Jordon Lovig ETEC 540

Did you rely more on syllables, words, ideas or a combination of all of them?

Because the novel that I chose is one that is admittedly light on plot but heavy on ideas, I relied heavily on these ideas when “writing” out my emoji story. In my initial attempt I tried to rely on words, however I quickly found that the choice of emojis simply wasn’t sufficient to communicate the plot in any meaningful way.

Did you start with the title? Why? Why not?

I did start with the title because I felt it would be the most straightforward way to begin. The title of my chosen novel is two words, both of which are relatively easily communicated using emojis. As a matter of fact, once I got the title down I thought to myself “this might be easy” but once I began translating the rest of the work in earnest, I quickly discovered this was not the case.

Did you choose the work based on how easy would it be to visualize? 

No, in keeping with the task instructions, I simply chose the most recent book I read, which also happens to be my favorite novel. I will say that this particular novel, and the works of the author as a whole, have a reputation for being somewhat minimalistic- light on plot, but heavy in terms of theme and ideas. As such, I think the works lends itself well to the excersize, even if I did have some difficulty putting it together. Central themes of the work include death and mortality, consumerism and paranoia in the media. As these themes are recurring throughout the novel, I felt I didn’t have to have too many emojis. The work itself can be a bit difficult to follow even written in plain English, so I quickly discovered that any attempt to convey the actual plot using emojis was more or less fruitless. That said, I think this shows that there is more than one way to communicate information- you can try being specific, which didn’t work well for this task, or you can use “broad strokes” to convey general ideas and themes, which I felt was far more appropriate.

For Task 4, I chose to write a manual script in the style of a journal entry. The topic I chose is my mom’s recent visit for my 40^th birthday.

Whether I choose to write by hand or to type on a computer tends to depend on the type of writing I am doing. I typically write by hand when writing personal pieces- things like journal entries, dumb little poems, and letters to friends and family. I also write by hand when making notes from course reading material. I find that when writing by hand, I absorb the information better. When typing, it feels much more mechanical, and I often find that I’m not really paying close attention to what is written. Because I do a fair amount of writing by hand, I found this task to be relatively straight forward.

Because this written piece was done in a stream of consciousness style, very few edits were necessary. When I made a spelling mistake or other error, I would simply cross it out and continue writing. Interestingly, I find that when I make a mistake while writing by hand I notice it and make the correction immediately, before I continue writing. By contrast, when typing I typically don’t notice my mistakes until the word processor catches them for me. I’ll generally type out the whole piece before going back and making any corrections. I’m not sure how this really affects the final product, but I feel that when typing I’m able to “get the whole thought out” at once, making edits later, whereas by hand I am continually thinking about what I’m saying and editing the work as I go along.

Probably the most striking difference between writing and typing is the fatigue that sets in when writing by hand. I notice my work gets sloppier as I go along and I wonder if this impacts the message that I’m trying to convey. I can’t say I really prefer one method over the other- I think it’s important to take context into consideration. Typing works better for me when writing formally, when I need to proofread and ensure that language, tone and spelling and grammar are all correct. But when I’m just working through my thoughts, I prefer to write by hand. Seeing the piece come together slowly is pretty rewarding, and I often feel a sense of clarity when finished. That said, I rarely go back and read the words I’ve written- I find the act of writing is enough in and of itself.

For this task, I chose to talk a little bit about my career as an educator and how I became interested in the MET program at UBC. To begin, here is the full text of my short (4-5 min) story, which was recorded using speechnotes.co

Okay good evening I’ve given it some thought over the the past few days and I’ve been trying to think of a good story to tell. And to be perfectly honest I can really think of a of a great story for my life at least Teresa would for sure be may be appropriate for infants in in the the context of the so what I thought I would do instead it’s just talked a little bit about the work that I do in education in my career progression up to this point I’m kind of how I found myself in the m e t program as per the instructions of the assignments I haven’t done any preparation talk haven’t written anything out so I am just watching the clock here I’ve been told that I ramble before which I think is not necessarily a great quality but maybe we’ll actually serve me well for this assignment and help me fill up a few minutes here. Edmonton Alberta and I attended University at the University of Alberta where did my undergraduate in Psychology when I finished my psychology degree I found that I enjoyed the university experience so much that I just didn’t want to to leave by the university environment so it seemed like a natural fit to just start working at the school so I had a background in in kind of retail sales commission sale so I started working a little bit in student recruitment in entry-level role futon into are the admissions department and then into registrations of filling a few different roles in in the registrar’s office for several years and as I approached the age of 30 I was ready for some changes in my life there is nothing really time me down then I went to my whole life and I thought hey I think it would be great if I could pursue this line of work just in a different city so I looked around and I applied for jobs all over the country. Miguel and UBC I was interviewed I did a Skype interview for her role in the Enrollment Services at UBC and I got the job and over the next couple weeks I gave away all of my possessions on Craigslist I packed what I had left in my Honda Civic and I drove across the country and this was in 2013 and then I arrived at at UBC and in Vancouver City that I had really never actually even been to before and it worked out well I’m really glad that I took that risk I took that chance on myself because it ended up being on a fantastic. I moved into a new role in Enrollment Services at UBC and I was in that role for about six and a half years and I learned so much working really closely with students are particularly accessibility challenges financial challenges you do kind of emergency funding helping them with student loans in a lot of other things as well and I really just enjoyed the work and I enjoyed the atmosphere and it worked out pretty well so a few years into that job I decided hey you know I think it’s pretty much settled now I work in education in education so I should be pursuing a master’s degree that’s when I applied to and was admitted to the the masters of educational shortly after covid started just a couple years ago in early 2020 at a very inconvenient I’m an excellent opportunity i’m where I was offered a role as the associate register our registration and student Information Services here at the cath lab do you once again this was a big risk because it was very uncertain time I think it’s we all knew and it really big career opportunity a big promotion a lot more responsibilities taking on a roller and manage a team and I’m really over seeing entire unit really challenging so kind of me managing team we just kind of from my my kitchen counter which at the time a couple years very strange experience once again and you know I’m kind of happy to say the risk paid pretty well because I’ve been in that role for a couple years now and and I’ve really gotten a lot of experience has been very challenging keep saying challenging but it’s true throughout this time it again ghetto training 4 G’s relationships with with my staff and with other people in the institution you know doing it all through email and your team’s chats and enter screen and things like that and certainly a different world working the smaller institution very different from the UBC in the U of A where I came from a very large well-established is quite small has a lot of different challenges in terms of like funding recruitment and Retention but I really enjoyed kind of i’m going to learning about that stuff and and growing more in my role here so I’m now in the knights course of Miami TV program meeting I’ve got one more to go taking next September and then I’m done so by the end of the calendar year I’ll no have three years experience as a you know as a unit manager and in this industry disagree and I think I’ll have a lot more career opportunities coming into a 2023 and that I’m really excited to see where that takes me so that’s a brief overview that’s my story I guess we’re at about 5 minutes or so thanks and mmm that’s it have a good night

How does the text deviate from conventions of written English?

Most notably, there is no punctuation, which gives the text a “stream of consciousness” type feel, which I actually think is appropriate given the content- I was after all just speaking off the top of my head. It also includes text of audible pauses- “mmm” and “uh”, etc. Generally speaking, you would not see this in a formal written text, although you certainly do when reading dialogue in fiction.

What is “wrong” in the text? What is “right”?

There’s a great deal wrong with the text. In many cases, the technology misrepresented what I was saying. Many words, (i.e. “Teresa”, “infants”, “cath lab”,  “Miami tv”) were not actually what I said and make no sense in the context of the speech.

Interestingly, one thing the text seems to get right is recognizing proper nouns, which in most cases are capitalized. Words like UofA, UBC, Craigslist, Vancouver, etc. Also, while the many errors make the story sounds goofy and difficult to follow, I do think that overall it’s accurate enough to get a general idea of what I was trying to communicate.

What are the most common “mistakes” in the text and why do you consider them “mistakes”?

The most common mistakes are surely the presence of words I did not actually say. I would consider them mistakes because they really do change the overall message that is being communicated, and if taken literally, they make things pretty confusing. The text also doesn’t include any periods, commas, questions marks or exclamation points. I don’t know if I would consider this a mistake per se- it’s more a limitation of the technology. While the absence of punctuation does make the text more difficult to read, it also lends itself well to the stream of consciousness style of the text, which is appropriate in this context.

What if you had “scripted” the story? What difference might that have made?

I think that if I had scripted the story, I likely would have enunciated the words more clearly, spoken more slowly which would in turn have lead to fewer errors in the final product. It also would have mean fewer audible pauses. As a result, the final text would have likely looked a lot more like something that was actually written by a human being, not a speech to text application.

In what ways does oral storytelling differ from written storytelling? 

This is a great question, and I think it’s of particular interest as so many cultures place an emphasis on oral traditions. I think oral storytelling leaves itself more open to interpretation than it’s written counterpart. There are so many verbal cues- tone of voice, volume, cadence, etc. that can completely change the feel of the story. In my opinion, anything written inevitable feels more rigid and formal. Given that I was just spinning a yarn, it’s sort of odd to see my words recorded in written format- it feels far more serious when reading that it sounded when I was speaking.

I think the gap between oral and written storytelling is something worth exploring in greater detail. There’s so much knowledge to be gained by respecting oral storytelling traditions and studying them as we do with written stories. For example, I think if we had the ability to actually go back in time and see a live production of one of Shakespeare’s plays, we could learn so much about the meaning of the piece, even if scholars have studied the written text for centuries.