To find my original linking comments in the wild, please click on the links below and scroll down to the comments! The comments I added below have my addition of a reflection.

Sonia – Voice to Text

Hi Sonia,

I loved your story and response. I connect with both on a personal level and find we had many thoughts in common in our reflection. Quite honestly, the first couple paragraphs of our reflections are almost the same! I struggled with punctuation as I was verbalizing it, and frankly, it was throwing me off. As was consistently looking at the clock! I found that I only got to the punch line of my story in the last few seconds and didn’t really spend time on the climax of the story… making it a bit anticlimactic. I thrive off of oral storytelling and use it primarily to pass on knowledge while teaching. I also find that I use speech to text quite a bit as I often use my apple watch to ‘text’ so I don’t have to actively have my phone on me.

I appreciate your willingness to step outside of your comfort zone and try kayaking! It is definitely harder than canoeing if you’ve never been, since you’re so much closer to the water (at least I find, as I have a major water phobia). I also chuckled to myself when you said you were obviously wearing a life jacket. My family grew up on the water (ironic with my fear of water). I learned to kayak, canoe, and wakeboard at a fairly young age. While it was always encouraged to wear life jackets… there were certainly moments when paddleboarding or casually kayaking where we did not. One year in Tofino (off the coast of Vancouver Island), my dad was canoeing out to check his crab trap with his friend. They ended up tipping their canoe and had to be rescued by the coast guard. Regardless of wearing life jackets or not they would have had to have been rescued, but I think he was pretty embarrassed they weren’t. Needless to say, after that we were all encouraged more frequently to wear life jackets.

Jessie

Reflection

The reason I chose to link with Sonia’s work is because I connected to it on a personal level. I liked that Sonia chose a personal story and that it was entertaining to read. Not only was her narrative an adventure, like mine, but we also struggled with similar things as we went through the assignment – timing, punctuation, etc.

With punctuation, I found that I was constantly having to verbally speak the punctuation in order for it to be included in my story. While this is frustrating, I can see how a voice to text app would not recognize where to put punctuation – it is simply converting word for word what the author is saying – not making edits.

Phi – An Emoji Story

Hi Phi,

I appreciate the time you took to choose emojis that represented the story. I also chose the same approach in story telling through ideas vs. trying to find word for word representations.

I really enjoyed the quote you chose because I think it is really relevant to how we communicate today. “Words no longer seem to carry conviction without the reappearance as a picture of the imagery that was latent in them. Throughout the history of writing, there have been visual puns and designs that combine words, icons, and pictures.” (Bolter, 2001, p.54). I think it was only a matter of time for emojis to appear, as we have seen visuals accompanied with written text all throughout history. Think of picture books, textbooks, magazines, newspapers, etc.

I think the nuances of how emojis are used is so interesting, considering they change over time. The Skull emoji or Coffin emoji is used to refer to the term ‘dead’ meaning something is hilarious or ridiculous. I think emojis add an imperative context to text. Think about when someone texts someone ‘k’. The dreaded ‘K’. If someone puts a laughing emoji or heart after, it completely changes the context than if it were to remain on it’s own. I think a lot of issues arise from perception when it comes to written text as the meaning is often lost in the digital translation. Emojis add some context and emotion (good or bad) to written text and allow us to communicate more effectively using it.

References

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

Reflection

I chose Phi’s story because I had just finished watching season 2 of Alice in Borderland and knew this was the show Phi’s emoji story was representing.

Phi and I used similar ideas when it came to how we told the story. We both chose stories that are not easily represented by emojis (both R rated) and therefore we had to take a different approach compared to word for word representation.

I appreciate also that Phi told a much larger part of the story in his work. I also tried to do this by representing the entire first and second episode in my story by only highlighting the most important parts of the plot.

Elaine – Twine Story

Elaine, This was HILARIOUS and also very stressful, especially since I teach high school and struggle with totally different things on my day to day. I’m not going to lie…. your job seems a lot harder than mine does… I go pee whenever I need (although I suppose a lot of trust comes with that). I truly could not imagine having to hold it… all I see is a million UTIs, no thanks.

I appreciate that some of your pages didn’t have options – it is actually super realistic to a teaching day, sometimes you truly don’t have a choice. I also enjoyed your addition of images as it kept me super interested. I found it very entertaining that you used a bitmoji of yourself to show different emotions – I was riding that emotional roller coaster with you.

I also struggled with uploading my twine and chose to upload it to a third party game site and embed it that way on my page. I also found googling different code was really helpful and allowed me to change colours and fonts as well as embed gifs! I have now started using Twine in my Grade 8 Information Technology/Robotics class as an assignment and my students love it. I did make a coding cheat sheet as I understand (from personal experience) how frustrating it can get to test code until it works. I really enjoyed the quote you chose by Bolter (2001), “in following hypertextual links, the reader becomes conscious of the form or medium itself ” (p.43). I think by adding hypertext links it forces the audience to engage. In order to make an informed decision, critical thinking must take place. Instead of being passive consumers of media it allows us to engage actively with it.

Jessie

Bolter, Jay David. (2001). Writing space: computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print. New York, NY: Routledge.

Reflection

I ultimately chose Elaine’s story because the beginning interface looked interesting and also because she is a teacher! I teach high school so I was really intrigued to go through a day in the life of a teacher from an elementary grade, and let me tell you it did not disappoint!

What I loved about Elaine’s game was that it was short and sweet. I tried to keep my game shorter by not using as much writing and instead throwing in some GIFs to elicit emotion.

I find that I am much more likely to complete a Twine if I am engaging more frequently as apposed to reading huge chunks of writing and then making a choice only to see another huge chunk of writing I must read. I also saw this sentiment the first time I had my students play each others ‘choose your own adventure’ games. Students were drawn to games that had less writing and more choices.

Adhemar – Mode-Bending

Adhemar,

I appreciate your use of Voyant Tools, it is a new tool to me! I loved this breakdown of mode-bending and thought it was really creative and an interesting analysis of the original tasks. So much of language use is repetition and this mode showed exactly that.

What I love most about this mode-bending assignment is that is engages a totally different type of literacy with cross-curricular aspects showing up (with, for example, math). In our modern world, literacy no longer means reading and writing in traditional methods (pen and paper). According to The New London Group (1996), “effective citizenship and productive work now require that we interact effectively using multiple languages, multiple Englishes, and communication patterns that more frequently cross cultural, community, and national boundaries” (pg. 64). I think the way you chose to bend your original task did exactly this. By choosing a medium like graphing, you cross cultural boundaries of language.

I appreciate that you represented your work using multiple graphs. Not only does this allow the reader more critical thinking time but allows readers to analyze differences between the modes of communication. I really enjoyed watching the first graph makes its way through when and where the words were used in your written work. I can see this being a useful tool for students and, frankly, for personal interest. What a unique way to find theme within a written piece of work.

Jessie

References

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

Reflection

I chose Adhemar’s mode-bending assignment because it was so different from mine. What I truly loved about this assignment as a whole was how different everyone interpreted it. I loved going through all the assignments to see how different they all were. I can see how many of these different platforms could be used in an education setting.

What I love about different modes of communication is that they truly can represent almost all content – making them cross-curricular. This is why I didn’t mind learning how to use Twine. While in the moment it may have seemed like a huge undertaking and took me much longer than other assignments, I knew that I could use it in so many different contexts.

Sonia – Mode-Bending

Sonia,

I really loved how to interpreted this assignment. I chose to do a video as well but our videos turned out totally different!  That was probably one of my favourite parts of this assignment, how different everyone’s final product was. I appreciate that you used visuals to show different connections and to deepen meaning as well as using a voice over for explanation.

It definitely took me stepping outside of my comfort zone to create a vlog but I am glad that I did it. It showed me the behind the scenes of how complicated video production can be and how meaning making using video can be powerful.

Jessie

Reflection

What I enjoyed most about Sonia’s Mode-Bending was that is was really different! I chose to do a video as well, but our final products were unique from each other. I love the medium of video because there is a variety of interpretations of what a video is and could be. I appreciate the visuals that Sonia used in her work.

I connected with Sonia’s statement “if as educators, we are expecting students to be prepared for an ever-changing world, we must start in the classroom, by allowing them the ability to learn in a variety of different formats and contexts.” I completely agree that educators need to be flexible and experiment with how they present information. It’s hypocritical to expect students to step outside of their comfort zones and create content, if we aren’t willing to do the same. I actually found that I appreciated the process of vlogging more after I created my own vlog for this assignment.

Petros – Attention Economy

Petros,

What originally drew me to your assignment was the levity added into your post. I too found this so frustrating but I had to finish it. I was so mad and to make matters worse I was doing it at work while on my prep and trying not to rage in my shared office space. I found it really interesting how you noted that everything was backwards (boxes were above or below or checked). I too found myself thinking the same thing as I was going through, but then I reminded myself that all of these things we found inconvenient was because we were used to them being done a certain way, not necessarily a ‘right’ way.

When I think of the ‘right’ way or at least the way we are used to, I think it looks like this:

• pop ups show up in the middle of the screen with an X in the top right hand corner to exit out of
• Advertisements are usually on the top, bottom, or sides of a page
• Boxes for choices are left empty for us to fill out
• Any box that is meant to move you forward is generally bolded and on the right side of any ‘cancel’ box
• You accept terms and conditions instead of select ‘don’t accept’

I try to imagine what this game would look/feel like if we were accustomed to the way it presents information. It just goes to show how constructed our views surrounding efficiency in technology is.

Jessie

Reflection

What originally drew me to Petros task was that he stopped before the 2 minute mark. This made me laugh because I could almost feel his frustration and I, too, wanted to give up multiple times. I think if I was having a bad day when I attempted to complete the task I certainly would not have been successful.

I think what this task exacerbated was how in your face ads can be and even more frustratingly, how hidden they can be. With this task we were bombarded with information CONSTANTLY. When information is snuck in here and there, we don’t necessarily see it as intrusive and click where we weren’t necessarily planning to. For example, on Instagram when you scroll through and an add randomly pops up with a ‘shop now ->’ button. I certainly have clicked those links AND I have also bought from them. Shame on me for buying into it right? Whatever, I got my favourite toothbrush from one of those ads so you win some you lose some.

I think what I learned most from this assignment, in hindsight, is how stealthy good advertising is.