Link 4 – Task 7: Mode Bending

Linked to Andrew Shedden

   Linked to   

Task Review

Task 7: Mode Bending required us to revisit our first assignment, “what’s in your bag?” For myself, I struggled with the audio requirement of the task. However, Andrew demonstrated his creativity in spades with this response to this challenge. I remembered his original post about this wood cutting bag. His post was very open and honest about who he was and what the bag represented and what it didn’t. I also only cut down standing dead or use deadfall for my heat in the winter and thoroughly understood the reasoning to remove the dry material that causes wildfires.

Reasoning

I was interested in returning to his web page for the mode bending task because I anticipated a running chainsaw in the audio file background, but what I found surprised me.
His original post discussed what the wood cutting bag did not include, and that was music. For this task, he wrote a song! A sort of love letter to the land and gratitude for the trees that provide a heat source. His post was full of creativity, emotion and humour.
I thoroughly enjoyed it. My mode bending activity brought up feelings of loneliness and isolation while he sparked hope and joy. He included personal photos of his studio set up, which showed his seriousness for the trade. This revisit was a positive experience and showed a different side of Andrew and made me want to explore his webpage more.

User Interface Differences

Andrew chose a template on from the UBC WordPress blog. It is very simplistic in its design. This website title states his name and the course he is taking, that’s it. There is no navigation menu or an about the author page. The layout of the assignments is displayed in a Post-It style on the home page to find all contributions quickly. There is no featured image and just titles to provide precise descriptions of the tasks. Upon further inspection, Task 12 and the first half of the Linking Assignment was absent. Perhaps these activities were hidden on the web page and were not connected to the front page somehow. The overall web page features further led to my surprise to find the hidden gem of the mode bending task. I believe his site demonstrates calm professionalism, and to discover bits of his personality, you need to dig deeper. Perhaps there is a reason behind not sharing too much of his personal life over the internet. As educators, we need to be aware of that. Andrew’s webpage follows the directions of our course architecture with his design and layout. He is presenting his tasks with the ability to comment and builds connections by responding to any questions or feedback. There is an interactive element embedded which he is utilizing. Who is to say that you need an about the author tab? The authorship is evident through his creative and engaging posts.