Link 1
Jennifer G.
https://blogs.ubc.ca/jgttetec540/2022/05/28/task-1-whats-in-your-bag/
I wanted to find someone who took a completely different approach to this assignment, and found that with Jennifer’s post. I did not consider doing a ‘digital bag’ (despite it being listed as an option) so I was curious what would motivate someone to select it.
One of the biggest differences that I noticed (other than digital vs analog) was that all of Jennifer’s items were about connecting to shared resources or other people:
- accessing library books/audiobooks
- music playlists (although accessed personally, she admitted that the AI technologies would link her to recommendations, which would be based on data collected from all users)
- An app that collects and organizes texts from complete strangers so that they can enjoy each others’ comments
- Duties shared with her significant other for the collaborative benefit
- Connecting with friends and family
Although all of these are intended to be used independently and (likely) bring personal enjoyment to Jennifer, they are all based on collective narratives within her digital communities. On the contrary, in reflection I now find that my items seem to represent a very individualistic view, a ‘be ready for anything’ attitude, and the items are primarily self-serving (even the snacks for my kids were so that I could avoid having to deal with their ‘hanger’).
I do appreciate that we both selected ‘bags’ that we believe represent our full selves. We both identify as English-speakers and cite representation of multiple literacies (health, digital, reading/writing). We both shared things that bring us joy, things we struggle with (I, too, clearly struggle with procrastination), and get a sense of things we like to do. However, by focusing on the digital versus analog, I think more differences between us are highlighted than intended. Based on her post and pictures, I can surmise that Jennifer likes to read, listen to music, bake, use technology as a way to relax/recharge, stay connected to loved ones, be outside and active (swim, go to the zoo), and gets frequent headaches. Every item listed there would be things I also enjoy doing, but there is very little evidence of these things in my own post.
Link 2
Agnes G.
https://blogs.ubc.ca/etec540ag/2022/06/12/task-3-voice-to-text/
For this link, I wanted to find someone who took a similar approach as I did and wanted to challenge myself to find the differences between our assignments.
Initially, several similarities were obvious. As I dug deeper, I saw differences emerge that likely influenced our experiences.
- We both used the voice typing tool embedded in Google Docs, although Agnes’s tool stopped twice during her recording and mine did not.
- We both described a personally significant memory told through a narrative, although Agnes shared an inter-provincial move that happened 10 years ago while I shared a small group event that happened just a few days prior to recording.
- We both highlighted the challenges of missing punctuation, although Agnes highlighted the challenges for the reader while I noticed it as an inaccurate reproduction of my intended text.
- We both highlighted the speaker-listener interaction as an important part of our typical conversation experiences, although Agnes considered it from the perspective of non-verbal cues and speaker turn-taking while I acknowledged it as a means to clarify intent (and word choice).
- We both noticed we had a more conversational approach (somewhat ironic given that we knew it was a monologue), although Agnes felt it was more ‘choppy and monotone’ while mine felt far more casual with verbal stumbling as seen by the repeated words.
- We both spoke unscripted, although Agnes felt ‘self-conscious’ having work at “a grade 4-5 writing level” associated with a graduate-level assignment, while I attributed my mistakes to declining enunciation and procedural error (e.g., the recorder just didn’t hear me correctly). Perhaps this also explains why Agnes presented her reflection first (almost to ‘hide’ her voice-to-text?) while I posted them in the order of completion.
I could go on, but ultimately I find these differences fascinating. We both did the same assignment, approached it in similar ways, used the same recording tool, and reflected on similar aspects, and yet we were focused on very different things in reflection. This also speaks to the variation in text interpretation. Text itself does not carry meaning; strokes and dots on a page do not tell the story. Instead, it is what the combination of words triggers for the reader (the ‘user’ of the text). This assignment gave us a very unique perspective to be both speaker/writing and reader, and we both concluded that our voice-to-text was not a completely accurate reflection of what we meant to produce.
Link 3
Jocelyn F.
https://blogs.ubc.ca/etec540jfung/2022/06/10/4-4-manual-script/
For this assignment, there were two options. Here I wanted to find someone who had taken the other approach; handwritten text rather than potato stamping, which is what I did.
Understandably, our approaches from the start were different. Paper, pen, and ink versus produce, knives, and paint (…ok, and also paper). However, we both chose the approach that felt more relaxing, familiar, and calm. The process allowed our thoughts to slow and we both found joy going through the process. Our own ‘literacies’ were revealed: Jocelyn was clearly comfortable with handwriting, numeracy, using colours as accents and had access to a variety of instruments (pen and markers, is my guess). Jocelyn also seemed to sit quite comfortably with mistakes (“I would simply cross it out and move on, leaning a mark of imperfection behind”) whereas it still bothers me a bit today that those potato-stamp letters were not perfect. We both acknowledged that there was nostalgia associated with the manual process, and that many elements would have been lost in the mechanized form.
I’m curious if Jocelyn’s decision to do handwriting was out of preference or avoidance. Based on the references it seems she values the therapeutic and cognitive benefits of handwriting, whereas – as much as I was happy to do potato printing – my decision had a significant element of choose the path that did NOT involve writing by hand. Ultimately, I do believe we landed at the same conclusion: taking the time to produce non-mechanized work feel luxurious and, when we have the time to do so, are likely to choose to do something like this again soon.
Link 4
Sam C.
https://blogs.ubc.ca/samcharles5402022s/2022/06/
I was drawn to Sam’s post because it was entirely auditory. His opening line citing his interest in radio made me curious to listen to his ‘redesigned’ task, and I was not disappointed. Sam recognizes that audio-only communications force “the listener to focus in on what you’re trying to say with these words or sound effects” and I found myself captivated with his combination of speech clarity, pauses, and sound effects.
Had Sam taken a different approach, I think we would have missed out on hearing one of his strengths. Not everyone is able to convey the same level of assurance, engagement, and clarity with spoken (and recorded) word. His interest (and talent) regarding radio and recordings shone through and created a very positive experience that felt entirely different from the interactive but still visual-based approach that I took in my multi-modal redesign.
Do we see and hear the world differently based on our interests? So many of the readings in the term have focused on intention and interpretation, and that ‘text’ truly refers to multiple modalities of communication. This reminds me of a thought I frequently had as a kid: when I point at something and say ‘that is blue’ and you agree, we have both learned that the colour we are seeing is blue. But have our eyes decoded ‘blue’ the same way? If we were to swap brains or eyes (but not in a gruesome way), would we still see the same ‘blue’ has we had with the previous combination? I think this is also what Sam was referring to when he said that with audio “the listener in conjuring up an image of what you’re referring to while you speak.” That again speaks to ‘literacies’ of being able to connect what we see with what we hear, and assigning matching meanings to those that we believe are a ‘match.’
Out of curiosity, I went back to Sam’s Task 1 and was surprised with what I saw; it was not at all like I had imagined. Is that lack of synchronization a bad thing, or is it instead honouring the fact that we can only experience the world through our own individual perspective? Ironically, I could still feel myself pulling toward a desire to connect; my first thought as soon as I saw the image was, “yeah, I probably should have pictured that.”
Link 5
Task 8: Golden Record Curation Assignment
Erin D.
https://blogs.ubc.ca/erinduchesneetec540/2022/07/07/task-8-the-golden-record-curation-assignment/
From the moment I read up about all the tasks, I knew that Task 8 was going to be a focus for my linking assignment. Knowing that the results (used for Task 9) would only show connections to identical choices and not provide any intent or meaning behind the decisions, I wanted to explore the different approaches that others took in forming their list.
When I read Erin’s Task 8, I found the approach massively different from my own. Erin took a very purposeful, organized and methodical approach: represent the world by means of including samples from the physical continents and also how music has evolved over time. I found myself wondering why one would take such a calculated approach rather than letting emotions guide you, and I think this represents two very different literacies. (Please note here that I am not applying any kind of hierarchy to these, and I truly believe that these literacies can coexist within people, it just depends on the scenario.)
The first literacy – the approach that Erin took – considered geography, history, and anthropology. Basically, Erin’s list was curated with the guiding question of, ‘what do we need others to know about our world, and how can we represent that with music?’ To me, this aligns with the original intent of the full golden record and is a very pragmatic approach.
The second literacy – the one I took – considered many elements of psychology (e.g., emotion, memory) and sociology. My list was curated with the guiding question of, ‘what should others know about me (about what is important to me) and how does this music relay that?’ To me, this seems far more idealistic.
However, the word ‘idealistic’ refers to the unrealistic desire for perfection, which made me realize there is a third literacy at play here. Are either of us – or any of us – truly qualified to depict music fully representative of the world, or even ourselves? Is striving for the ‘golden’ list achievable, or are we seeing life through utopian blinders? What if aliens are more interested in the people who made the music than the music itself? Were the musicians good people (and what does ‘good’ even mean)? Were the instruments made ethically? What kind of resources were used to create each track in both its analog and digital version(s)? Are the people behind the music production and selection part of the interpretation of what this collection of music is supposed to mean?
Curiously, I’m not sure that I can answer any of these questions. If I ever run into an alien I’ll have to remember to ask them. 
Link 6
Task 11: Algorithms of Predictive Text
Mark P.
https://blogs.ubc.ca/etec540mpepe/2022/07/26/11-3-algorithms-of-predictive-text/ and https://twitter.com/MarkMPepe/status/1551612945326436353
Twitter has never been a platform I could connect with. While I have all the required technical components, and an account even, it has never been an app I was interested in using. So when I had the option between micro-blogging on social media or doing ANYTHING else, I chose to avoid the former at all costs. This is why I was once again drawn to someone who had chosen the different path.
Mark’s approach was straightforward: begin the post with the prompts and see where predictive text takes you. He spoke of Reddit (another app I have but rarely open) and I could practically see our observed experiences diverging further and further from each other.
His comment about predictive text existing to “help the user type a bit quicker to send that message out faster” brought our experiences back in parallel, though. The detain/release task, although very different in action, existed on the same premise: leveraging algorithms to present information to help you complete your task faster. Algorithms are known for being speedy and efficient (Neyland, 2019), however, they are not always the most accurate reflection of what we would do/make/choose/say when not limited to the information they present. But would we have been able to access those choices/that information had the algorithm not existed? Therein lies the conundrum.
Getting back to our intent and whether our actions/productions represented our voices and perspectives, I’m not sure that either task resulted in much accuracy. Mark concludes with citing that the value of predictive text when it is designed to ‘aid’ our performance, as Vallor in the Santa Clara University (2018) video puts it, is much higher than when we assign it to “string a set of words to form a coherent thought.” I think this speaks to Vallor’s (Santa Clara University, 2018) other point: we are far from the age where algorithms will match human intelligence, so we should focus on what it can do rather than fearing for what it cannot yet do.
References:
Santa Clara University. (2018). Lessons from the AI Mirror Shannon Vallor [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/40UbpSoYN4k.
), and a personal details page that I would still be working through had I not decided to be deceptive myself (if anyone asks, I DO live at 3 Somewhere Street in Waterloo with a zip code of 12345). I was able to use the drop-down pronouns feature and identify my sex as they both had options aligned with how I identify, but it definitely got me by highlighting in blue the sex choice that was not being selected. At least it was kind enough to alert me to the inconsistency.