To complete this task, I used the website https://emojipedia.org/. I chose this site for two reasons. First, because you can search for specific emojis, and second because I have used it before to place emojis in my Google Classroom for my students to find titles and assignments easily. I teach Grade 1 online and the students need to know how to navigate the platform with minimal skills in reading. As supported by Bolter (2001), icons “provide an appropriate visual experience and through that experience to dictate an appropriate reaction” (p. 51). Therefore, having pictures that can direct their attention is quite effective. Additionally, the emojis on this website are relatively common to what people might see on their phones when texting with emojis. 

Initially, this task also reminded me of Ellen DeGeneres’ Game of Game’s called ‘See Ya Later Alligator’, where players face off in a challenge to be the first to read an emoji sentence. You can see a clip here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcgK7HxQ-tQ. The difference between Ellen’s game and our task is the amount of emojis available to create words that go together. Unlike Ellen, I didn’t try to develop blended words and instead kept with one symbol per word. However, even when thinking of one symbol per word, I knew I couldn’t represent every word leaving the reader to interpret my sentences. Another difficult part of using one emoji per word was trying to figure out what word to use to search the emoji. For example, the word ‘travel’ came up with more than one emoji option, while the word ‘last’ had no search results. 

When choosing what work I wanted to visualize, I tried to be strategic in picking a TV show with a similar theme throughout the whole season and/or series. In doing so, my hope is that the person reading my emoji story will have less ambiguity in deciphering what my story is saying. Unlike some TV shows, the plot can be carried on between episodes and seasons and is harder to summarize. Similarly, I knew that if I chose a movie, I would be worried about how to condense the plot appropriately. 

To share what TV show I picked, I wanted to start with a title because it seemed a logical way to introduce my reader to the story they would read and attempt to understand. When watching a show or movie, the title is something we see within minutes of starting. In a way, the opening title sets our expectation for what we are about to watch. 

This module was very interesting to me because I use emjoi’s daily. When writing a text message, sometimes my only response will be in an emoji. As Bolter mentions, “The use of images for cultural communication is nothing new” (p. 54). It’s quite interesting that we use these symbols so freely to replace text in order to communicate and get a point across without being face to face with someone (Bolter, 2001 p. 56). Overall, I am pleased with the end result of my story and I am interested to see what stories my classmates told with only emojis. 

References

Bolter, J. D. (2001). Writing space: Computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print (2nd ed.). Mahwah, N.J: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. doi:10.4324/9781410600110