Olga’s Golden Record Curation Task
I chose Olga’s post as a starting point as I dove into the linking assignment because she was a member of my community on the Palladio network visualization. I was curious to see how Olga’s approach to this task differed or aligned with my own. I think Olga took a very proactive approach in subverting the initial bias of the original 27 selections. Olga purposefully selected records from the global south. I thought her approach was a fantastic challenge to current (and past) text technologies which privilege the global north and English speakers in particular. I think it is really neat that her methodology resulted in an outcome that overlapped with my approach of choosing songs that spoke to my personal preference. I wonder if the rise of hip hop in popular music has resulted in a change of musical preferences in the average North American listener. When the record was first curated in 1970s hip hop was forming as an underground movement, many of the songs I preferred contained strong percussive elements also found in hip hop. The spread of underground movements (political, social, and musical) is exponentially faster today through social networks that link information and cultural artifacts through the web. When the record was first formed, access to music and sounds from the global south would have been very limited. The same task was undertaken today could leverage the physical infrastructure of the internet for world-wide submissions, and possibly even garner world-wide input into the curation process.
Lori’s Emoji Story Task
https://blogs.ubc.ca/etec540jonesy/2021/02/21/task-6-an-emoji-story/
I noticed in some of the class meetings and discussions that Lori has a background in accessible/ universal design for learning and Disability justice. I was interested to see her take on the emoji story task and was happy to see her analysis of emoji in relation to AAC. What I really appreciate about Lori’s post is that she incorporates information and ideas from a lot of different sources, such as pop culture and education practice. I liked the face tracking video of her analysis, it was a dynamic way to see and hear her thought process. I think Lori is taking into consideration the viewer/reader of her content. I’m considering doing my final assignment on AAC technology and its impact on literacy for people who do not speak. I’m inclined to agree with Lori that AAC has opened up communication for people who are historically marginalized. I do see a slight nuance in how this relates to economic power structures. The ideal of individual worth being based on economic productivity can be perpetuated and reinforced through AAC and Assistive technologies. Particularly in relation to paid work, Disabled folks who come from privileged backgrounds (and therefore have access to such technologies) are able to carve a space to prove economic value. This complicates AAC and assistive technologies as being purely liberatory, they can and do reinforce neoliberal ideologies and further marginalize poor and racialized Disabled folks.
Adriana’s Twine Story task
I enjoyed Adriana’s twine a lot. In her post she writes about struggling with coding the story so that it would look the way she was hoping. I identified with this sentiment, and it was reassuring to see that she is a programmer herself (maybe I am not as clueless as I feel!). Adriana writes that coding is a unique language depending on the platform you are using. I have often felt that despite growing up with computers and hypertext I am somehow not a “digital native” and have found this course and Adriana’s post reassuring that this concept is more mythological than factual. I also enjoyed that Adriana pulled her family into her twine task, as I did. I think when you have young kids so much of life is centered around language development and cultural storytelling, and Adriana perfectly captures the joy of that here. Adriana artfully tells three stories within one narrative framework. We simultaneously explore the story of her son and husbands’ relationship, the adapted “PG” La Llorona legend, and the original legend. This multilayering would be very difficult to achieve without hypertext, Adriana used the twine medium quite cleverly. I am wondering is Adriana realized that she was writing so many stories at once, and that all her stories are interconnected not only through hyperlinks but also through themes of food and family.
Nathan’s Potato Printing task
I appreciated that Nathan took the additional time to film and edit a video about his process in completing the potato printing task. It definitely added another dimension to his reflections. I am wondering now how long it took to put together that video, I would not be surprised if it was a similar effort to the potato printing. The revolution in digital video capture and editing that has had a similar trajectory to word processing in terms of the subsequent proliferation and speed of production. Like word processing to the printing press, digital video editing also has fragments of process and terminology that remain from film editing. For example in most editing programs we “trim” and “mark” which alludes to physically cutting and writing/marking film reel in the editing room. The visual representation of digital video in a digital editing suite is horizontal with the ability to scroll both left and right, harkening to the two reel set up that would cycle film over an illuminated viewer window in traditional film splicers. Like printed text, film relies on specific literacies and representations that can be both literal and metaphoric depending on context.
https://www.collectorsweekly.com/stories/223531-vintage-baia-8mm-film-splicer-with-case
Marwa’s Voice to Text task
Marwa had similar reflections to me regarding the lack of punctuation and frustration of voice to text software properly capturing pauses etc. in spoken English. As I was completing the task I failed to reflect on the fact that the software was attuned to non-accented English. My daughter told a story for my task, and for the most part the program was able to pick up the words she intended. After our module on algorithmic bias, I am reflecting on the possibility that the databases used for speech to text algorithms may have been biased to English as first language speakers. It also had not occurred to me that in a practical sense (using your own phone for example) the experience of accent recognition might be problematic. Individuals may have their OS set up in English in order to more easily communicate/navigate despite speaking a different language at home. I was surprised to discover that the iphone OS has language settings that include 9 common English speaker dialects. I think this is pretty amazing! I would not be at all surprised if the data bias in this case was overcome because there was a market incentive to do so.
screen capture of my iphone OS Siri voice detection language settings
Juliano’s Mode-Bending Task
Juliano writes in his mode bending task that he wanted to create something that would keep the attention of his 6th and 7th grade students. Since I am not in a public school education space, I thought it was really interesting how Juliano compared his childhood experience of video learning technologies in the classroom to how these technologies fail to keep sustained interest from his students today. Juliano describes condensed and stimulating video content such as Tiktok as ideal for his students to maintain interest, and attempts to recreate that form here. Juliano’s video reminded me a lot of the Canadian documentary show “How it is Made”. I think there is a tendency to bemoan decreased attention in young people, this seems to happen with each generation theorizing that there is a crisis in education and the children are doomed because they will never be able to read long form information or focus. I find it refreshing that Juliano seeks to meet his students where they are rather than criticizing their learning style and how they engage with new text technologies. Considering the learnings from module 7, I have to wonder if what Juliano describes is a response to information overload. Perhaps students are in fact hyper focusing on short pieces of information because there is simply far too much to try and cover. Students’ adaptation to the world of new text technologies allows them to keep up with valuable information by reading broadly. The trade off is difficulty in forming deep vertical relationships with texts. My feeling is that Juliano’s approach could mediate that conflict by providing many short and concentrated texts on a single subject, rather than say a lengthy book chapter that feels slow and cumbersome. Perhaps there is a way to leverage our adaptation to broad reading by serializing information into easily digested bites that scaffold into deep engagement.