Communicating information using only emojis was an interesting task! I use emojis regularly when texting or at the end of the occasional e-mail but usually only to convey emotion (a happy face, mind blown, or thumbs up). I have never tried to use emojis for anything more than that. I changed my movie choice several times as things I thought would be easy quickly became quite difficult.

I began with the title as it is how I both learned to read and write; from the beginning. I relied on using the emojis to represent ideas more than the words themselves but there was some combination at the beginning. I quickly found, as Bolter (2001) points out, that picture writing lacks narrative power. The picture elements have a broad range of verbal meanings where each element means too much instead of too little (p. 59). The pictures have too many meanings and I struggled to find a way to point my audience in only one direction. I told the story with one idea per line from top to bottom, building on Kress’s (2005) discussion that knowledge through writing is set out in a specific manner; chapters are numbered and not to be read out of order because they build on each other (p. 7). My story needs to be interpreted from top to bottom to make sense. Kress (2005) continued to claim that meaning in language is clear and reliable while meaning in images is not solid or clear (p.8). I found this to be the case in my story. Using only images, the story I told is not clear and left open to a lot of interpretation. I found I did not have enough emojis to choose from. It would be interesting to write the same story using a hybrid of words and emojis. This would be a fun exercise to do with students and have them discuss what they notice the similarities and differences are in the storytelling experience!

References:

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

Kress (2005), Gains and losses: New forms of texts, knowledge, and learningLinks to an external site.. Computers and Composition, Vol. 2(1), 5-22.

I love to read! I have never educated myself in the history of how books came to be mainstream in our societies. Thinking about the time and effort it took to create a codex while listening to the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast gave me a new appreciation for our ancestors and their effort in spreading information through the use of books.

I set out to complete a potato printing thinking it would be both quick and easy. After creating my letters and cutting them out, I quickly realized I forgot to make them in reverse! The word I chose, faith, only needed one letter re-done as I wrote in capitals and the other letters looked the same either way. If I had needed to re-do all the letters, I would have been very frustrated! I found it challenging to space the letters properly and the potatoes were awkward to hold. The amount of pressure I applied affected the look of the letter. I had to practice on a sheet of paper multiple times for each letter to ensure I could make the print look similar. After my first attempt, I decided to try and improve my letters by making edges sharper and the face of the letter as flat as possible to create a better print. The entire process took about one hour. I did find the process during my second attempt to begin to be therapeutic and enjoyable the same way Collier describes using a letter press (Cooke, 2012).

I can appreciate the mechanization of writing as writing technologies have greatly increased our ability to share information in a timely manner. If our culture had not experienced the mechanization of writing, our world would currently look very different. Bolter’s (2001) observation that as new technologies emerge they replace or supplement the established one holds true in my experience (p.26). From writing essays in high school, to typing and then printing them in my undergrad, and finally typing and posting them online in my master’s degree. Each change in technology has supplemented the technology I used before it and eventually replaced it fully. Each one has also increased the speed at which I can share information with others. I am very thankful for the mechanization of writing.

References:

Bolter, Jay David. (2001). Writing space: Computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print [2^nd edition]. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Cooke, Danny (2012). Upside down, left to right: a letterpress film. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6RqWe1bFpM

The following text is my story using Speechnotes.co in its unedited version.

It’s May long weekend and we are headed to the cabin for a fun weekend with family. The weekend is beautiful! It is the first sunny and warm weekend we have had all spring we spend the first day opening up the cabin and getting it ready for the summer we pull that chairs out we spray things. We pull out the kayaks ankle for a paddle we paddle across the lake oribe really to visit some family at another cabin we spend the day in the sunshine on the beach and on the water it is too cold to go for a swim. That night we enjoy a campfire and make a special dessert we called toasty the next day we decide since it is windy and not good to be on the lake we will instead go for a quad ride we open up the garages and attempt to start the quads one of them starts no problem the next a little help so we give it a boost the third will not start we can’t figure it out aftermath after much frustration we give up and use a fourth quad instead we decide we will take a nice short ride on a dry Trail we put our helmets on some of us put rain boots on i’m headed out on the trail the quads are working great we are bumping along a very familiar trail that we all enjoy our kids are taking turns Drive we decide on the way back to take another route so off we go through the trail taking much longer than we originally planned it is a great Trail only a tree or two in our way that we had to stop and removed from the trail as we came to the end of the trail we come across a large puddle probably about 100 ft long the first quad goes through some mud and water they make it about 2:30 of the way into the puddle when they got stuck my dad and my nephew wear on the quad they did not have rain gear or boots on the water was up to the seat on the quad hit the quad hung in a precarious position angled downwards handlebars lower than the backside of the quad my son was riding with me and we got off the quad took a look around at what we thought maybe we’d be able to do or how we could help we ourselves weren’t sure if we should forage forward or turn around but the first quad. Pebble they couldn’t start it they had to get into the water up to their knees to try to winch out but the quad wouldn’t start making the winch unusable my son got off the quad and decided to walk his way around part of the puddle best I chose a different path than the first quad I went through the mud almost getting stuck put the quad in 4 by 4 and made my way out the second part of the longer puddle where the first quad was stuck proved to be more challenging I crossed on the opposite side of the puddle where the ground seemed to be a bit higher we made it to the other side of the puddle my daughter was driving side-by-side she made her way through both pedals with plenty of power and no issues at all now we still have a quad stuck. Motor won’t start in the middle of a puddle where the water is well past the knees of my father I take the side by side drive into the puddle on the same side of him as him and when the side-by-side started down-low I stopped my dad slashed his way through this mud hole over to the side by side win where we hooked him up and slowly and carefully I use the side by side hold that quad the mud hole once out of the mud hole we had to figure out how to get this party started we would be doing it. I learned how to find battery on the quad and how did jump start it so did the three kids who were with us we got the second quad started no problem as we’re putting all our tools away. Do it again we were not able to get it started so once again we had to get the tools out and jump start the quad we left it running this time now that the quad was running we thought we were good to go unfortunately my quad while going through that mud hole must have hit something sharp because I now had a very flat tire so I also learned how to use the air compressor compressor on the side by side and I was able to fill my tire and Limp my quad home where we plugged the hole properly it was quite the adventure we washed off all the quads how do you well deserve to dinner and headed out to visit cousins for a night of campfire fun it was a rather normal weekend at the lake as there is always one Adventure or another to be had. The next day we cleaned everything up put all the toys away and headed home for another week of school and work we still have to get our quad figured out and fixed as we never could get it started one more thing on a long to-do list

Speechnotes 🙂 https://speechnotes.co

Reflection:

I found this task, of using voice to text technology, quite difficult! I do not ever use speech to text technology and I am not always a storyteller. Using the Speechnotes website, I told a story from a weekend at the lake. I like to be able to change what I am writing and reword/reread my thoughts to ensure I am communicating them properly. I found myself speaking slowly and pausing my speech more than I normally would. The text from my story is void of proper conventions of the English written language. The first two sentences I was saying the punctuation but that was awkward, so I stopped. The text has very few periods and no commas. There are no indents for new paragraphs showing a new section of the story. There is the odd capital letter in the middle of a sentence. I find it difficult to follow the text without grammar rules being followed. There are also multiple substitutions for words I said such as “ankle” and “oribe” and re-reading it I am unsure of what was actually said. There are certain parts of the story, such a pulling my dad out of the mud hole, that if the reader did not have experience riding trails on a quad, they would not be able to understand because of all the substituted words and the lack of extra description on my part. The two most common mistakes in this text are the lack of periods and the substitution of similar sounding words (ankle = and go). When I read the text in my head, I couldn’t figure out some of the word substitutions but when I read it out loud, slowly, some of them started to make sense to me.

I would have had much more success with a scripted story using speech to text technology. I was recalling a story and found it difficult to think about what I was saying while watching the Speechnotes program dictate. A scripted story would have allowed me to reconcile and order my thoughts before trying to share them. I would have added more details to make the story easier for the recipient to understand. Written storytelling allows the author to edit their story ensuring they are communicating certain messages to their audience. Oral storytelling can be more difficult to piece the parts together. Oral storytelling allows room for interaction with the author while written works could be read without the author present. Writing is usually more deliberate than speaking, making finished written pieces more carefully crafted than spoken word (Gnanadesikan, 2011, p. 5).  In written form, the story is static, unchanging from one reader to the next. Oral storytelling allows for change from teller to teller as one remembers or emphasizes different parts each time. Gnanadesikan (2011) explains that with writing we lose intonation and emotional content (p.9). With written word, we rely on punctuation and descriptions to convey emotion or create intonation in our minds. This exercise made me aware of the differences in my communication of a story when it is told orally vs written. The two are very different!

References:

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

My name is Jenny and I’m an elementary school principal by day. The above picture shows a variety of items I carry regularly with me in my bag. Each serves a specific purpose. The items include:

• My bag made from my grandfather’s old suits
• Wallet including identification, some cash, gift cards and a transit card
• School keys
• A reusable bag
• Cough lozenges
• A bandaid
• A jump drive
• A peppermint tea bag
• Hand sanitizer
• Contact solution
• Snacks, both a granola bar and a candy bar
• My iphone
• A pen from school with a stylus tip
• Chapstick
• A hair tie
• A business card
• Sanitary wipes from a restaurant
• Cabin keys
• An old shopping list

At first glance, I don’t think looking through my bag would tell a person a lot about me. Digging deeper into the texts of these items in my bag tells a story. The bag itself is made of my grandfather’s old suits and a leather jacket. It speaks to my love of family and holding onto memories of the past. My wallet holds identification with personal information telling who I am, how old, and my driver’s license would show I need to wear corrective lenses. I usually have an array of gift cards in my wallet. Sometimes writing of thanks can be found on the cards themselves. The gift cards are from students and families showing their appreciation. The transit card is interesting as I never use public transit in the town I live in. I keep the card in my wallet for my frequent trips to Vancouver where I almost exclusively use public transit.

The snacks, tea, contact solution, Band-Aid, cough lozenges, and hair tie are all personal care items. I am always hungry and looking for a snack. Not pictured is my tea mug which is also a regular item I carry. I have long hair that I usually wear down for work but pull up immediately after, so a hair tie is never far away. The pen, business card, and school keys are used regularly and all show the school name. The business card has more details about location and contact information. I give these cards out when people ask about our school but I also use them to enter into contests run by local businesses. School is a big part of my life.

The cabin keys represent an even bigger part of my life. We have a cabin about 2 hours away that we frequent regularly, the keys are always in my bag. The jump drive shows my reliance on digital files. I don’t use it as much as I once did now that I can save and access files online. The old shopping list should have been thrown away but was buried at the bottom of the bag. I still like to write my lists out on paper and have them handy to look at without having to turn my phone on. The phone represents a major form of my communication. I regularly text or speak to staff on the phone as well as texting my children or husband throughout the day. I use my phone to search for information on the internet, check and answer e-mails, and sometimes to even complete work for my courses. I rely on my phone as a major part of my communication system. English is the main language seen on all the items in my bag with French as the secondary language on the packaging. This tells of my reliance on the English language.

Text technologies have changed over the years. My bag would have looked different 15 or 20 years ago. I did not yet have a steady teaching contract so would not have had school keys, business cards or the pen! I may have had a jump drive as I was just finishing my education degree. I was busy with three young children and would have had different snacks, wipes, and diapers in my bag! My cell phone was used much differently 15 years ago as well being only for phone calls. I never carried hand sanitizer or reusable bags with me either. My wallet and the use of contact solution would be the only similar products. The most notable change from years ago would be the advancement of technology. My bag from prior years would have contained notebooks or other paper-based items.

An archaeologist looking through my bag in the future would recognize I have some environmentally friendly tendencies and possibly someone who leads a busy life (all those snacks). If able to access the contents of my phone they would piece together an individual who wears many hats and tends to many different relationships. They would also see the many ways text technologies are seen through the apps used to text (both sending words and pictures), document life (photographs and videos), entertain (Netflix, games, etc), connecting with others (WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, e-mails), navigation (maps and All Trails), and even banking and health insurance. This task made me so much more aware of the text technologies that I interact with daily and what they say about my life!