Click here to view the emoji story.

I used https://emojityper.com to complete this assignment after finding it difficult find specific emojis or quickly realize if they exist on https://emojikeyboard.io/ . I think this was at least partially due to my unfamiliarity with emojis available as I rarely use them preferring just to use text in texts, emails or IMs, though I do enjoy the “verbal-visual pun” of memes (Bolter, 2001, p.53). I did start with the title as it was a small chunk of the story (start with a small success for motivation). I chose the work as it was one that is fairly well known of the media I am currently consuming, had a plot that was fairly “school appropriate,” and I thought I would be able to visualize it. I started the movie Encanto but couldn’t decide how I wanted to represent the title (as a magic house, as singing notes, or as a family) or the various characters. I did not use any syllables but did one sound alike representation in my story. Mostly I chose emojis to convey ideas using some punctuation to help particularly to make an idea using more than one emoji using parentheses. I struggled with the preset nature of the emojis and having to find the best emoji to fit especially when large ideas like protests were not available. In this it is similar to the typesetter changing words as he doesn’t have sufficient “g”‘s for a specific text. Images alone constrain the ability to transmit ideas to their fullest the same way text alone can also constrain ideas. Bolter (2001) echos this by indicating that adding images to printed text was a great achievement while moving this forward to indicate that “breaking the rules” of traditional printing in digital media by amateurs allows for “typographic freedom” (p. 49).

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

I decided to create a game that we could use to give public health practicum students an overview of the processes around investigating and managing provincially notifiable enteric illnesses. At first I started to make one focusing on the monk story for task 4 but quickly decided to instead do something I could practically use. If I had more time I would try to add more images, videos and some audio elements to make it more engaging.

The last time I did Twine for a group project we made a script and then plugged it into twine but this time I just worked in Twine directly. This method likely resulted in more grammar and spelling errors due to the lack of spell check in Twine. Overall I am still not convinced that Twine offers substantial affordances over use of Google Slides for “choose your own adventure” based games. Twine does provide a graphic overview (story map) and cannot be “cheated” by simply viewing the slides instead of playing the game as is possible in Google slides. However, Google Slides allows for easy collaboration, use on mobile devices, and does not require coding script to insert pictures or external links as Twine does. Twine, in some ways, is similar to the Vannevar Bush’s Memex in that pages are added by hyperlink and seamless collaboration on the device is not possible (Bush, 1945). I used many external as well as internal hyperlinks in the game to provide additional information and reference material. These external links create a bit of a “concept package” as described by Englebart (1963, p. 60) of Alberta enteric disease public health practices . I think I could also make a simplified version of the game for lay people or high school students for use in career exploration or health class.

Play the Game: Disease Detective (4).html

References:

Bush, V. (1945). As we may think. The Atlantic Monthly, 176(1), 101-108.

Englebart, Douglas. (1963). “A conceptual framework for the augmentation of man’s intellect.” In Hawerton, P.W. and Weeks, D.C. (Eds.), Vistas in information handling, Volume I: The augmentation of man’s intellect by machine. Washington, DC: Spartan Books. Available (as “Augmentation of human intellect: A conceptual framework”)

Below is a hand-written text entitled “A Monk’s Dream Unfulfilled.” It is a story of a young monk who receives a vision about the printing press and starts to think about how he can fulfill this vision from God. Inspired by this week’s assigned podcasts from Stuff To Blow Your Mind and the video on the Medieval Help desk.

I normally write by typing at a laptop computer. I very rarely produce text for others by hand, however I will write by hand when making notes for myself. Mobility and efficiency are typically my greatest considerations when deciding to write by hand or by type. I have always disliked doing homework at a desk and using a laptop allows for more options like writing with the laptop on my chest outside or on a bed. Mobility is also the reason I choose to write by hand during inspections- I find it easier and lighter to move a clipboard and pen around then a laptop in a busy, cramped kitchen. Efficiency is the other consideration. If I can enter something directly in a program in real time I try to do that as it is more efficient than doing it first by hand and then again by type. When doing inspections, the mobility overrides the efficiency but if we had lighter tablets instead of laptops then that consideration may shift in favour of efficiency.

I found this task difficult for a number of reasons. The biggest was the need to write linearly. The greatest advantage of typing on a computer is the ability to move text around easily. When writing an essay, I like to free write, then organize paragraphs, while doing introductions and conclusions last or when I am stuck in the middle of the assignment. I chose to write a story in the hopes it would help me to write more linearly however it was still difficult. Many teachers and professors realize this recursive nature of writing such as Stetson University (n.d.) yet few articles talk about the affordances of computer typing for recursive, non-linear writing. I chose to write in pencil so I could erase my work but the eraser marks are very noticeable. I would imagine it was the same when the scribe would scrape a mistake from the vellum media. I found I had to ignore my desire to change my writing as I would have needed to start on a new page and redo previous work (that desire for efficiency was riding me). Sometimes I would also just write over the letter, this was typically when I misformed part of the letter (particularly an issue with u, b and d today). If I had chosen to work in pen I would have needed to scribble out mistakes instead which would have effected my average words per line and broken up the story flow. Spelling is also difficult for me and I found myself using the computer for some words or switching my word choice to something I could spell without help. Likely spelling mistakes remain in the text. It made me really appreciate the easy of editing in a computer typed document (a typewriter is similar to writing by hand due to the difficultly in editing).

The inability to edit without redoing work or making the text look unclean was one of the most significant differences between writing by hand and using a computer. I vastly prefer a computer for this reason as it allows me to produce professional looking texts more easily and allows for quick edits throughout the text. Starting over on a new sheet of paper to recopy existing work hurts my efficient soul. However if we are thinking about writing by hand compared to the typewriter speed or uniformity of the text would be the most significant difference while writing by hand and the printing press would have speed and uniformity between copies be its greatest difference. Thus mechanized writing as a whole cannot be easily compared to writing by hand as there are many forms of mechanized writing.

References

Stetson University. (n.d.). Writing Program. Retrieved June 12, 2022, from https://www.stetson.edu/other/writing-center/media/G_Part_3.pdf

Resources for Story:

Cleveland Clinic. (2021, June 17). Bubonic plague (black death): What is it, symptoms, treatment. Cleveland Clinic. Retrieved June 12, 2022, from https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/21590-bubonic-plague

Mepkin Abbey. (2021, February 12). Liturgy of the hours. Mepkin Abbey. Retrieved June 12, 2022, from https://mepkinabbey.org/liturgyofthehours/

Lamb, R. & McCormick, J. (Hosts). (2021, May 8). From the vault: Invention of the book, part 1 [Audio podcast episode]. In Stuff to blow your mind. https://www.iheart.com/podcast/stuff-to-blow-your-mind-21123915/episode/from-the-vault-invention-of-the-82316952/

Lamb, R. & McCormick, J. (Hosts). (2021, May 15). From the vault: Invention of the book, part 2 [Audio podcast episode]. In Stuff to blow your mind. https://www.iheart.com/podcast/stuff-to-blow-your-mind-21123915/episode/from-the-vault-invention-of-the-82564254/