversations I’d had with friends over text or Facebook messenger. They seemed to be curated for me specifically, trying to mimic how I speak and what “they” think I am going to say. The issue is that they are always very nearsighted. The algorithm chooses the next word only based on the previous word or two and now on the idea being communicated. This is why they end up being so comical and entertaining (and nonsensical). They’re never accurate at reading into the sentence or idea being communicated. It is really just the combination of words that I may have used before.

With that said, the following is the predictive text my phone came up with when using the “My idea of technology is…” prompt:

My reaction:

The first thing I noticed was “with the big glasses and the bigger heart” which was something I wrote in an Instagram post wishing my best friend a happy birthday in November! Secondly, the contradiction and indecisiveness made me laugh. I am actually often quite indecisive and I am sure I have said “I don’t know what to do” many times in conversations on my phone. I think the predictive text seemed to try to sound like me which makes me reflect on how indecisive I actually sound in real life. However, I think it didn’t do a very good job and seemed to almost go in circles. The deeper question: Isn’t that what indecisiveness and uncertainty is? Going in circles in your mind? LOL

In addition, I don’t think that I have ever mentioned that I did or did not want to be a part of a song… I assume that it had to have taken the words “of a” and predicted song… which is bizarre since I feel as though I would have actually said so many other words with that particular combination. I do love music and I do share songs with my friends, but it seems to a bit of an existential leap that I’ve ever admitted that I wanted to be a part of a song.

The podcasts and video talks we watched this week were particularly eye-opening for me. I knew, vaguely, what algorithms were and how they affected social media channels, but I did not know the extent to which they affect so many aspects of our lives including our justice systems, customer spaces and work environments! One of the most commonly discussed algorithms today are those found on social media and their impact on political polarization. I knew that if you actively engage with posts that represent certain views, you are continuously fed more posts on the same views, effectively creating dangerous echo chambers where you are constantly validated for one point of view. But the reality is that there are many points of view and we should be exposed to them so that we practice thinking critically and building empathy towards people who might think differently. Unfortunately, this point seems to have been lost when it comes to engaging on many online platforms.

Algorithms, in general, are meant to observe trends that can thereafter (try to) predict behaviour. After reading Cathy O’Neil’s article in the Guardian, “How can we stop algorithms telling lies?” it made me think about Task 9’s Networking Assignment and how it led us to reflect on how connections and associations observed may not always accurately reflect reality. They create assumptions. Algorithms are really the same. Connections are made, based on interactions and clicks which create trends that calculate predictions. It seems like they try to simplify human behaviour to assumptions made from data. I appreciate how O’Neil breaks down the issues with algorithms “telling lies” into layers that fall on the spectrum of unintentional to intentional, all of which create very harmful outcomes. It seems to me that the use of algorithms have become deeply systemic – or perhaps represent “the system” in many ways. Identifying the harmful outcomes algorithms reflect some of the biggest issues within our systems – systemic racism for example. In reality, the system, like many algorithms, seems to benefit only a certain percentage of our population.  As with most systemic issues, I agree with O’Neil that addressing the issues need to start in political agendas before finding a technological solution. However, and not to be too pessimistic, it’s going to be incredibly challenging to change these issues when the biggest companies on the planet, like Google, Facebook and Amazon run the “algorithm” show.

References:

O’Neil, C. (2017, July 16). How can we stop algorithms telling lies? The Observer. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jul/16/how-can-we-stop-algorithms-telling-lies

I’m still a little uncomfortable with navigating the matrix or matrices generated on Palladio. There is a lot going on and I am not quite sure if I’ve been able to grasp it all in a meaningful way just at a glance. So I decided to analyze the visualization generated and cross-check it with the information submitted in my classmate’s blogs to extract more meaningful connections (for me).

The first thing I checked was the group network generated based on the similarities in responses. To my surprise, the group I ended up in included only myself and one other student, Jennifer Reigo. We had 3 of our 10 choices in common: Night Chant (Track 20), Izlel je Delyo Hagdutin (Track 19) and Dark was the Night (Track 26). Reading Jennifers blog post for Task 8, I can see that we did have very similar mindsets when choosing our top 10. We both tried to choose pieces that were different – that used different musical modes and sounds and frequencies. I was very specific in choosing different tones and different instruments. It seems that Jennifer was as well. We also valued the idea that we wanted to steer away from depicting a monoculture and so made choices based on diverse communities. Jennifer broke her choices down into 3 categories: Imagination, Contexts and Communities. I liked how the 3 overlapping choices we had were represented in each of those 3 categories.

I then decided to explore the most chosen songs. It was interesting to me that even though the highest number of songs I had in common with another student was 3, I did also choose the top 4 most commonly curated songs.  Additionally, I verified that I did not choose the 9 least chosen songs. So while it seems like my individual choices had some popularity among my peers, the combination of the songs I chose was quite different, giving me only a few students that I had 2 or more overlapping choices with.

I was quite pleased to see that of the top 5 most commonly selected songs, only one is from the western world. The top 4 songs originated in Senegal, China, Japan and India. In contrast, I noticed that the bottom 3 songs were classical pieces. One of my complaints was that there was an over-representation of classical music on the record. It seems that, as a group, my peers perhaps felt the same, even if some didn’t express it in their blog posts. “Can the reasons for these “null” choices ever be reflected/interpreted in the data?” Maybe not confidently. This is an assumption I am making based on my own experience and how the final outcome of the group data looked. I recognize that my own experience will influence my interpretation of the results in the visual.

In the vein of classical pieces, I was curious to see what the most popular classical choice was. I was not surprised to see the Fifth Symphony as the most commonly chosen piece. I thought I had chosen it as well, so I was a little confused to see that it was not associated with my name in the matrix. This might have been a mistake on my part when completing the quiz. Nonetheless, I think many chose this classical piece because it is well known. Outside of this exercise, I would say that the Fifth Symphony is one of my favourite classical pieces ever composed (so let’s pretend that I did actually choose it in my top 10). I would like to make the interpretation that others chose it because it is so pervasive and timeless, but I don’t have enough information and so I am not confident in saying that is necessarily the case.

While I did find it interesting to see the connections, similarities and differences in our choices from the Golden Record, I also felt like I had to proceed with caution when making assumptions about my classmate’s choices. I was more confident relying on their thoughts expressed in their blog posts than on the visualization alone. There were assumptions I came up with, based on the matrix, however, I recognize that they are only assumptions and not fact or reality. Furthermore, I recognize that the assumptions I tend to make are based on my own experience and reflections about the choices I made.

My first impression of the Golden Record came with some disappointment, if I am to be completely honest. Of the 27 songs, at least 12 were from the Western world which included 7 classical pieces. Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with classical music, in fact, I enjoy it, however, as a record that is supposed to be somewhat comprehensive in representing the music of the world, I think 7 classical songs is a bit excessive.

When I chose my 10 songs, I decided to choose based on representation in the world. I tried to choose one from every continent. I also carefully considered different instruments and different sounds and frequencies to create a more diverse record. In the Twenty Seven Hertz podcast, they did mention potential variations in hearing certain frequencies by an extra terrestrial life form, so I wanted to include as many variations as possible. The final list of 10 songs that I chose included:

1. 3. Senegal, percussion, recorded by Charles Duvelle. 2:08
2. 9. Japan, shakuhachi, “Tsuru No Sugomori” (“Crane’s Nest,”) performed by Goro Yamaguchi. 4:51
3. 13. Peru, panpipes and drum, collected by Casa de la Cultura, Lima. 0:52
4. 15. Azerbaijan S.S.R., bagpipes, recorded by Radio Moscow. 2:30
5. 18. Beethoven, Fifth Symphony, First Movement, the Philharmonia Orchestra, Otto Klemperer, conductor. 7:20
6. 20. Navajo Indians, Night Chant, recorded by Willard Rhodes. 0:57
7. 21. Holborne, Paueans, Galliards, Almains and Other Short Aeirs, “The Fairie Round,” performed by David Munrow and the Early Music Consort of London. 1:17
8. 24. China, ch’in, “Flowing Streams,” performed by Kuan P’ing-hu. 7:37
9. 25. India, raga, “Jaat Kahan Ho,” sung by Surshri Kesar Bai Kerkar. 3:30
10. 26. “Dark Was the Night,” written and performed by Blind Willie Johnson. 3:15

With these choices, I can’t help but wonder what it might be like to include a more modern electronic music piece. While I do say this in some seriousness, I also have read jokes about the genre “dubstep” being made for only aliens to understand. Maybe it would be a good idea to include a dubstep song! 🙂

Like many, I found this task to be challenging and require a lot of creativity. I am still not quite sure about my end product, mostly because it’s quite a different approach than others may have. At the start of the week, I sat staring at the image from task 1 and the contents of my bag trying to find inspiration. The one thing that kept jumping out at me was how many pieces in my bag today are actually quite abnormal to what I would have had for many years prior to 2020. I noticed how many additional things I carry because of COVID, how many things are missing and how many are just different. I then thought about the essence of the first task in this course and how the contents in our bag represent us and our literacies and give insight into our day-to-day. There’s so much about the last year that has impacted every aspect of our lives! And I really believe it will have (and has) changed us in many ways. So I decided to go on a limb and write a letter to COVID-19 and express the ways in which it has changed life, day-to-day, how it has changed me and how it has changed the contents of my bag over the last year.

I decided to use a combination of audio and visual modes to redesign Task 1. I did not include any text but opted for the curation of videos to bring my narration to life. I also incorporated background music to bring a bit more emotion to the task as well.

Music: Bensound.com

Video clips: pixabay.com

The end product and incorporation of the letter I wrote, the narration, music and video clips turned what was a static image into something meaningful for me. It is probably the first time that I have actually reflected this deeply on the changes in our lives that we’ve experienced over the last year. Putting it together did stir some emotion.

In relation to the Pedagogy of Multiliteracies, the concept of Design, Available Designs and the Redesign can be associated with more than one component of this task. While reading the paper, I felt as though that obvious Available Design was what I had created for Task 1 and the Redesign was what I created for Task 7. However, I also want to point out that, in any instance that we curate, we are also using the Available Design (the video clips and music) to create the Redesign (Task 7). The original design of these media was not for my use and for this particular video clip that I created, but using them for it gives them a new meaning. Basically, when we use anything to design (or create) something of our own, we are giving it a new meaning! I love this concept.

In the vein of Design and Redesign, the New London Group states:

Through thr process of Design, moreover, meaning makers remake themselves. They reconstruct and renegotiate their identities. Not only has The Redesign been actively made, but it is also evidence of the ways in which the active intervention in the world that is Designing has tranformed the designer”

In my own redesign of Task 1, I decided to deliberately speak and use words that directly relate to where I am in the world, Two that stand out most to me that others who don’t live in Montreal may not understand are cinq a sept and opus card. The first is happy hour and the second is the name of our public transit pass. When I first recorded that narration I said the more generic terms but decided to change them the second time around. I felt that because the original task was to explore how the items in our bag represented us, that my language in the narration should also represent me and where I am. I feel that this active intervention if including part of my identity gives the Redesign another layer of meaning.

One of the biggest challenges I experienced was the lack of diversity in choices of royalty-free curated video clips. I used a lot of clips of hands and the majority of the hands I found were white and male, which was disappointing and not intentional. I realize in multiliteracies pedagogy, meaning-making in a real-world context should cater to a diverse community of learner. I felt that the lack of representation of the visual component of my redesign defeated the purpose of creating something that is supposed to be diversified. There were, however, options for more diverse video clips if one were to subscribe and pay for a license to the site. This is something I would consider doing if I were to create something that was more professional.

I hope, nonetheless, that my redesign gave more meaning and life to the original Task 1 by using multimodalities which include audio, linguistic and visual designs. Perhaps your experiences can relate to the things I reflect on in my letter to COVID. With it, you can extract your own reflection and meaning.

The New London Group. (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. (Links to an external site.) Harvard Educational Review 66(1), 60-92.

What movie, show or book does my emoji story represent?

I chose work (I don’t want to say movie, TV show or book to not give hints!) that I’ve very recently encountered. At first, I tried to rely on words alone to create the emoji story. The title is a direct word translation, using emojis. This came to me quite easily, so I stuck with it. I then googled the synopsis and tried to directly translate it using words to describe the story. However, after a while, I gave up, as it was not really turning out the way I had hoped. I then transitioned to relying on a combination of ideas. I broke the story down by title, cast (stars) and story (script). The script is a very high-level overview of a few of the main story lines and relationships between characters. It is not necessarily in a linear sequence but generally represents ideas in the story, strung together. In the end, I was quite happy with the result!

Because I found it too difficult to use syllables and words to create my emoji story, the fact that I used ideas makes it quite personal to my own interpretation of the story. It also requires the “reader” to know the story to guess (aside from the title). This is in line with Bolter’s comments (p.59): “Although the writer and reader may use
words to describe and interpret the pictorial message, two readers could explain the same message in different words, and speakers of different languages could share the same system of picture writing.” There are a few emojis (alone and in combination) that I used to represent things that they may not normally represent. It takes some imagination to decifer the story. It is entirely possible (and probable) that someone else who knows this story well would have used different emojis in a much different order than I chose.

Using ideas to select my emojis also made me reflect on the use and interpretation of emojis themselves in a more general sense. In the same way that we use capitalization and punctuation to communicate emotion in text, as discussed by Zaitzman in her podcast, The Alluztionist, we do the same while using emojis. These communication practices can be very cultural. This is also reflected by Bolter (p.59), “picture writing is perhaps constructed culturally (even today)”. But, not only is it cultural by ethnicity, race, geography, society…etc, but interpretation can vary by gender and generation. In my personal experience, I notice differences in how I use emojis with my mother and how I may use them with my peers. There is a completely different understanding of this type of picture writing between these two generations (and between my generation and the next). If I were to distinguish between the two, the older generation would tend to take the pictures in the emojis more literal than the younger. With the age of the internet and communication via social media, there is an established understanding that tends to occur using emojis that give them a different meaning than the literal translation of the image itself. For example, someone may use the cross bones and skull emoji after someone says something is funny. This emoji may have the literal representation of death, but it doesn’t mean something negative in this scenario. Using the term “dead” actually refers to the person thinking that something is hilarious.

Another commonly used form of communication that should be considered today is “animated picture writing” like GIFs. GIFs have gained popularity of the last few years and are used as commonly as emojis. Katy Steinmetz, a writer for TIME, wrote an article examining the prefered use of GIFs and emojis by youner generations compared to plain text. Many “feel that images can paint a clearer picture than words” and that “GIFs can intersect with moments of pop culture that convey a far broader range of sentiments (and inside jokes)”. (Steinmetz, 2017). In my own experience, I feel this to be true. With the addition of animation to the image, it opens up another level of emotional expression. In many social media apps, GIFs can be searched for using keywords or can be selected under a range of tabs that reflect a variety of emotions: happy, excited, disappointed, sad, tired, angry, love, celebration…etc. With that said, in relation to this task, I don’t know if it would be appropriate to try to use GIFs to communicate a story. Considering there are likely GIFs that are directly associted to many of the stories we’ve chosen for this task, it might make the guessing game a little too obvious! Where is the fun in that?

References:

Bolter, J. D. (2001). Writing space: Computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print (2nd ed.). Mahwah, N.J: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. doi:10.4324/9781410600110

Steinmetz, K. (2017). Forget Words, a Lot of Millennials Say GIFs and Emojis Communicate Their Thoughts Better Than English. Retrieved from: https://time.com/4834112/millennials-gifs-emojis/

Zaitzman, H. (2019). New Rules McCulloch, G in The Allustionist. https://www.theallusionist.org/allusionist/new-rules

The Twine task has been one of the more challenging tasks yet. Before I started designing and developing my interactive game, I had to come up with a story. Designing a “choose-your-own” adventure type story requires significant creative capabilities. It was difficult for me to even fathom how I might create a complex story with different potential outcomes. We typically think of a story as being linear with a beginning, a middle and an end. Trying to conceptualize a story that may have different outcomes and contain many different hyperlinks can get overwhelming and so it became clear that I needed to step back and design some form of a framework – perhaps a beginning and 2 or 3 possible ends. The middle would be the second priority. When I stepped back and took this approach, it was easier for me to choose a story and actually sit down to write it. I decided on a topic I am familiar with – Food and Nutrition. I chose Food Safety because it was easy to create a story that might reflect a real-life scenario which ended up being: hosting a dinner party.

Food Safety at a BBQ

At first, I wasn’t quite sure I understood the significance of the task in relation to Module 5. However, after some reflection and consideration of the final product of my Twine story, I was able to better appreciate the complexity of the organization of information and text in cyberspace as mentioned in Bolter’s (2001) remarks. It is not linear as information usually is in codex and as a story would be in a physical book. However, I do remember reading Goosebumps “choose-your-own-story-books” as a kid and how exciting they were. While they were exciting, they were not very practical when you had to physically sift through pages to find the designated page you chose. A complex story, with different potential outcomes, makes far more sense in cyberspace than it does in codex.

A second connection I made to Module 5, was how I chose to communicate in my Twine story. I felt that there had to be some tone in my writing. I wanted to make it engaging and fun for the participant. After listening to The Allusionist episode with Helen Zaltzman and Grechen McCulloch, I was surprised to identify with many of the written communication rules mentioned in reference to how we tend to speak in an online (usually informal) environment. How we use punctuation and capitalization to communicate emotion. Because I wanted the tone in my Twine to sound more like my voice and like a conversation I was having with the participant. What I find most fascinating about this is that there seems to a common understanding when it comes to this form of communication. It’s not like we were ever taught that using capitalization signifies yelling. Or choosing to use a period or not at the end of a sentence signifies a more or less curt implication. I tended to use these unwritten rules in the text of my story which gave it more colour and more of a voice.

I am not completely satisfied with the final product of my Twine. I struggled with including photos and sound. My laptop crashed a lot during the process and I gave up on adding music. However, I would like to believe that I still was able to appreciate the essence of the task and how it relates to the changing spaces of reading and writing.

References:

Bolter, J.D. (2001). Writing Space: Computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print (Links to an external site.). Mahway, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pp. 77-98.

Zaitzman, H. (2019). New Rules McCulloch, G in The Allustionist. https://www.theallusionist.org/allusionist/new-rules

I decided to tell the same story, unscripted, in two different speech to text apps. First I would like to address the “right”, “wrong” and mistakes in terms of how each app deciphered what I was saying. Second I would like to touch on the differences between unscripted oral storytelling and written storytelling, regardless of the technology.

Speechnotes:

I’m going to tell the story about how I ended up pursuing a career in education technology so when I was in high school I was very involved with education technologies that our school was kind of piloting as a project put forth by the Quebec government at the time I went to a very small school with a low enrollments so it was easier our school too kind of dowel in these in these projects and these initiatives for changing education in Quebec so it was initiative or project-based learning that was was initiated by the government so we would do these text which involves e-portfolios so I was involved with creating an e-portfolio using PowerPoint I actually attended a conference in Montreal to present these this PowerPoint to present my e-portfolio to group of teachers and from The Province from the English school board so I kind of started this journey early on I also worked on creating a website for my school and had previously not had any type of website and I worked on various projects that involved using very basic technology at the time but using basic Technologies to use in education fast forward a few years when I graduated I actually went to school to study science to study Health Sciences and I bachelor’s in nutritional biochemistry and my masters in global and Community nutrition so this really had nothing to do with education Technologies but I’m it was another path that I have pursued I really enjoyed learning about health and learning about nutrition so it was my kind of my first Passion but when I graduated from my masters at McGill I started working at teaching and learning services within the time where I was waiting for my my thesis to be reviewed you kind of get most off while your thesis is being reviewed so I didn’t have a lot to do with my time so I started working at teaching and learning services open online courses the first one I worked on with an exercise science course and I was hired because of my background in nutrition and health sciences in developing these courses on edx I work closely with an instructor on that and then the next semester I had graduated but I was looking for a job and I continue to work at TLS part-time as a casual employee and ended up working on this nutrition course which was a food-for-thought course and I I worked creating content I worked managing the discussion forums and I worked closely answering students was closely with instructors answering students questions Etc while I was on the job search searching for a job within the nutrition Community I was having a lot of difficulties because I didn’t have my credentials as a dietitian so that was that’s really important to have if you do study nutrition they often will look for your registered dietitian license when hiring so I was I was struggling a lot with finding a job related to nutrition and I started building all of these skills at teaching and learning services that involved building online courses that involves a lot of video editing and and creating videos for recorded lectures I worked in a studio with instructors recording their their lectures and basically took those recordings and created these more sophisticated they could use for their online courses we good at it and while I was at TLS one year turned into two years turned into three years and eventually I decided to ask myself do I keep pursuing looking for a job in the field that I Stay or do I change paths and look for a more permanent position in education technology now after talking to colleagues at McGill I realized that if I wanted to pursue a career in education technology I had to get some asian from I heard acacian institution so some sort of degree which I did not have so if I wanted to be hired as a full-time employee at TLS I needed to get a Masters in Education technology at the very least so point in time where I did make the decision to switch paths I don’t regret I don’t regret the fact that my original path wasn’t nutrition because it did lead me to get that position tLS in the first place where I worked on those nutrition and sports science courses the purpose and it still is very much a passion of mine but when I made that decision to switch career paths and use the skills that I have accumulated over the last three years I decided to look into pursuing another master’s degree in education technology and there was a master’s degree there is a master’s degree offered at Concordia University in Montreal that is a masters of education technology and then there was one at the University of British Columbia that is offered online and my director at teaching and learning Services kind of pushed me qVC because was it a masters of education technology but it had that additional layer of experience of taking a full program online as so to walk away with the same information I would have maybe gotten at Concordia but as an online but the experience with being an online student so that is how I ended up at the University of British Columbia in the masters of education technology and not pursuing my originally set out planned to work in the field of nutrition

The first app I used was Speechnotes. It was relatively easy to use but created an output that did not include punctuation unless I verbally told it to. Since we normally do not speak that way when we tell a story (i.e. “I am going to tell a story period once upon a time”…etc), I didn’t refer to punctuation and let it record my speech as if I were actually talking to someone. The text output was one really long-running sentence. I noticed that when I tried to read it back, I could see how it would be difficult for someone reading it for the first time to extract the true meaning and essence of the story. The lack of punctuation made it feel disorganized and made it difficult to establish a linear storyline like you normally would in a written story. Even in academic writing, there may be no storyline per se, but there is structure. Though I intended for there to be structure in my story, I felt that it was lost when I told it unscripted.

Another common mistake I noticed was misunderstanding or completely leaving out words I said. For example, “dowel” was interpreted from “dabble”, I’m was interpreted from “um” and “qVC” was interpreted from “to UBC”. There were even certain words the app got wrong that I was unable to interpret: “some asian from I heard acacian”. I also noticed that a lot of words were missing. This was perhaps due to my pronunciation, which may be different from what the app is programmed to understand, or because I spoke too quickly or too softly at certain points. For example, at the end of sentences, I tend to speak the last word or two softer than the rest. I think if I had scripted the story and read that script out loud, Speechnotes would still make some of these errors in the text. It would continue to lack punctuation and there may still be misunderstandings of words based on how I spoke them.

Finally, I was confused by what the app decided to capitalize and what it did not. There were many randomly capitalized words. For example, the first time it capitalized TLS, which is correct,  but the second time it only capitalized the L, giving an output of tLs. It did capitalize all names (like Quebec, Montreal and McGill) but it also capitalized nouns and verbs in mid-sentence (like The Province, Community and Technologies).

I personally would not use this type of app again for creating a speech-to-text activity. It was very difficult to decipher.

Otter:

Okay, so I’m going to tell the story about how I ended up pursuing a career in education technology.

So when I was in high school, our school took part in this education project based learning initiative that was put out by the Quebec, government, where they would get students to do more project based learning exercises. So one of the things that I had to do. This was in grade eight was create an E portfolio using PowerPoint, so I had to create a portfolio going through various work that I had done it didn’t have to be specific to a course. Though I believe we did do one specific to math, but we did a general e portfolio, answering questions, perhaps, for example like an assignment that I had an proved on or an assignment that I found difficult etc.

And we ended up, presenting this E portfolio these e portfolios. At a conference in Montreal to teachers from around Quebec.

I was also involved in creating a website for my school previously that they had had no type of website of any kind, and I was really heavily involved with just doing different projects and activities that involved.

Learning Technologies, or technology in general.

So that’s my starting point. Now fast forward a few years when I graduated, I ended up going to McGill to study nutrition I did my bachelor’s in nutritional biochemistry and I did my masters in global and community nutrition. So nutrition was my main passion was really what I wanted to pursue a career in at the start of my young adult life. I finished writing my thesis, and was waiting to have it reviewed, which takes about a semester so during that time I didn’t have a whole lot to do so I applied for a job at the Teaching and Learning Services at McGill where I got hired to be a course assistant for a massive open online course with edX. For a Sport Science course initially I was hired because of my background in nutrition.

And so I worked very closely with the instructor to develop this course and run it, I was the moderator of the discussions, I answered all of the students questions I helped manage the assignments, etc.

The next semester.

Teaching and Learning services offered another MOOC which was a nutrition side, sorry and nutrition MOOC. So I was very interested in helping them work and deliver this course on edX. So I stayed with them as a casual employee, part time, I was graduated at that point, but I really enjoyed working on these MOOCs and working on a course that was relevant to my background so while I looked for another job in the field of nutrition, I stayed at TLS working on online courses. And one thing kind of led to another the courses were offered and re offered. And I ended up working at TLS for three years on these MOOCs and on various other projects that end tasks I was given at the time.

So, it came to a point where I was struggling to find a job in my field of nutrition, because I didn’t have my dietetics credential, my Registered Dietitian license it was very difficult to find a job or the job that I was looking for. So it came to a point where I had to make a decision of whether I was going to continue pursuing my, my job in nutrition.

Sorry, where I was going to continue pursuing my career path in nutrition, or if I was going to switch career paths and start using the experience that I built up at Teaching and Learning Services and pursue a career path in education technology.

But before I was able to apply for a full time position, more permanent position at TLS. It was kind of implied that I really needed to have some sort of educational academic background foundation for education technology with, which most of my colleagues had.

So this is what led me to apply to UBC in the MIT program, and switch gears from nutrition to start pursuing education technology.

One of the things that I had question was, Do I regret not pursuing the field in which I had originally set out to pursue which was nutrition.

And looking back at my younger years when I was still in high school, I can still say that I had had interest in this field without even realizing it. Early on, so that’s why I linked back to my, my experiences in high school so that I can kind of validate that this was another passion of mine that I probably had not yet acknowledged and further to that. I believe that my degrees in nutrition are what originally landed me the job at Teaching and Learning Services working on the online courses on the nutrition courses on edX. And so, of course, it was not a waste because if I hadn’t have had followed that initial path I would have never it would have never led led me to getting more interested and focused on my journey with education technology.

So that’s my story. That’s how I ended up from a degree in a master’s in science to a master’s in education technology at UBC.

The second app I used was Otter which is a more sophisticated application. It recorded punctuation based on the length of the pauses I took when I was speaking. It also recorded my speech in a more transcript type structure. I could see how long it took me to say every sentence. This was very interesting as I made it much easier to read and follow in comparison to Speechnotes. It attempted to establish some structure to my story and used the pauses to reflect a new thought. With that said, there were still many mistakes made with punctuation. When telling a story unscripted, we might pause for a second to gather our thoughts or to remember a detail. This doesn’t always mean that it is the end of a sentence or the end of a thought. Therefore I can see many sentences ending when they shouldn’t have. I can also see entirely different paragraphs started when I paused to carefully tell my story. This might vary from person to person. I am generally a slower talker. Words don’t always flow easily for me and so I take a lot of pauses to try and say exactly what I want to say. This cadence and tone are not reflected in the text in a meaningful way. If you were to listen to the story in person, it might be more captivating and make more sense to hear than when it is to read.

The general conventions of English include grammar, spelling, punctuation, capitalization and paragraphing. All 5 of these conventions were lost in some manner in both speech-to-text apps I tried. Spelling was typically the most correct while punctuation, capitalization and paragraphing were the least. Grammar is an interesting convention because it depends on my choice of words and sentence structure and less on the app itself. This exercise has demonstrated that, in general, my grammar in oral communication is weaker than my written grammar.

Regardless of the app, there are major differences between the way I would orally tell my story, unscripted, from the way I might write it, scripted. Firstly, the way I speak differs greatly from the way I write, especially in a formal setting. Writing allows me to organize my thoughts in a more structured and standardized way. It forces me to use the conventions of English. It also allows me to communicate in a more complex way. There tends to be more repetition when speaking than when a story is written. This is something I noticed in both versions of my story. I tended to repeat certain sentences, sometimes adapting them to reflect what I wanted or meant to say. Additionally, I am unhappy with the structure of the story. It does not always accurately communicate what I was trying to convey. I feel like there were moments of rambling which can be common when speaking unscripted. If I scripted the story, I would take the time to reflect on exactly what words I wanted to use. It would also give me the time to review and edit to change words, sentences or paragraphs until I was satisfied with them. Unscripted communication does not foster this type of review.

It was interesting to tell the story through two different applications. It was the same story with the same general facts and thoughts, however, you can see that they are quite different. Some details were included in one and not the other. I think this is an interesting reflection on how stories might change when we repeat them verbally. As Gnanadesikan (2011) used the “telephone” party game to illustrate the way a story might change when told orally over time, I think I have demonstrated it with just myself in a relatively short period of time. One thing to point out here is that I was the only one telling my own story. I imagine if the story was told again and again by others, it might change significantly over time. This is a major difference between written storytelling and oral storytelling. Again, as Gnanadesikan (2011) opens “The First IT Revolution” with, “This sentence is a time machine. I wrote it a long time before you opened
this book and read it. Yet here are my words after all this time, pristinely preserved, as good as new.” A written story is truly a snapshot in time and will remain the same forever.

Considering Ong’s (1982) work, if we were existing in a primarily oral culture and I wanted to tell the same story as I did above in a way that was consistent and that could be passed on overtime, I would have to make some major adaptations. Most importantly, it would have to be scripted and structured in a form that was memorable in what Ong (1982, p.34) describes as “mnemonic patterns, shaped for ready oral recurrence”. Since this activity was meant to be unscripted, it demonstrates that this type of storytelling could not exist in a primarily oral culture. The exact story could not live beyond the moment it was told.

Another point I considered was that written storytelling gives room for an element of interpretation and imagination by the reader. They can read the story and hear whatever voice they choose to hear. In oral storytelling, the storyteller is that voice and therefore requires some level of skill to be animated, emotional and captivating so that they convey the essence of the story for the listener. To the one receiving the story, listening is more passive than reading. The storyteller is painting the picture with their voice. I’ve come to realize that I am not a skilled unscripted oral storyteller. I know that if I were to listen to the audio of my story I would sound monotone and likely like I was just trying to get through it as best as I could. It would lack emotion and variations in tone and therefore I feel like it would not be captivating. However, I also realize that this activity may not accurately reflect how a story may be told to an audience. Recording ourselves talking, unscripted, by ourselves, is likely not how we tell a story to a friend or family member who is listening and reacting. Unless we are skilled actors, there will be more emotion present when we are speaking to an actual person. I believe, more animation and emotion would create a more vibrant story which would better communicate what I was orally trying to convey. This is lost in the speech-to-text transcription.

This activity was very eye-opening as it made me evaluate how exceptionally different oral communication (especially when unscripted) differs from written communication. It also demonstrates how much meaning and essence can be lost in using speech-to-text applications to transcribe and oral story to text, concluding that there are still many human elements to orality that cannot be captured by technology.

References:

Gnanadesikan, A. E. (2011).“The First IT Revolution.” In The writing revolution: Cuneiform to the internet“. (Vol. 25). John Wiley & Sons. (pp. 1-10).

Ong, W. (1982). Orality and literacy: The technologizing of the word. London and New York: Taylor and Francis Group.

I have been working from home since March 2020 and so the contents of my bag don’t reflect what they would if I was working in the office. My laptop lives at my work station at home, my lunch stays in the fridge and my activewear doesn’t need to travel with me. My bag today more so reflects my general everyday outing contents (which is incredibly limited the last few months…thank you COVID)… So, it’s basically what I bring to the grocery store. Furthermore, there are some additional items in my bag that have become essential that you would not have found prior to 2020.

In this bag I carry a water bottle, a snack, my keys, headphones (which are normally wireless but I’ve misplaced them), mints, gloves, sunglasses, glasses, a general notebook, chapstick, lip gloss and lipstick, hand cream, nail clippers, makeup remover wipes, my wallet (which is a whole world in itself that includes bank cards, ID, points cards, money, notes, business cards…etc), a reusable bag, a card carrier for gift cards, Kleenex, a mask, hand sanitiser and anti-bacterial wipes. I usually have a receipt or two as well, but I’ve recently cleaned out my bag. Finally, my cellphone would normally be there but I needed it to take the picture 🙂

The most basic text I have in my bag is my notebook. I use my notebook for all types of note-taking – work, class and personal. I prefer to write out my lists physically, pen to paper, rather than type them out in my digital notebook on my phone. If one were to read the texts in my notebook they might get an idea of what my job is, what I study and how I live. The printed text on the packaged items is in English and in French which reflects that I am currently living in an area that speaks those two languages (French being the first since it is written first and usually in the bigger font). The textile of my gloves may indicate that I am currently living in a colder area of the world. If someone were to open my wallet, they would see that the text on my ID indicates that I am from Quebec. The texts and prints on some of these items could also reflect that I enjoy outdoor activities – the nature image on the cover of my notebook, the pattern of my mask and reusable bag and the plant image on my water bottle. The print on the electronic pass on my key ring indicates that I do yoga at Moksha Yoga Montreal. The headphones indicate that listen to verbally communicated texts like music, podcasts and audiobooks.

The most important and most advanced “text technology” that is in my bag (not shown here) is my cellphone. It is underrepresented because it does not appear in the photo but it is, by far, the most used item that you would find in my bag. I use my cellphone to communicate through digital text (texts, email, chat, social media). I use it to inform myself, manage my tasks (calendar), document my life (images, videos, text, audio), entertain myself and work. Because it is my most used item, it says that I tend to engage with language and communicate digitally. However, my notebook might say that I don’t exclusively communicate that way and I am still drawn to basic forms of “text technology”. Perhaps because I grew up reading and writing text on paper, I tend to remember and consolidate information more effectively when I write it down rather than typing it out. I am curious if younger generations would prefer the opposite. I do still write lists and take notes on my phone, but when I do so pen to paper, I feel more motivated and productive.

If you look closely at the items in my bag, I think they say a lot about who I am and who I see myself as. The items in my bag reflect some of my priorities and hobbies. The most obvious priority that is reflected is in health and comfort. I have contents that represent food, water, exercise and hygiene. I also have a lot of items that represent my priority to be comfortable – sunglasses, hand cream, chapstick, mints, the backpack. The textile of my bag and wallet are vegan leather and the reusable bag and water bottle might reflect my priority to be environmentally conscious. The patterns and colours reflect parts of my style – pink aviators, purple headphones, various patterns and colour, keychain and bright lipstick. If you were to open up my notebook, you would see written recipes, reminders, quotes, thoughts, to-do lists…etc. I feel as though most of these things align with who I see myself as and who I outwardly portray. I think my friends would not be surprised by any of the contents shown here.

If I were to have done this activity 15 -17 years ago, the contents of my bag would be very different. The only items that would remain (but in a different form) would be the earphones and the notebook. My bag would have been full of papers, binders, books and a pencil case (rather than 1 pen), indicating that all reading and writing I did was done through text on paper. The basic comforts would not be there as it was not a priority. I would not have keys, glasses or cards for my wallet. Instead of a smartphone, I would have an mp3 player or discman, a camera, an agenda, written notes from friends and a flip phone for emergency calls only. While there were hints of digital technologies at that time, the majority of text was communicated more traditionally.

I think we will all say the same here. If an archaeologist were to analyze the items in my bag, they would be able to identify the year of a pandemic. They would also be able to identify the time period by examining the digital technologies present. Technology advances so quickly that you could likely date my bag to the exact year based on the model of my cell alone!