Link #6

https://met.for.education/?p=375

Jane- Task 11: Detain/ Release Algorithm or Predictive Text

Jane’s experience with the algorithm differed from my own in some of the subtle ways she approached it. Although we both relied heavily on the bars indicating violence, likelihood to commit a crime, and failure to appear in order to detain or release, we put different levels of importance on prosecutor statements. She explained that she did not take them into account because she didn’t have enough information as to why they were making their recommendations. I did consider them but found them to be less than useful because they almost always recommended detaining the offender. We both found the information that lead to some of the assertions being made to be lacking and in some cases it would have been helpful to have access to a more detailed case file.

She also stated that it was difficult for her “to feel confident in her decision making” because of the limited information. I think the only way to feel confident is if you trust the algorithm, but with no information about why we should or any understanding of how it works, it is easy for doubt and second guessing to creep in. In a real world scenario, I would imagine that this would also lead to judges defending their decision by citing the algorithm as proof that they did the right thing. Ultimately though, the algorithm is not the judge and does not have the same experience as the human who has been chosen for that job.

Jane also mentioned how people of colour are jailed at higher rates in the United States but did not address how she dealt with the pixelated image that was provided by the algorithm. Personally, I tended to scroll down so as to block information such as name, gender and the image in order to make a decision unaffected by unintentional bias. The defendants statements paired with other information about them may have made me more likely to release them despite good reasons to detain them.

Jane used a very clean and minimalist design for her blog which made for a very clutter free reading experience when interacting with her webspace. The space where I host my posts is also quite minimalist but Jane’s font choice and individual pages for each task made the overall experience as a reader of her task posts more straightforward.

Link # 5

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KgsMviYPQy2TB60YTaBYVqw3-JW4R5lwifZ9WaVlNbU/edit

Selene Joon- Task 8 Golden Record Assignment

We approached this task very differently and Selene’s approach first struck me as novel and a great way of preserving all of the tracks on the Golden Record without having to make the same hard decisions I had to discard certain tracks. Upon further reflection though I had to consider what might have been lost in taking that approach. It made me think of teachers I communicate with from the United States who are being told not to teach whole novels in their language arts classes and to only use excepts to teach specific concepts. Students in those classes could go several years, only having read small portions of larger works and it is easy to see what was lost in this approach. It would likely help teachers and administrators cover the curriculum more efficiently but could also rob an entire school of their love of reading. Although you can cover a lot of musical styles using Selene’s method I also wonder wether context is lost in only hearing excerpts. Ultimately, curation involves difficult decisions and hearing clips out of context may be less useful than hearing fewer musical traditions but hearing the songs all the way through. Even the creator of the playlist for the golden record admitted that in creating it they inevitably left out more than they included. 

The theory of how to curate has been flipped on its head in this example and begs the question of wether depth or breadth is more important in any given activity. What would the experience be for anyone analyzing this selection of music and would it be obvious to someone unfamiliar with the musical genre that the record included multiple tracks from different musical traditions? 

I responded by taking a more traditional approach to curation which involved getting rid of more than I was strictly comfortable with. If approaching this task again I would feel comfortable making a new track out of excepts from others for certain musical traditions that are very closely related.

Link #4

https://blogs.ubc.ca/etec540mellow/2022/06/26/task-6/

Nicole Mellow – Task 6: An Emoji Story

Interestingly, Nicole had a very different experience than I did in terms of which points of the movie were easiest to convey. She found emotionally charged scenes where she could use emojis that convey emotion to be easier to communicate. While I was focused on more tangible physical objets that occurred in scenes as a way of communicating the plot to my audience, she found that using emojis for their originally intended purpose of clarifying states of emotion was a richer use of emojis that best conveyed the scenes in the movie Top Gun. Although I can see how using emojis to convey the emotion of the scene may illicit memories of the scene for the author of the emoji story, I still feel that it leads to a less comprehensible experience for the audience trying to interpret the meaning of the story. When the emojis are used in this way it also prioritizes the emoji story’s author as the lens through which the story is viewed, as it communicates their experience of the movie in addition to basic plot points. While some of these experiences may be universally sad, Goose dying for example, others are more ambiguous and her experiences may confuse readers who did not share the same emotional experience. At the same time, it is really interesting to experience the plot of Top Gun with her emotional experience of the film expressed within a synopsis. This is something that would be hard to accomplish as succinctly in any other form.

Nicole used the same medium for creating the emoji story as I did with an iPhone. Both our our experiences showed that despite emojis being a visual symbolic way of communicating, using a device that allowed us to search through emojis using text was much more efficient than using a programs that was exclusively visual. Although emojis are a fairly effective means of visual communication, they are not well categorized which can make searching through them for the right image a lengthy process. 

Link #3

https://blogs.ubc.ca/jpresta/2022/06/13/task-5-twine-task/

Jessica Presta – Task 5: Twine Task

It was nice to see how Jessica Presta used the Twine program to create a program that could be used for training or professional development in a healthcare setting. We both had a similar learning curve when it came to using the twine program itself and, while I used it to create a much simpler story, our creations were more both more procedural in nature than the examples that were initially presented. I created a guide for a dog sitter to work their way through any problems they may encounter in my dog’s morning routine but the two programs were both being used to educated others about protocols and procedures. It is a text heavy program for that purpose but I feel like it can become less dependant on text the more comfortable the creator of the Twine gets with using HTML to code their story. Twine allows for almost unlimited flexibility for people fluent in HTML but can be very restrictive for beginners. 

The way that Jessica used Twine made me think of healthcare algorithms that are already in use to guide doctors in treating diseases in a way that is supported by research. Though we have explored the benefits and drawbacks of such algorithms in this course, for something with such clear procedures as the task outlined by Jessica it seems like a valuable learning tool. We both used circular links to give our participants the opportunity to return to previous pages and attempt the material again, which is key to the creation of an educational program.

Link #2

https://blogs.ubc.ca/metetec540/2022/06/10/task-4-manual-scripts-and-potato-printing/

Trista Svennes- Task 4: Manual Script

Similar to my post for this task Trista focused her discussion on the time aspect of manual writing, or in my case potato printing. She made a good point about different styles of writing being more suited to different functions. Writing or reading for entertainment necessitates a different format than doing those same things with efficiency and professionalism in mind. One thing that occurred to me in reading her breakdown of suitable purposes for these different mediums is the ever evolving cultural idea of professionalism. What constitutes a finished product in a professional environment naturally changes the norms of our writing methods. This can change because of access to new technology that may be more efficient or present more neatly, but some cultures can also hold onto less technologically advanced styles of manual writing for professional tasks. 

In Japan some companies still insist on a handwritten resume and neatness and accuracy of writing is sometimes used as criteria for hiring decisions. This is in sharp contrast to practices in many other countries where manually written documents are considered unacceptable for all but the most casual messages in a professional environment. This shows an appreciation for tradition and the artistry of the manually written text and makes me question what we are losing by striving for efficiency as a main goal of industry. However, Trista also mentioned features like speech-to-text and being able to zoom in or out on sections of writing as a reason for preferring mechanized text. These are often used as accessibility features, which strengthens the argument for using mechanized text on professional and government settings. 

The idea of scrolling vs. flipping to move through text and the differences in the reading experience were also interesting to note. Being able to mark progress in reading more easily in book form is valid when comparing it to flipping pages in an ebook format but does not necessarily hold up when comparing it to scrolling through online sources, as the sidebar often acts as a marker of the readers place in the text. 

Link #1

https://blogs.ubc.ca/thomasw/task-3-voice-to-text/

Thomas- Task 3: Voice to Text

The first thoughts I had when looking at Thomas’ voice-to-text post were that either he had a much more accurate speech to text software, spoke much more clearly than I did, or that everything people say about speech to text programs being more accurate for male voices than female voices is entirely true. For being an unedited version, it was clear and easy to follow. The tool that he used to create the text seems to have been very effective and had few errors when it came to accurately transcribing individual words. 

I found the quote he chose from Walter Ong’s excerpt from Orality and Literacy about how stories evolve an interesting one to examine further: “Everytime you tell it will be a little bit different.” In some cultures storytelling is very regulated for just this reason. The idea is for storytellers to be trained to tell stories in a way that is true to the original version. Throughout time, despite best attempts, I would imagine that any story would deviate from the original, even if it is just in how it is interpreted by listeners in different time periods. Interpretation has as much to do with the impact of a story as does the structure of it as communicated by the storyteller. 

I agree with Thomas’ assertion that storytelling build a relationship between the teller and listener in a way that reading a written story does not. This also makes me think about audiobooks and the space they inhabit between the written and spoken word. Can audiobooks still be considered storytelling when they are an alternate interpretation of the written word or is more expected than a story simple being in a verbal format for it to have the impact of storytelling? 

It makes me think of the audiobook version of The Golden Compass by Phillip Pullman that I listened to with my students this year. The author read the story himself, which is becoming more common but is still somewhat unusual in the world of audiobooks. There was also an interview included at the end of the audiobook with the author. The differences between reading aloud and storytelling were well represented by the impact of the main audiobook vs. the supplementary interview. Although he read his book well, the connection that was created with the listener through the stories of his life that he told in the interview felt personal and relatable. Storytelling is intimate and dramatic in the way that the written word, even when read aloud isn’t. The spontaneity of Thomas’ story came across in his speech-to-text piece but in a very different way than it would have if it were told aloud and in person.