Reflection

In my emoji story I started with the title, only because I thought it was a good place to start.  For this I used a word and then the rest I had to rely on the idea behind the movie.  This was because there weren’t any emoji’s that represented the words in the title.

In my depiction of the movie, I was relying on a concept that Kress (2005) doscusses, particularly his idea that the author assumes characteristics of the life-world of their audience. This means that the depiction was crafted with the audience’s experiences and context in mind. According to Kress, the reader interprets the material based on their life-world, effectively designing a coherent and complex sign that meets their needs from the information presented by the author or designer. In other words, I am hoping that you have seen the movie already.

When describing / depicting the plot, again I relied on a combination of the words and ideas. I worked in a traditional ‘writing’ format that was sequenced (left to right & top to bottom), “Sequence has effects for authorship and for reading. Hearers (and readers to a somewhat lesser extent) depend on the “unfolding”, the revealing of elements one after the other to be able to make sense of the whole” (Kress, 2005, p.13).

Next, I attempted to depict the plot using a non-linear approach (see below), which proved to be much more challenging. Kress (2005) explains that in spatially organized representation, the chosen elements are simultaneously present, and their spatial arrangement creates meaning (p. 13). Bolter (2000) emphasizes that digital media empower readers to actively participate in meaning-making by interpreting and interacting with visual and textual elements. While my emoji story lacks traditional text or hypertext, it still requires the reader/viewer to navigate and use cues within the depiction. Emoji stories embody these ideas by using visual symbols to tell narratives, enabling readers to actively interpret and engage with the content, reflecting the evolving landscape of digital communication. Some issue that came up: I couldn’t flip the emoji (mirror image) to depict direction and I couldn’t place the emoji anywhere, it still had to be on a line of text.

Other Thoughts

The readings made me reflect on a 10-year-old student I recently observed. He was looking up the character names of a movie he wanted to watch over the weekend. Instead of using Google, he went straight to YouTube to search. When I asked him why, he said it was easier for him to watch and listen for information rather than read it.

This aligns with Kress’s (2005) idea of spatially organized representation, where meaning is constructed through the arrangement of visual and auditory elements. The student’s preference for video content underscores the importance of incorporating multimedia and non-linear resources in education, as it reflects the ways in which young learners naturally seek and process information.

In terms of pedagogy and the BC curriculum, this observation suggests a need to integrate more diverse media formats into teaching practices. The BC curriculum emphasizes personalized learning and developing digital literacy skills. By acknowledging and incorporating students’ tendencies to engage with information through multimedia platforms like YouTube, educators can create more effective and engaging learning experiences that align with students’ preferences and the evolving digital landscape.

Have we come full circle?

From week 3, reflecting on Ong’s (1982 /2002) exploration of orality and literacy, I find it fascinating how human communication has come full circle, from oral traditions to the development of visual representations and then to alphabetized languages structured by rules. Ong (1982/2002) highlights the profound shift from primary oral cultures, where knowledge was transmitted through spoken words alone, to cultures influenced by writing, which introduced new forms of organization and abstraction.

Personally, I see this journey mirrored in our contemporary shift towards multimedia and visual representation in communication. We’ve moved beyond the constraints of purely verbal or written forms to embrace a multimodal approach where images, sounds, and text intertwine seamlessly. This evolution, as discussed by Kress (2005) and Bolter (2000), acknowledges both gains and losses in how we construct and interpret meaning in a digital age.

In my experience, this return to visual representation feels like a natural progression, integrating the expressive power of images with the structured clarity of text. It bridges the gap between the immediacy of oral communication and the analytical depth of written language, creating a richer tapestry of communication than either could achieve alone. Thus, we are not merely reverting but evolving, leveraging the strengths of multiple modes to enhance how we understand and convey ideas in a technologically advanced society.

Do you agree, have we come full circle? Are we reverting?  What oral skills may have been lost? Can they be regained or retaught? What do we stand to lose of our written work?

References

Bolter, J. D. (2000). The breakout of the visual. In Writing space: Computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print (2^nd ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781410600110

Kress, G. (2005). Gains and losses: New forms of texts, knowledge, and learning. Computers and Composition, 22(1), 5–22. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compcom.2004.12.004

Ong, W.J. (2002). Orality and literacy: The technologizing of the word. Routledge. (Original work published 1982).