Linking Assignment
Link 1- Jennifer’s Task 4
When reading Jennifer’s post, I was shocked that she completed both options. While we both enjoyed the potato stamp activity, our experiences were quite different. Jennifer describes the process as relaxing and nostalgic, and she connects it to her niece’s early literacy development. In my experience, although I also enjoy hands-on tasks and have played with potato stamps in the past, the process involved more trial and error. While Jennifer experienced ease and enjoyment throughout, I forgot to mirror the letters and had to restart, which added some frustration. I was also more drawn to the hands-on stamping portion, whereas she seemed to enjoy both the stamping and writing aspects equally.
While both sites are built using UBC Blogs through WordPress, Jennifer and I organize and present our ideas quite differently. Her site is more structured and curated, with content organized into clearer sections that guide the reader through her work in a more linear way. In contrast, my site feels more open and process-oriented, where posts build on each other over time and allow readers to scroll through posts in an exploratory way. Jennifer’s site is structured traditionally and is organized and sequenced clearly to present her finished work, while my site is structured to demonstrate a space where ongoing reflection is occurring, where readers can see my experience through this course. Our sites show that the same tool can support different ways of expressing our personalities and journeys.
Link 2- Eric W.’s Task 6
As I browsed the string of emojis from everyone’s posts, I immediately recognized that Eric had chosen Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. This highlights how effective visual elements and having similar experiences can be. We both found that representing whole words, names, and recognizable symbols was more effective than breaking ideas down into smaller parts like syllables. I know our experiences in choosing emojis to depict our chosen works were alike because I made similar choices in my own assignment to facilitate the reader’s interpretation of my emojis. Where our experiences differ, however, is in how we approached and reflected on multimodality. Eric’s is more analytical about representation, while mine is more applied and classroom-focused. I connected with his reflection because it reflects my own teaching experience and how multimodal representations can support student understanding.
Although both sites are created through UBC Blogs, they are organized differently. Eric’s site is structured and curated, where content is arranged in a linear fashion. Mine is process-oriented, where my posts are connected across entries. Much like Jennifer’s site, Eric’s site presents a more finished look with a clear sequence on how to navigate the site, whereas mine highlights an ongoing reflection. Overall, both sites demonstrate how the same platform can support different ways of organizing ideas.
Link 3- Bryce’s Task 7
Bryce’s chosen mode caught me off guard as I was surprised by how differently we approached the same “What’s in your bag?” activity, even though we started from the same prompt. Bryce took a much more analytical approach by representing the contents in a quantitative way. I bent my mode to focus on a narrative representation, using stop-motion animation to give each item a voice as it leaves the bag and explains its role in my life. In Bryce’s mode, meaning is represented by weight and percentages, while mine emphasized function and meaning through storytelling.
At first glance, our sites are organized similarly as posts are organized chronologically. Upon visiting Bryce’s site again, I noticed that while his posts are all linked on the home page, they are also linked separately to facilitate navigation. This demonstrates a traditional and experiential approach, while mine is more relational, as my site represents a whole MEd journey and my posts are all on a page dedicated to the course. Both sites reflect a linear record of our learning in the course.
Link 4- Megan F.’s Task 8
After reading Megan’s post, I saw that we had similar experiences as musicians, but we approached the task differently. Like Megan, I found it hard to choose just ten pieces for the Voyager Golden Record, especially since we both come from classical backgrounds. We both tried to balance cultural diversity, historical importance, and musical impact, and we ended up picking 8 of the same 10 pieces. Megan focused more on musical history and her personal connection to many of the pieces, while I chose the remaining pieces based on geography. That’s why Megan included works like El Cascabel and a raga from India, and I picked music from places like Australia and the Solomon Islands. This shows how our personal experiences and what we’ve been exposed to shape the sounds we think should be remembered.
Even though we both used UBC Blogs, Megan and I organize our ideas in different ways. Her site is structured and carefully arranged, with a homepage that guides readers through each section. My site is more about the process, where posts build up over time. Out of the sites that I visited in an effort to create connections, Megan’s site is one of the more professional looking sites, while mine depends more on my experiences in the course. Both sites still show that the same platform can be used to organize ideas and learning in different ways.
Link 5- Sophia B.’s Task 10
After completing this task, I knew that my colleagues’ reflections would be similar to mine in terms of frustration and confusion. Like Sophia, I also found the game disorienting from the start due to the misleading buttons, colours, and unclear instructions that led us to second-guess ourselves. Where our experiences differ is how we viewed the frustration, Sophia focused on how the interface intentionally went against usability conventions, and I viewed it as a puzzle, which made it a challenge similar to games like The Witness and Monument. We both recognized that the game intentionally disrupts users, but Sophia was more critical and reflected on dark patterns and how designs can manipulate behaviour, and I focused on the race for attention and engagement that draws on gameplay norms.
While both sites are built through UBC Blogs, we presented our tasks quite differently. Sophia’s site takes the traditional format of a blog, where posts are presented individually, and my site is organized my course and displays the tasks in a linear fashion. Sophia’s site is visually appealing and puts her most recent work at the forefront and guiding readers to her past work with the use of arrows, while mine is much simpler and guides the reader through my reflections in the order in which they occurred. Despite the differences, our sites both follow a chronological structure and reflects our progression through this course.
Link 6- Megan M.’s Task 11
Since many of my colleagues chose the other option for this task, I browsed through their generated images and chose Megan’s post to link to, as her experience with algorithmic systems using Microsoft Copilot was very different compared to my experience in the Detain/Release simulation, but similar to my experience as a teacher. While Megan needed to shape the AI’s creation through repeated prompts, my role as a decision-maker was heavily influenced by the AI’s recommendations in the simulation. Megan’s reflection and generated images showed that AI can be adapted to produce outputs that are less stereotypical and generic through very explicit prompting, while my experience showed that AI could heavily influence judgment depending on the context and our possible overreliance on automated systems.
Although we both used UBC Blogs, Megan organized her posts individually, where each task is accessible through the tabs at the top, while I presented my tasks in a single entry. Megan’s individual posts make her site visually organized and easily accessible, while my tasks are connected in a linear fashion and require the reader to scroll through the tasks as I complete them for the course. Other than her Linking Assignment that is out of order, our sites display two very different visuals of what linear could look like.