Link #1

Peer: Mike Forsyth

Task: Potato printing

Link to Mike’s blog post: https://blogs.ubc.ca/mforsyth/home/etec-540/task4-manual-scripts/

Link to my blog post: https://blogs.ubc.ca/livstextadventures/tasks/task-4-potato-stamp/

Mike and I both completed the potato printing assignment and had some similar experiences during the exercise. For example, we both had to start again when we messed up drawing the letters out on our potatoes. Mike forgot to draw the letters of his words backwards and I pressed down too hard on the potato with my marker. I did not have to worry about writing the letters of my word (CODEX) backwards because this word looks the same upside down as right side up so I could just flip the paper 180 degrees to get the correct image. Mike and I also both struggled with carving out curved letters such as the letter “O”.

Mike presented his experience in a narrated time lapsed video.  I watched his video and it was easy for me to both see and hear how his experience with this assignment and compare it to my own. I think Mike’s choice of video is quite clever because the task was a manual task and the use of video allows the viewer to watch the task being complete. The viewer did not have to read Mike’s words and then imagine him doing the task or imagine some of the difficulties he had with the task.

For my blog post, I supplemented my text with some photos of the process. Although I was only required to provide one picture of the stamped words, I felt compelled to provide some more images because I wanted the reader to get a better sense of my process, including the mistakes I made and the challenges I faced.

In both blogs, we were compelled to remediate our text with images with Mike using moving images and me using static ones. In doing so, we are reflecting and conforming to online culture where most websites use a combination of written text and images.  We are also conforming to more modern pedagogical approaches where learners expect information to be presented in multimodal and multisensory ways.

Link #2

Peer: Nick Robitaille

Task: Does Language Shape the Way We Think?

Link to Nick’s blog post: https://blogs.ubc.ca/etec540robitaille/2023/09/17/task-2-does-language-shape-the-way-we-think/

Link to my blog post: https://blogs.ubc.ca/livstextadventures/tasks/task-2-does-language-shape-the-way-we-think/

For this link, I will focus on the layout of text. I appreciate how Nick formatted his blog in a table format with included columns for the time stamps of the video, the topic being discussed, and his reflection. This layout made my reading experience easier and therefore more enjoyable because as the reader I did not have to parse out the topic from the reflection. The use of columns did the separating of key information for me.

In one of my other blog posts, I tried inserting a table to my blog but when I copied the table from my Word document to my blog, the table created extra spacing under the table so that the text following the was pushed much further down the webpage and created a big white space. Also, I was unable to format the text inside the table, so it was not lining up correctly and again introduced extra spacing within the table. I tried to resolve this by seeing if there was an insert table option in the text editor but the WordPress template I’m using does not have this option, so I opted to not insert the table in my final submission. I am not sure if Nick’s WordPress blog has a table insertion and editing option or if Nick knows how to use HTML code to format his blog but the table he used was formatted nicely.

The layout and formatting of text is so important when to comes to reader enjoyment and comprehension. For example, a limitation of the horizontal scroll was the fact that the reader would need a large table to layout the scroll and read the text from one end of a scroll to the other end. It made referring back to specific passages in the scroll quite cumbersome. The design of the codex including limited paper size and the use of page numbers made it much easier for the reader to hold the text and refer to specific passages.

A more modern example would be when sending emails at work. Since I administer the organizational LMS in my role, I often have to send emails updating staff of changes to processes in the LMS. I usually draft the initial email with paragraphs of text but then I go back and chunk the text using numbers and bullet points. I also format the text (ex., bold, underline, highlight) to draw the readers attention to the most important parts of the text. I do this so that the information is easier to take in for the reader and so that the most important parts of the text are visually amplified. Similarly, Nick’s table layout chunked information which made referring to specific topics and points in the video much easier to find for the reader than my text where I only provided a time stamp alongside a paragraph of text.

Link # 3

Peer: Simon Worley

Task: Mode Bending

Link to Simon’s blog post: https://blogs.ubc.ca/sworley/2023/10/19/etec-540-task-7-mode-bending/

Link to my blog post: https://blogs.ubc.ca/livstextadventures/tasks/task-7-mode-bending/

For this task, both Simon and I chose to use dialogue between two fictional characters to tell our stories in a new format. In Simon’s case the characters were a podcast host and guest while in my case I used two detectives on a homicide case. In both pieces, the characters used the objects in our bag/pockets to reconstruct a picture about us and who were as people. In addition, we were both dead in our respective vignettes.

I had a chuckle when I first listened to Simon’s podcast because we both had to do some voice acting to create our characters. We both used our natural voice for one character and a made-up voice for the other character. The made-up voices we used for our characters brought a lot of life to our pieces. In Simon’s case, the podcast host was a spoof of a typical over-enthusiastic, verbose podcast host. While my detective came off as an unintelligent, meathead. I would argue that creating these characters is a lot easier verbally than through text because some of the characters personality can be portrayed through the tone of their voice.

Both Simon and I used sounds to mark the beginning and end of our dramatizations, however Simon also included speech while I stuck with using sound effects only. Simon opened his podcast in typical podcast fashion with some intro music, and a verbal introduction to the podcast and host followed by an introduction to the podcast episode topic. I opened my piece with the sound of police sirens followed by sounds of footsteps walking down a hall and closed off my piece with police sirens. Like the book format, the “order if firmly coded” (Kress, 2005, p.7) in our auditory pieces as well with sounds signaling the beginning, middle and end to the listener. Like a book, a listener must move linearly through the aural piece from beginning to end if they are to make sense of the piece.

Link # 4

Peer: Bridget Anakin

Task: Golden Record Curation

Link to Bridget’s blog post: https://sites.google.com/view/etec511-anakin-portfolio/text-technologies-the-changing-spaces-of-reading-and-writing/task-8-golden-record-curation

Link to my blog post: https://blogs.ubc.ca/livstextadventures/tasks/task-8-golden-record-curation/

For the Golden Record curation task, I provided four paragraphs which summarized some of the challenges I had with the task along with my thought process and selection criteria. I also included a screenshot of the spreadsheet I used to assist me during this task. I wanted to upload the actual Excel sheet to my blog, but I could not figure out how to do it. I was able to upload the Excel sheet to my media files on the blog but when I tested the link in the blog, the link did not open the sheet. My song selection process was a bit convoluted, so I thought the inclusion of a visual aid would clarify that I used a two-step decision process to come up with my final list of 10 songs.

On the other hand, Bridget provided a beautiful Genially presentation that listed her three criteria for picking her final list. As the learner, I could click on each criterion to read more about the context of the criteria, read a bulleted summary of the criteria and view an accompanying graphic. This form of presentation highlights several important pedagogical practices such as giving learners choice of how to move through information, providing detailed explanation, repeating information by using summaries, and using graphics to enhance the visual appeal of the presentation. All these elements made the experience of learning about her criteria enjoyable and memorable.

My one critique of Bridget’s presentation was that she did not explicitly list the songs she chose in her final list. As the learner, I had to open each song link on YouTube. In my blog, I provided the list in written text. In terms of the online learner experience, it is important that information can be found quickly without the need to click through too many hyperlinks and that related information is packaged together as this lessens the cognitive load on the learner.

Link # 5

Peer: Leighton Chiverton

Task: Network Assignment Using Golden Record Curation Quiz Data

Link to Leighton’s blog post: https://blogs.ubc.ca/etec540leightonchiverton/task-9-network-assignment-using-golden-record-curation-quiz-data/

Link to my blog post: https://blogs.ubc.ca/livstextadventures/tasks/task-9-network-analysis/

Leighton, me, and I think most of our peers were a bit perplexed when we first viewed the network graph on the Palladio site. It is a tangle of lines and circles that one has to play with to make any sense of it.

Leighton and I also both highlighted the top and bottom three songs chosen by our class. I think this may be a cultural artifact because we live in a competitive culture that celebrates winners and shuns losers. We also like to know where we rank in a spread. For example, in the Grades tool in Canvas I always like to check to see where I fit in the grade spread of an assignment. Am I at the top of the class? At the bottom? Or somewhere in between? In the same sense, both Leighton and I checked to see if our chosen songs were in the top three chosen songs. Note that I did not include this in my blog post, but it is one of the first things I did when playing around with the graph. I believe that part of this is also related to belonging. We want to belong in the group and a way to belong is to choose what other people have chosen.

Learning is often a social activity so building a sense of belonging is an important part of education. This is often done in introductory activities such as our Task 1 where we had to share personal information about ourselves. Our Zoom sessions also create a sense of belonging because we can see each other as human beings and not just anonymous digital learners on blog posts. When we can see ourselves in others, we feel like we belong. And when we feel a sense of belonging, we are more likely to take risks and make mistakes which leads to learning.  We are also more likely to support each other with our learning if we feel a sense of belonging.

Link # 6

Peer: Diddy Huang

Task: Attention Economy

Link to Diddy’s blog post: https://blogs.ubc.ca/etec540ddhng/2023/11/12/task-10-attention-economy/

Link to my blog post: https://blogs.ubc.ca/livstextadventures/tasks/task-10-attention-economy/

I believe that Diddy and I had similar experience working through the Inyerface game. It was frustrating and annoying, but Diddy also had fun with it! I also had fun with this task but did not describe it as such in my post. When I was in the game, it was intense and funny in parts (i.e., the grayed-out flags made me laugh). Afterwards I tried the game a few times because I wanted to better understand all the tricks and traps of the game. This was the more fun part for me (i.e., seeing the larger picture of what was happening).

Diddy listed all the frustrating points of the game for them, and I must agree with everyone of their points! Something that I did not consider in this activity which Diddy brought up in their post is how culture fits into website design. I read the article they linked in their post about Japanese web design, and it was fascinating to learn how cultural elements such as language play into web design. Japan is considered to be a high-context culture, so it was interesting to read in that article that websites need to be highly informative and use direct communication. I think this may be because one cannot get social queues from digital spaces therefore explicit information is required so everyone receives the same messaging which in turn increases social cohesion.

I also echo Diddy’s last sentiment when they talk about being sucked into the dark patterns of social media. I too know that these platforms are designed to suck you in and waste your time, yet I cannot resist them. We may know and recognize these dark patterns, but this does not mean we still don’t fall for them. That is another unnerving aspect of these dark patterns.