In a land far far away, or two generations into the future on earth, an advertisement is unearthed from a University time capsule that was created to be opened 70 years later as a comparative cultures project. The time capsule was dug up as a part of a history project for a University course comparing pop culture in 2019 to 2089. The world has progressed in the sense that transparency and acceptance have come to the forefront of global values. Companies and government agencies have shifted from profit to transparent marketing and sustainable practices (although this may seem impossible this is my dream speculative future, so here we go).

The current year is 2086 and the time capsule is from 2019. Slowly pieces are extracted from the time capsule:

• An iPhone 11 with the following apps downloaded
  • Whatsapp
  • Messenger
  • TikTok
  • Instagram
  • Snapchat
  • Spotify
• A USB that has the following downloaded media files on it
  • TV SERIES
    • Final season of Game of Thrones (although for some reason the file wouldn’t open.. oh well, nothing lost there)
    • Euphoria
    • The Mandalorian
    • Sex Education
    • Top Boy
    • Stranger Things
    • Top Boy
  • MOVIES
    • A Star is Born
    • Avengers: Endgame
    • The Gentlemen
    • Us
    • Someone Great (Lizzo’s song “Truth Hurts” in this movie made her blow up this year!)
  • ALBUMS
    • Norman F*cking Rockwell! – Lana Del Rey
    • While We Wait – Kehlani
    • Heard it in a Past Life – Maggie Rogers
    • Ginger – Brockhampton
    • Fine Line – Harry Styles
  • Pop Culture Highlights
    • Laverne Cox’s Smirnoff Advertisement

    •  Taylor Swift’s music video with Todrick Hall, cast of Queer eye, Billy Porter, Tatiana, Trinity K Bonet (among MANY others).
• Apple AirPods
• Airfryer (because what would a time capsule be without the newest kitchen gadget obsession included)
• Instax Mini Camera

As the students go through the contents of the capsule, they laughed and analyze how different pop culture was in 2019; how much transition was occurring and how people experiencing systemic oppressions were still fighting to be seen and acknowledged.

The professor asked the students to choose one artifact to focus on for a class discussion. The students unanimously chose the advertisement by Laverne Cox as it focused on the fight that the 2SLGBTQIA+ community was in with society and government. The advertisement from Laverne Cox stood out as something that was a huge step towards equal representation in media. Not only is Laverne Cox a trans woman but she is a black trans woman, and these intersecting qualities were still at the forefront of oppression in the year 2019.

The students projected the advertisement as a hologram in the middle of their talking circle and took notes on topics related gender in 2019 they would like to compare and contrast with their current society in 2089. The first student to share said the following:

“I find it interesting how much focus was put on gender identity. Why did society care so much about this? It seems like a lot of time was wasted trying to oppress people based on something that didn’t impact anyone other than them. And gender expression also encouraged people to be themselves, how is that bad!? Laverne Cox is absolutely stunning and such an icon. She is certainly an icon to this date. Not only was she one of the first trans women in mainstream media but she was in a commercial with a cis white man. I appreciate Laverne’s fight and can’t even imagine what she went through in the spot light as a trans woman. It makes me happy to think that people were so willing to fight so that we could live in the society we have today.”

Students nodded and the next student chimed in with their perspective:

“I totally agree. Women like Laverne made the world we have today possible. Not only is gender identity encourages, it isn’t really a big deal at all! We don’t have any laws prohibiting self expression and people just go about their days. Could you imagine caring so much about how someone presents themselves in society that you try and prevent it from happening? Think about the law that passed in Tennessee in 2023 that put age restrictions on drag performances because they were too sexual (Mizelle, 2023)? I’m not sure how drag queens reading to children fall under this? Like…. how was drag queen story time considered bad but Grand Theft Auto wasn’t? These people were confusing. These people seemed so backwards. It makes me so happy to think that I live in the time that I do now, where the spotlight is not put on gender and instead focuses on what you stand for. It’s hard to believe a commercial today saying ‘it’s for everyone no matter who you are’ because that’s just generally implied. Sucks that they had to say things like that back then because so many people wanted others excluded.”

Students chatted amongst themselves and agreed that the time capsule activity was a positive experience. Not only were they able to reflect on the affordances they have in their modern society but they were able to give thanks to those who made it possible.

In this speculative future, western society has moved past its obsession with controlling others self expression and allowed for a much more colourful world to flourish.

References

Situation Lab. (n.d.). The Thing From The Future. Situation Lab. https://situationlab.org/project/the-thing-from-the-future

Marketing The Rainbow. (2021).Smirnoff – welcome home (Laverne Cox WorldPride 2019) [Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3z7WDUrM5I

Mizelle, S. (2023, March 3). Tennessee becomes first state in 2023 to restrict drag performances. CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/02/politics/tennessee-ban-drag-show-performances-governor/index.html

Raz, D. (2019). Smirnoff | Ted Danson, Laverne Cox [Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlh_YOUVS0g

Swift, T. (2019). Taylor Swift – You need to calm down [Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dkk9gvTmCXY

If this were not an assignment there is NO way I would have done it. As my husband would say… I am very impatient. If a website has too many pop ups, and honestly that’s 2 or more for me, then I would just exit out of it and find an alternative. While the instructions were clear, the way information was presented made it challenging to decipher where to channel our attention.

I found this week’s videos and readings interesting. I recently had a conversation with my grade 8 robotics class surrounding their action participation in AI online. Regardless of whether we want to be or not, we are deeply engrained in the media systems we use simply by being digitally present. I think because, generally, algorithms make things simple for us, we don’t question them. Ads that cater to our likes? Great. ‘Buy it now’ buttons that make shopping easy? Perfect.

Harris (2017) discusses how controlled our lives our due to algorithms. Companies are competing for our attention online and whichever once is more successful in getting our attention translates directly into profit. After watching Harris’ TedTalk I found myself reflecting on how algorithms have impacted me. There are apps such as H&M or Aerie that offer in app only deals, and a lot of the time you have to open the app to see what savings you could get. What a smart marketing ploy. Also by shopping on the app, you can share items directly through any other social media platform.

I enjoyed watching The Social Dilemma (you can watch it on Netflix). What I enjoyed most about it was how the creators represented the effects of relying on affirmation through likes/media feedback. I also found it really interested when the algorithm was ‘discussing’ how to try and ploy teenagers back online. I often question some of the things created…. what the purpose is other than to make people feel bad. Some examples of this would be read receipts, top snap chatters (you can see who other people snapchat with the most), askfm, and more. These things suck in audiences but do little to bring joy to their lives. It’s challenging to think about how we can combat this because I truly don’t think that we can. We need to be aware of it and go from there.

References

Harris, T. (2017). How a handful of tech companies control billions of minds every day. [Video]. TED.

The social dilemma. (2022, October 6). In Wikipedia.

I found this week’s assignment really interesting as it took me some time to wrap my head around. I wasn’t sure how to approach it at first and found the data really overwhelming. When I hunkered down to try and analyze the connections within the data I decided to focus on the facet that I was grouped in and draw lines to those I connected too (or at least those that the algorithm connected me to). I drew lines to show how I was connected with my peers through the grouping I was given.

This type of representation in grouping is superficial. The linking created between the nodes it based solely on a choice and nothing else, nothing deeper. I don’t think that choices, on a surface level, can be used to represent similarities among people. Context is imperative to understanding and should be the bases for grouping. Some feedback that Ernesto gave me on my curated list was that he could not tell if I had a background in music due to my objective reasons for choosing each piece of music. I believe that objectivity in the assignment for curating a record to represent earth is imperative. BUT, objectivity grouping people is near impossible. Perhaps this network narrows down to who we could possibly have these conversations with as it shows commonalities in choices, but beyond that, the information is vague and ambiguous.

I have an extensive music background having studied for many decades and obtaining my theory and practical teaching level through the London College of Music at the age of 15. I found it, perhaps, easier to be objective with more background knowledge since I could appreciate each piece as individuals and not rely on which music I enjoyed the most (not that there is anything wrong with this strategy). I think it would be a more accurate depiction of our group if we were categorized using the WHY. Why did we choose which music to include? Why did we choose which music to exclude? Was it based on enjoyment? History? Alien research?

I appreciated the question regarding political implications of the groupings created. Systems Innovation (2015) brought up the point that many people see being connected as a positive, but it can just as easily be labelled as negative. I think this is, while minor, a reflection of how society groups based on intersectionality as a tool for oppression. Racism, sexism, religion, sexuality – all of these traits are used to categorize people without focusing on the important question of why. Why are these groups more at risk? Why have these groups historically faced discrimination? Why are we still using these traits to label people? These groupings are made on surface level assumptions to create societal so engrained in society that we stopped questioning them.

References

Systems Innovation. (2015, April 19). Network connections. [Video]. YouTube.

I tried to pick the most varied music I could. I think variety, if we are talking extraterrestrial, would be the most likely to get a response or gain a connection. For this reason I tried to select a variety of natural and constructed sounds. Language is socially constructed and would have no meaning out of that context, which is why I didn’t want to pick only songs that had words or some sort of spoken language in them.

1.  Track 4 Sounds of Earth – Voyager Golden Record

• Even though this was not included on the original music list, I believe this is an extremely important piece to add to this list, and I would argue that it may be one of the most important pieces OF MUSIC. The sounds of nature are cross-cultural and do not rely on any understanding of culture, which is unique to nature. Nature is neutral in all senses, which makes it the most beautiful music of all.

2. Mexico, “El Cascabel,” performed by Lorenzo Barcelata and the Mariachi México. 3:14

• Mariachi music was first introduced by musicians that accompanied Hernan Cortez (who is a terrible person) to Mexico in the 1700s. These musicians collaborated with Indigenous musicians to create the modern day Mariachi music (Clark, 1996). This music tells a story, is unique, and is a mash up of 2 cultures.

3. Bach, The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2, Prelude and Fugue in C, No.1. Glenn Gould, piano. 4:48

• Math is a cross-cultural subject, which makes Bach a welcome addition to the golden record. Math is ingrained in our every day life and represents a vast amount of cultures vs. 1 culture. Taylor (2019) discusses that math was the primary reason this piece of music was included on the record in the first place. I, personally, love this piece as I find it very pleasing and easy to listen to.

4. Java, court gamelan, “Kinds of Flowers,” recorded by Robert Brown. 4:43

• I found this song interesting as it is a royal song for a prince (Taylor, 2019). The song is comprised of instrumental and also vocals listing off different types of flowers. One of the main reasons I selected this piece is because of how different it was, at least in my opinion.

5. Zaire, Pygmy girls’ initiation song, recorded by Colin Turnbull. 0:56

• Performed by the Indigenous people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, this song is an example of traditional living and life. The Indigenous populations live primarily in the rainforests and rely on subsistence. The Indigenous people of the DRC are facing a similar story to the Indigenous communities residing in Canada. While they are recognized by the government they have been stripped of their governing bodies and rights. For this song to be included on the Golden Record is to recognize their significance.

6. Navajo Indians, Night Chant, recorded by Willard Rhodes. 0:57

• A representation from an Indigenous community is imperative for understanding Earth. If we are representing North America then the only true way to do this is through Indigenous voice. Indigenous communities rely heavily on knowledge passed down through story and song. Smith (1999) talks about the importance of digitizing text to combat losing information, and while preservation through digitization is debated, it is a start. This is particularly relevant to Indigenous communities as colonialism and discriminatory laws made language preservation impossible (Rice, 2022).

7. Peru, wedding song, recorded by John Cohen. 0:38

• Weddings are traditional ceremonies in many cultures, so this song seems fitting to be cross-culturally representing. Marriage, while socially constructed, is practiced all over the world. The meaning of marriage is what differs between cultures. Some cultures marry for love while others for family alliance. It is interesting that this song is the only song remaining uncredited. Rumor has it that perhaps the singer was so young they did not credit her, but regardless, I have included this in my list of songs to keep in hopes that she is found and credited (Misreader, 2019).

8. China, ch’in, “Flowing Streams,” performed by Kuan P’ing-hu. 7:37

• Like the nature sounds, it is important to incorporate as many sounds from our natural world as possible if the goal is to compile a true representation of who and what we are as species. We can not exist without our natural surroundings, reinforcing the importance of including it within the Golden Record.

9. India, raga, “Jaat Kahan Ho,” sung by Surshri Kesar Bai Kerkar. 3:30

• The transition from Flowing Streams to Jaat Kahan Ho is beautiful. They are both methodical in their own way and I think the transition is quite unique. I found Jaat Kahan Ho to be such a powerful representation of emotion in music. I also love that she resisted recording music for so long, reinforcing her appreciation and respect for the personal connection formed with live music (Sampath, 2019).

10. “Dark Was the Night,” written and performed by Blind Willie Johnson. 3:15

• It’s interesting that Taylor (2019) talks about the music being positive in the Golden Record, and yet we have this song included. It is imperative that there is a variety of emotion represented on the record if we truly want it to be a reflection of life on earth. Willie Johnson grew up in the late 1800s- early 1900s and faced discrimination due to being blind and black (Pinkard, 2016). The raw emotion embodied in his music is a representation of the oppression he faced every day resulting from the very real and unfortunate past in the Southern U.S.A.

Items in video (links)

Mat&Nat Bag & Hershel Bag

Ghostly Garlic Turkey Day Salt – They used to be in the Okanagan but just recently moved to Alberta, BC. Jenn and Nick are the BEST people and truly make the best garlic product out there. Worth the shipping costs. Not exaggerating when I say I have 20 different bottles.

Blue Light Glasses – If you stare at a screen all day, highly recommend. You can now add a blue light lens on your prescription too on a lot of website.

Pastel Highlighters & Ink Joy Pens

Neocitran – I mean the video truly explains my love for this stuff, but again, not a doctor.

Small Wallet – honestly SOO worth the $11 and it comes in multiple colours/patterns

Benefits & Challenges of mode-bending

I personally think engaging in mode-bending encourages and fosters critical thinking skills. The New London Group (1996) suggest the importance of being able to adjust to cultural shifts in the way language is communicated. Being literate is no longer defined by reading and writing alone, which is where the term multiliteracies comes from (NLG, 1996). What I love most about mode-bending is that it gives the creator the opportunity to create authentic material that is relevant to their cultural context in a specific moment in time (NLD, 1996).

The biggest challenge of mode bending for me was thinking outside the box. We have been taught for many generations to follow explicit instructions and mode-bending is almost the opposite of this. Mode-bending is challenging primary methods of conveying information. Mode-bending is authentic and open to interpretation. I think to truly grasp the importance and value of mode-bending, having an open-mind is imperative. Often we are quick to judge different modes of information, but if anything, this assignment taught me that there is no right or wrong way of providing thoughtful, authentic, and meaningful information to the world. Perhaps mode-bending pin holes your target demographic, but I think a lot of modern media creation is meant for specific demographics anyways (and because the internet provides massive access to demographic groups it makes it much easier).

The biggest challenge for mode bending on a global scale would be access to new media, as suggested by Dobson & Willinsky (2009). Without access to new media, the affordance to bend semiotic modes becomes extremely complicated, if not impossible.

Redesign process

This process was challenging for me in the beginning. I struggled to decide what mode-bending meant to me and what type of product I wanted to create. I looked at a few examples online and saw the vastness of opportunity as both overwhelming and exciting. I chose to do an ‘unboxing’ vlog because the algorithm on my Facebook seems to think I love these videos and has been showing me more and more. The type of unboxing videos I watch are usually surprise purchases being unboxed. For example, someone will purchase a crate of lost mail or a mystery box of goods from eBay. I find these both entertaining and mindless, which makes for easy viewing.

Once I chose the mode of how I wanted to present my project I felt some of the stress dissipate. I wanted to create a product that used as many modes of design as possible and was fun to watch. I have a hard time listening to just audio so I knew I wanted to incorporate the visual aspect of a video. I purchased a stand for my phone from Canadian Tire and found it made a HUGE difference in how uniform the video looked (vs. propping it up on something or using my hand to hold the phone up). The editing definitely took the longest amount of time (behind choosing a mode of presentation). I used a free online editor called Kapwing and found it really user friendly. It also has a variety of pre programmed images, texts. audio and gifs. I used Canva to create some of my own images (such as the rankings and intro page). I wanted the video to be as authentic to legitimate unboxing videos as possible so I chose to add in prices and images depicting where to purchase the items. I find this really useful when I am watching a video and see something I would be interested in purchasing.

Design modes used (NLG, 1996):

• Original project – Visual
• Mode-bended project (multi-modal) – Visual, Gestural, Audio, Linguistic

References

Dobson, T., & Willinsky, J. (2009). Digital literacyLinks to an external site.. In D. R. Olson & N. Torrance (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of literacy (pp. 286-312). Cambridge University Press.

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

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I found this task both frustrating and enjoyable (and had a great time getting my husband to read my story as I worked on it since we have been watching the TV show together). I ended up using the emoji keyboard that comes preloaded on iPhones. I typed the story in my notes and then e-mailed it to myself. When I copy and pasted it into e-mails the emojis did change slightly in appearance, but not enough for me to swap any of them out. I started with the title and laughed to myself as I realized how hard it was going to be to try and explain the show with the limited emojis that are available.

I used mostly ideas to construct the title and the plot description. I did this out of habit and also because a lot of the words I was looking for do not exist in emoji form. I assumed it would be easier to try and get the idea of the show across rather than try to represent certain words, which would have made it more of a riddle. Apple rid of their hand gun emoji in 2016 (Ortega, 2022) after controversy arose over Apple condoning gun violence. Because the show I chose to decipher is fairly violent, it made it challenging to convey those messages without having access to certain emojis. I found it really challenging to find emojis that represented verbs as well. For example, bite or eat was hard to represent.

Kress (2005) suggests that images are up for interpretation depending on which reader is the audience at a certain time. Compared to traditional written work, images leave interpretation to the imagination and how the reader connects those to the world using their life experiences. I love the use of emojis to connect to the life stories of different readers. Emojis are cross cultural as well, as they are their own language, that can be understood across the globe. However, depending on how the readers perceive certain emojis depends on culture, demographics, and society. For example “the angel or halo emoji (???? ) is regarded as threatening and a symbol of death in China, in Western cultures, it is used as a symbol of innocence. The applause emoji (????) is similarly different in different cultures. For example, while it symbolizes congratulations or praise in Western cultures, Chinese people consider it a symbol of making love.” (Erceber, 2022). From personal experience, one of the emojis I used, the smiley face with the hands up, can be interpreted as someone hugging or someone making a ‘yay’ gesture. I suppose those have similar meanings, but can mean completely different things depending on the context. In this case, the emoji is meant to represent a hug.

Honestly, who knows if anyone will guess it. If you are currently watching this show, you will DEFINITELY get it. But, if you have not seen it, chances are you definitely won’t.

References

Play my game here… at your own risk!

I had SO much fun creating this Twine game. I will be completely transparent in my disdain for following instructions, and yes… I understand the irony of this. Because of this quirk, I did not follow the YouTube video given by Ernesto, instead I searched for sources that I knew would work for me (explicit and mixed media – some YouTube, some website, etc.) For example, I searched how to change the font colour separate from how to link passages. I love explicit instructions that are chunked and easy to understand.

I created my story and then went back in and added gifs, changed colours, added tags, etc. I found that having a foundation of what my story looked like was less overwhelming then trying to write a passage and then format it. It was challenging for me to come up with a story I thought people would enjoy, and thus chose something from my life that I have lived. I also chose to expand on the hypertexts I used to include links to external sources. Bolter (2001) talks about the limitless nature of hypertext in the sense that using links within a book has confines, but using links within the internet has no bounds. I found this particularly interesting because I grew up reading the Give Yourself Goosebumps Series, which is a choose your own adventure book (Scholastic Kids, 2023). I understand what Bolter (2001) was touching on, in that the story only exists within those pages and nowhere else. With hypertext, stories can exist across such a vast area of the internet, it really is limitless.

I included hypertexts from Spotify, Amazon, Scholastic Kids, and YouTube (see if you can find them all).

References

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

Scholastic Kids (2023). Give yourself goosebumps series. Goosebumps. https://kids.scholastic.com/content/kids64/en/books/goosebumps/series/give-yourself-goosebumps.html

References for CSS/HTML (I did not put these in alpha order as I figured grouping them like this would be more meaningful for my classmates)

CSS/HTML coding for changing colours:

How to change the color of the background of a single passage? – Twine Q&A. (31 Aug, 2018). Retrieved February 12, 2023, from http://twinery.org/questions/27357/how-to-change-the-color-of-the-background-of-a-single-passage

Color codes:

Dixon, A. (2022). HTML color codes. https://htmlcolorcodes.com/

Changing text (alignment, size, colour):

Stockton WordPress Blog. (2015). A twine cheat sheet. https://blogs.stockton.edu/textscape/files/2015/04/A-Twine-Cheat-Sheet.pdf

DigitalExposureTV. (2018). Twine 2.0 – How to change main text colour [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_Zp2s0wgg8

Gifs:

https://tenor.com/

I used www.speechtexter.com to convert my speech to text for the purpose of this assignment.

Okay. To make this super authentic I did not practice I just thought of a story that I thought would be really funny and they’re truly was only one that came to mind so that is the story that I’m going to tell. I went to the Amazon jungle in 2016 with my now husband. We traveled around South America for 6:00 or 7 weeks and went to a bunch of different countries and ended up visiting the Amazon when we were in Bolivia. We flew on the worst rated airline in the world Amazonia instead of taking the worst rated Road in the world because we thought it might be safer. Upon arriving to the Amazon we realized that the national park that we were going to was called madidi and that means ants, so you can imagine how thrilled I was. I picked a tour that ended up being pretty rustic because I didn’t want to be able to pet animals there were a bunch of Tours where you could pet animals and like interact with the wild animals and I’m not super into that I wanted to make sure that we were going on a trip that respected the space and respected the wildlife so after the research that I did this was the one that came out to be the least intrusive to the environment. So we get into the Amazon via boat it was about a 2-hour boat ride and we get to this place that we’re staying and we’re staying in Hots that are suspended off the ground and we have mosquito Nets to protect us at night. Unfortunately, our guide did not speak very much English. We knew this going into it we were being super adaptable and weren’t really worried about the language barrier and we honestly expected it most of the places that we went anyways we just tried our best to communicate and everyone was really good about it which helped a lot. Q some poor decision making. Our guide would usually point to things and tell us if they were poisonous or not and then tell us how many hours we’d be in pain for if it were to bite us. So he’d say don’t touch pain 5 hours. Apparently, there’s only one thing that can actually kill you in the Amazon and it’s a black and red striped snake which we fortunately never saw. Because I’m super smart, I ate a mushroom off of the ground that he told me was edible. I don’t know what I was thinking but you can imagine a few hours later as I’m running to the bathroom in the middle of the night with tarantulas coming out of the ground in Pitch Black I pooped my pants.  So not only did I poop my pants but I was also stuck in the middle of the Amazon jungle with nowhere to go. Moral of the story don’t eat random things on the ground even if someone tells you that they’re edible.

Analysis of speech to text

This text is much less formal than conventional written English. It is challenging for me to make verbal language formal as I often use sarcasm and levity in my daily communication – this obviously does not translate as well in written communication. It is also challenging when using voice to text because you have to verbalize punctuation. Not only does this feel unnatural, but it is hard to remember to do, particularly with commas. The frequency of run-on sentences makes this text feel more like a stream of consciousness (which it technically is) than something written for reading purposes.

The most common mistakes were grammatical. This is a user error (me), as I found it really challenging to verbalize my punctuation. The only reason I consider these mistakes is because you can visually see the lack of punctuation. In oral language, punctuation is replaced with pauses or breaths. Other than the punctuation I think the voice to text program that I used actually did a great job.

The text also feels blase. Not only is it missing descriptors I would use in place of hand gestures or facial expressions, but it lacks the grammatical soundness to make it cohesive and enjoyable to read. I am well aware that I use facial expression and hand gestures more than the average person, but this activity made me realize that the utilization of those things takes the place of language I would maybe use without them. My humour is generally dry and I rely on inflection more than verbal explanation. I appreciate this activity as I would never have thought of the difference between my verbal and written language, and this has made me appreciate how other people shift into these different streams of communication. 

I assumed 5 minutes would be a long time to tell a story, which is why I chose a memory with a bit of backstory. Queue me looking at my clock realizing 4 minutes had passed without me getting even close to the punch line of the story. I found this interesting because I completely underestimated how long it would take me to tell and ironic because I don’t like drawn out stories. I certainly would have cut out some of the background information that did not lend to the rising action of the story (how I chose the trip, how we got there, etc.) and gone into more detail regarding my run to the bathroom (it was truly terrifying and disappointing) as it was the climax and most ‘exciting’ part.

I personally think that oral storytelling is easier to connect with than written storytelling. Oral storytelling is a window into another person’s life and the base for cultural exchange. Oral storytelling allows for interaction and clarity to be made between entities whereas written storytelling is up for interpretation depending on the reader. 

Oral storytelling is an important component of Indigenous learning and knowledge sharing. This assignment opened my eyes to how vast the difference is between written and oral stories. I understand more deeply the importance of oral storytelling and how they offer a different type of learning. Oral storytelling connects people deeply and allows unique cultural exchange. Oral storytelling allows people to bring their own culture and experiences (depending on who is telling the story), which is something written storytelling does not have the affordance to do.

The following are quotes from Dr. Boroditsky’s presentation on language and thought and my own connections to these statements (2017).

21:00 – “So the question is, once you’ve learned a language like this with grammatical gender do you actually end up thinking of the sun and the moon as somehow more male like or more female like depending on what gender they are in your language.”

• In British Columbia we start learning French at a fairly young age (in Elementary School). I think the fact that I learned grammatical gender while learning French, impacts the way I view words in English. I do not speak French currently, but because I learned grammatical gender at an impressionable age it had a cross over effect into my general language development. This could explain why I always assume dogs and cats are male (or this could perhaps be due to growing up within a society where the patriarchy is deeply ingrained in culture). 

24:49 – “There’s some evidence suggesting that hurricanes that happen to get female names, these names of course are randomly assigned to hurricanes, are more deadly because people don’t evacuate when they’re told to because they underestimate the potential destruction of these hurricanes.”

• I have a gender neutral/unisex name, Jessie, and often find that people assume I am a man. When said people see that I am, in fact, a woman, they visibly react with confusion. The first day of my teaching practicum in 2014, I walked into the classroom and my practicum teacher said “Oh wow, I thought you were a man.” I could see the disappointment on his face and wondered if he would have accepted me as a student knowing that I am female. I knew from then, much like the hurricanes, that my ability would be underestimated. I think he ended up being pleasantly surprised by my level of competence, despite being a woman (this is meant to bring levity to this post and is meant in a purely sarcastic context). The biggest challenge for society moving forward is trying to undo the stereotypes that the patriarchy has instilled in social norms regarding gender.

28:35 – “This is a split second event (talking about someone being shot) but he makes it into four events right and he just happens to be on one end of that long chain but this is something language allows us to do. I can say we cured polio and that’s one verb for those very complicated protracted events or I can use four verbs to say I shot my friend in the face. In fact, whenever you are choosing a verb you’re taking a perspective on how much time you’re going to compact into an event.”

• Dr. Boroditsky suggests that the English language lacks the context of time when events are retold. I completely agree with this statement and find that it makes communication challenging when deciphering importance based on length. Generally, if something is important I prefer for it to be said explicitly and to the point. If a story is for entertainment or shock value I can understand why it may be drawn out or more details may be added. Because I prefer explicit communication, I struggle with people who tell drawn out stories. Unfortunately, my husband is one of these people. All jokes aside, I do find this type of communication really challenging because I find it very hard to pay attention (for this reason I also truly despise the explanation of board games). I understand that this challenge is something I must overcome as not all people are going to accommodate my impatience with drawn out language. I think I can even learn to appreciate this type of communication if I truly put my mind to it as we can learn from those who use language differently than ourselves.

41:20 – “There are lots of decisions that we make that may be less important but nonetheless still deal with this relationship between language and thought. For example, a few years ago the California prune board petitioned the FDA to allow them to change the name of their product from prunes to dried plums. This cost them millions of dollars to do. Why would they do such a thing? Well, the word prune lived in a bad linguistic neighborhood. Imagine what prunes are associated with, of course, old-age, constipation.” – She later states that changing the name made the product sell MUCH more but they had to have some that still said Prunes because old people didn’t want dried plums….

• I love this analogy because it is very reflective of how language changes and grows within contexts and time. The idea that words belong to linguistic neighborhoods is very similar to gendered nouns. So much of language is socially constructed within a culture and as that culture shifts demographically, so does the context of words. An example of this would be the use of the word ‘sick’ in the 90s. I grew up using this word to mean something that was really cool or awesome while my parents used it in the literal sense of not feeling well. Another word that was used in a different context in the 90s/early 2000s was the word dope. Dope also meant cool or awesome, but the first time my dad heard me say this he gave me a very interesting look and asked if I knew what it meant. He clearly had a different meaning of the word from the 70s, which was a slang term for marijuana. The connotation of words shifts with culture and we have to be able to adapt to the ever changing context of language. The prune company rebranded, spending millions, to change with the context of the language within their culture.

43:54 – “Our languages and cultures make us super smart, we inherit so much knowledge that has been built over thousands of generations of our predecessors.”

• The BC Curriculum identifies the importance of Indigenous perspective and knowledge in education. First Peoples Principles of Learning (First Nations Education Steering Committee, 2007). The Principles of Learning state the following that are related to what Dr. Boroditsky touches on above:
  • Learning is embedded in memory, history, and story
  • Learning involves generational roles and responsibilities
• These learning principles connect deeply with the statement made above by Dr. Boroditsky. We have so much to learn from the Indigenous Principles of Learning and the way Indigenous cultures pass on information and knowledge through storytelling.
• CLICK FOR FIRST PEOPLES LEARNING PRINCIPLES

51:15 – “Communication between any two people even who speak the same language still has a lot of problems. I don’t know if you’re married… but most married people have experienced this.”

• To be completely transparent, communication is one of the biggest challenges in most of my relationships. This does not simply mean that communication isn’t working or is broken, it just means that communication is the component in relationships that I constantly need to adjust and work on in order to foster understanding and empathy within my relationships. My husband and I started going to counseling together to work on our communication ‘tool kit’ after he was in a very bad car accident and suffered substantial brain trauma. I think the way we interpret language, how we learn language, and the communication we grow up with, heavily impacts the way we interact with others. I appreciated Dr. Boroditsky’s humor when discussing communication problems, because it adds some lightness to something that most humans (at least I think) struggle with at some point in their lives. It goes to show how complicated language can be and that language and communication are two very different entities. Language has structure and rules and can be taught using paper and pencil. In my experience, communication is a skill that needs to be learned in an ever changing culture.

57:00 – “People are always using language in new ways. Language has never been static, it’s a living thing and the one thing that has been common throughout history is that older people complain about how younger people are killing the language and soon there will be no more language left because of the kids these days.” – In response to a question about how texting is changing thought.

• I found this statement particularly interesting because I frequently catch myself in my own hypocrisy surrounding cell phones and texting. I thought it was important that Dr. Boroditsky mentioned that this is a chronic feeling among all generations – that the younger generation is doing something ‘bad’ to harm what they have created. I do not necessarily think there is a hierarchy of delivery methods when it comes to communication and instead the communication (content) itself should be the focus of analysis. I also think it is important to note that a lot of the communication related to my job is done through e-mail, which is simply a more formal way of texting. When I find myself being overcritical of teenagers communicating through their phones, I remind myself of this.

References

B.C. Curriculum. (2020, October 5). Indigenous Knowledge and Perspectives in K-12 Curriculum. https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/curriculum/indigenous-education-resources/indigenous-knowledge-and-perspectives-k-12-curriculum

FNESC. (2007). First Peoples Principles of Learning. Retrieved January 17, 2023, from http://www.fnesc.ca/first-peoples-principles-of-learning/

SAR School for Advanced Research. (2017, June 7). Lera Boroditsky, how the languages we speak shape the way we think [Video]. YouTube.

What’s in my bag?

For the ‘what’s in your bag’ activity, I chose my work bag. I use this bag 5 days a week for work as a PE teacher/Athletic Director at a high school in the Okanagan. I have had this specific bag for 6 years and it serves me well.

Here are the insides of my bag:

• Work Keys x 2
• Wallet/cross body bag
  • Science centre pass
  • Driver’s license
  • Credit card
  • Cash
  • Coins (for parking, although I have the parking app)
• Car keys
• Blistex Lip Chap
• Tampons
• Hand sanitizer
• Mr. Noodles
• Cheese string (daily staple)
• Cellphone
• Flash drive
• A few forks
• A soother (not pictures as my toddler saw it and immediately stole)
• Chip clips

Even though I cart these items around everyday, I do not use each of them in my everyday life. The items I physically use daily include my work keys and cellphone. My work keys unlock the outside door of the school, the door to the gym, and the door to my office. I carry these around with me and then return them to my bag at the end of the day, to be used again the following morning. My phone remains in my office as I have an Apple Watch that notifies me if there are any pressing e-mails/texts that need immediate attention (this is one of the struggles with being an athletic director – people sometimes need responses sooner than later). I also use my phone to pay, so I do not physically use my wallet. I have started to notice a twinge of anxiety boiling up when a store does not take ApplePay because I use my credit card so infrequently I get nervous it won’t work. I very rarely, physically handle my car keys. While car keys are imperative for driving, they never leave my bag, therefore, I am not physically using them. The keys are a fob that unlock the door in proximity and start the engine in proximity, so they usually live at the bottom of the bag. This activity has shown me how strongly I rely on the technology in my bag working while passively interacting with it.

The other items in my bag are simply there ‘just in case’ – who  knows when you’re going to need a cup of noodles. I don’t carry a lot around with me since I have an office and use my personal computer at home. All of my marks, resources and scheduling happen digitally – hence the lack of an agenda and computer in my bag. While I’d say it represents me well, I’d say it’s a tad boring and that my work desk would probably be a better indication of my personality (RuPaul cup and all).

Text technologies

I rely heavily on text technologies throughout my day. My phone and Apple Watch are synced and keep me in the know throughout my day at work. I am mindful and take my watch off at home and tuck my phone away so that I can ‘unplug’ in some sense. My phone and watch allow me to reply to emails and text people in a timely manner for athletic related questions/issues. My watch also allows me to play music and keep time during PE classes without having to constantly go to my phone to stop time or change songs. The technology in my bag allows me to stay connected on the go. I think these text technologies show that I am connected to modern communication. While part of my communication happens in person, most of my connections are supported by technology  (e-mail, text, canvas, whatsapp, messenger, weebly athletics website, etc.). I suppose I never thought about how heavily my communication channels have shifted into a digital space.

The flash drive that I carry holds important documents in case I do not have data or wifi (for cloud connection). I have come to realize that my reliance on technology for my job and school is only as reliable as the accessibility I have. For example, if the wifi is down at work and I do not have access to my cloud, I have no way of printing documents from my computer unless I hotspot my phone. While this is a reality in some cases, in others it isn’t feasible (especially if I am near my data limit).  For this reason, the flash drive truly is for post-apocalyptic circumstances

I believe if my bag was analyzed 15 years ago it would look very similar, but may have a flip phone instead of an iPhone. This goes to show how items viewed in a superficial way may misrepresent the use (how I use my iPhone to connect to my watch and to pay for everything). In 25 years I hope this bag is empty and I am living my best retired life. I’m sure my phone, wallet, and keys will still be an integral part of my day to day life. This activity certainly made me question why I carry around the mundane chip clips or tampons (comfort?) and made me realize how heavily I truly rely on text technology throughout my waking hours.