Author Archives: KatherineKelly

I resonated with this task as my husband and I recently watched the Irish Documentary, The Farthest (2017), and learned about the journey of Voyager 1 and 2. The documentary features most of the original scientists who were a part of the NASA team and shared many insightful interviews and facts that were fascinating to learn about. 

I’ve included the trailer below for anyone interested:

After listening to the album numerous times, I reflected on what a challenging task it must have been for the original committee chaired by Carl Sagan to decide how the different audio tracks would sufficiently represent worldly music genres and eras of songs. In addition, even the selection of languages, greetings and images would have been overwhelmingly difficult to choose from – how does one narrow down every language in the world to decide who ‘makes the cut’? I appreciated that Carl Sagan is quoted saying in the podcast ‘One was: Let’s cast a wide net. Let’s try to get music from all over the planet, and secondly: Let’s make a good record.” Inspired by Carl Sagan’s mentality, after much deliberation with my husband on which tracks our favourites, we narrowed it down to a selected ten. I felt these selections still allowed a broad range of genres and musical eras. 

I chose: 

1. Mozart, The Magic Flute, Queen of the Night aria, no. 14. Edda Moser, soprano. Bavarian State Opera, Munich, Wolfgang Sawallisch, conductor. 2:55
2. Navajo Indians, Night Chant, recorded by Willard Rhodes. 0:57
3. “Melancholy Blues,” performed by Louis Armstrong and his Hot Seven. 3:05
4. “Johnny B. Goode,” written and performed by Chuck Berry. 2:38
5. Holborne, Paueans, Galliards, Almains and Other Short Aeirs, “The Fairie Round,” performed by David Munrow and the Early Music Consort of London. 1:17
6. Bach, “Gavotte en rondeaux” from the Partita No. 3 in E major for Violin, performed by Arthur Grumiaux. 2:55
7. Bach, Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F. First Movement, Munich Bach Orchestra, Karl Richter, conductor. 4:40
8. Beethoven, Fifth Symphony, First Movement, the Philharmonia Orchestra, Otto Klemperer, conductor. 7:20
9. Peru, wedding song, recorded by John Cohen. 0:38
10. “Dark Was the Night,” written and performed by Blind Willie Johnson. 3:15

Mode Bending Task 7

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

For this activity, I felt it was necessary to outline the category first and then the book’s title so it was clear to my colleagues viewing my emojis. My hope is if a person viewing my emoji story can recognize the title, the rest will be easy to follow! Initially, I used https://emojikeyboard.io; however, I could not search for emojis, and it did not copy and paste correctly onto my document. Instead, I explored https://emojipedia.org and, using the website’s search tool, I selected the best-suited emojis to accurately convey my story title. 

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

Working on this task made me think of the YouTube video that went viral in 2015/2016, “Frozen as Told by Emoji”. Although the video is substantially more complex than the simplistic emoji story I created, it could be used as inspiration for how emojis and minimal wording could accurately and interactively retell an entire movie in a matter of minutes. Bolter (2001) suggests that images have the ability to bypass written work altogether. I continued to view the different Disney Emoji stories on YouTube and felt Bolter’s statement to be accurate. Emojis can rewrite messages, jokes or implied comments without texting a single word. I use emojis regularly when texting, but I’m curious if the current generation uses emojis as regularly as mine, or do they use a different form of expression?

I have attached the Frozen as Told by Emoji YouTube video for those interested.

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

I primarily focused on individual words rather than trying to blend words; thankfully, my book choice was simplistic enough that most of the emojis were present to embed into my story. As Bolter (2001) suggests, emojis/visual images provide viewers with a visual experience that allows for an appropriate realization. Therefore, for my emoji story to be accurate, I went page by page and selected the most important words/theme of the page and chose the emojis accordingly. After reviewing my emoji combination and running it by my husband for a quick accuracy check, I felt pleased with the result. I’d also like to note this is one of my daughter’s favourite stories! 

References

Chapter 4. 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

As a teacher, I still have to write by hand for my Grade 3 students. I write their notes or information on my whiteboard or Loft TV and also have handwritten comments for their work. For this assignment, I found it challenging to simply write my ideas without a clear direction of what I wanted to write. It’s been a long time since I’ve freely written my thoughts in a reflective piece!
One thing I quickly noticed while completing this assignment was when I made a mistake while writing and editing my work; I couldn’t push ‘delete’ or use a whiteboard eraser to change my wording. Instead, I had to cross out (I couldn’t find my whiteout) the words I wanted to change. The messiness of the mistakes/crossing out bothers me, but because I chose to use a pen, I didn’t have many other options – unless I wanted to rewrite the piece entirely.

In the podcast, “From the Vault: Invention of the Book”, I appreciated how Robert and Joe highlighted when a person writes or documents something by hand, the written memory is very different from the memory you have in your brain (From the Vault: Invention of the Book, 2021). This thought resonated with me as when I was documenting my story and re-reading what I had written by hand, I felt the emotional context I was attempting to portray was lacking – the recollections and memories were challenging to put into words. One of the most significant differences I noticed in writing my ideas versus typing my thoughts is that I often read aloud what I’ve written and delete/edit accordingly. As a teacher, I love writing in my classroom and watching my students write, for University assignments, I strongly prefer typing. When writing by hand, I couldn’t simply move sentences around or have my spelling automatically corrected – I became very conscious of what I was writing. With typing, I’d have more of an opportunity to edit and change my work because of the ease of deleting, moving and adding additional thoughts. I feel I can better portray what I’d like to say with more concise thoughts and clarity while I’m typing.

I have attached below my written work – I included in my reflection one of my favourite poems I’ve received as a Teacher.

References:

Lamb, R and McCormick, J. May 26, 2020. The Invention of the Book (Part 1) [Audio podcast episode]. In From the Vault. https://www.iheart.com/podcast/stuff-to-blow-your-mind-21123915/episode/the-invention-of-the-book-part-63031174/

Voice to Text Story: Travels Through Japan

One of my favourite stories and a topic that is really important to me is travelling and exploring new places before my daughter was born every year my husband and I would pick a new place to visit somewhere in the world that neither of us have been. My favourite place I’ve ever visited is Japan. Not only do I love the food but the culture and beauty of the country with something I’ve never experienced before in all the places I’ve travelled. I absolutely loved trying there different types of ramen sushi Japanese barbecue and all of the new flavours and tastes I’ve never had before in Canada.  I also loved having the chance to go biking around the different cities and exploring the beautiful sights that Japan had to offer. One of the things I’m most proud of is my husband and I hike to the top of Mount Fuji. it was something I wasn’t sure if I could accomplish I am not a mountain climber by any means but it was something I’ve always wanted to do. I was able to climb Mount Fuji from the bay station to the top and down again in 4 hours. I was so proud of myself and my husband and I really enjoy the experience together. it was incredible seeing the view from the top as we had a sunny day which doesn’t happen very often apparently on Mount Fuji it was incredible to see the volcano and watch all the people hike up the mountain together as a group. the experience also made me laugh because we are at quite a high altitude compared to Japan. so when we were hiking it wasn’t hard to hike at all, I didn’t feel overly tired at any point and my husband who is a marathon runner and triathlete was practically jogging up the mountain. At one point in the hike I met up with some American Marines who were in shock that I was hiking up Mount Fuji without a backpack and essential climbing gear or oxygen of any kind. I thought these were supposed to be the men and women who can save our lives no matter what however some of them could barely make it up to the next station which made me laugh they even commented how they saw some guy practically running up Mount Fuji! That guy happened to be my husband! 

Reflection Questions

1. How does the text deviate from the conventions of written English?

As a teacher, I quickly became conscious that the oral text deviates from the conventions of written English. For example, there is a lot of punctuation missing, such as commas and periods, and there are incredibly long, run-on sentences occurring throughout the spoken story. So, naturally, I automatically wanted to make edits; however, for this assignment, I didn’t. 

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

Wrong: 

The written text has minimal punctuation, and a few words do not have the correct grammar or spelling. The apparent mistakes caused me part way through my story to attempt to say the words ‘period’, ‘comma’ or ‘exclamation mark’, but the verbal directions were not always successful, which caused more frustration. In addition, the lack of punctuation could make it confusing for a reader; however, the main structure of the story is still intact. 

Right

The story itself has the correct ideas, and the majority of the information I wanted to share is there on the document. In addition, I was impressed with Google Docs speech to text and how accurately it typed my story. Finally, although some emotion was woven through the story, the overall premise of what I was trying to share verbally was present. 

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

The most blatant mistake in the text would be the lack of punctuation and the run-on sentences. Although in spoken form, this clearly wouldn’t be a mistake because I would naturally add inflection and emotion and pauses to my story. However, when it was translated to text, I had to consciously attempt to add the punction, which wasn’t always effective and caused me to disconnect momentarily from my story. 

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

Even if I had scripted the story, I feel the same problems of the lack of punctuation and run-on sentences would still be present unless I had verbally corrected them each time. When I told my story, I felt happy just speaking authentically about my travel memories, whereas if I had scripted the story, I might have overthought what I was trying to say. 

5. In what ways does oral storytelling differ from written storytelling? 

Ong’s (2002) work highlights this comparison between oral culture versus literate language and discusses the impact that writing has had on society. In turn, Ong (2002) may argue that myself (coming from a literate society), may find it challenging to understand how an oral culture communicates and thinks (Ong, 2002, p.14). I appreciated Ong’s (2002) chapter, as it caused me to compare how I perceive oral storytelling versus written storytelling critically. I decided that a fundamental component of oral storytelling is the connection to the emotion that one has the ability to share. When someone shares a story orally, that person can add their own inflection and connection, which allows for the authentic sense and story to be present. When the oral narrative is shared, the next person may convey the exact details but add their own inflection to the story. For example, when my family shares stories from the past, pieces of the story may perhaps be missing or not quite precisely what happened; but hearing the laughter or emotion that is present can’t be forgotten by the listener. In contrast, written storytelling can capture the exact details and be accurately passed on through text, even translated into other languages. However, the meaning or genuine feeling cannot always be translated accurately with written text.

References:

Ong, W. J. (2002). Orality and literacy: The technologizing of the word. Routledge.

I really enjoyed Lera Boroditsky’s video on ‘How the Languages We Speak Shape the Ways We Think’. She shared numerous points, as I annotated during the video, that caused me to ponder and compare English versus other spoken languages.