Linking Assignment
I commented on Isabella’s emoji story because she approached the story similarly to myself in that she tries to capture the themes and overall premise of the story. I also tried to phonetically spell my show’s title but for the events of the episode I tried to describe the plot and theme instead. She then narrowed down her emoji selections to only the key ones while I kept all of mine to try and make it as detailed as possible.
Through Isabella’s posting I was able to reflect and realise at times less is more, my story was a bit too easy to predict and if I had focused on the key themes instead I could have been able to tell more. Kress and Van Leeuwen (2001) emphasized that “depictions [have] a possibility of infinitely many full” (p. 15) interpretations. We both represented our emoji story with a chain of emojis and our synopsis but if we could have animated the emojis to expand the literacy and possible depictions we could have elevated the story.
Kress, G.R., & Van Leeuwen, T. (2001). Multimodal discourse: The modes and media of contemporary communication. Oxford University Press
I commented on Jon’s assignment curating the golden record because just like I had initially thought, we both thought to include the “Greetings from Earth”. I found this recording the most significant for any extraterrestrial life to hear because it shows the diversity of our species and also shares our universal greetings, the greatest chance to be understood in some form with extraterrestrial life. Furthermore, this recording shows a united front, an entire plant of over hundreds of cultures and languages coming together for such an achievement showing both a safeguard for our species but showing our capacity to collaborate and to exchange knowledge.
Jon began with his own criteria for selecting the piece, an element I described after I ordered my curated music and he focused on cultural diversity and emotional depth. I tried to avoid the cultural aspect and instead focused on creating a narrative story beginning with a prologue, a crescendo, climax, and fading action, and resolution, and an epilogue of sorts. I wanted to show the human spirit and to end on a message for the voyager itself, an element I hope wouldn’t be lost on any lost species or our future descendants that this satellite has been alone, floating through space for millennia.
Jon went on to describe why he selected each element while I did an overview. A better medium would have been a video like the podcast we heard where would explain each selection while having the song playing in the background, describing the narrative that may have been lost without the overlapping narration.
Nick’s approach intrigued me because he not only used one speech to track transcribing tool but he recorded himself and then applied it through OpenAi’s AIKO transcription tool and had it transcribe it from the recording. His story was clearly picked up by his iPhone and was entirely understandable, mine however could not go past my accent. Even more impressive was the use of AIKO and how it was able to understand the grammar and punctuation needed when transcribing from the recording, a feature that our phones and other tools all seemed to struggle with.
Our society is exceedingly becoming more digital and many colleagues use voice-recordings and voice-overs when teaching their lessons for students that are not able to be present in school. Anecdotally, students are often requesting subtitles to also be present when watching videos so it appears that audio is not enough and a written form of some sort is required. Together these two literacies need to be bridged and have a transcribing tool that can reliably and easily take our oral lessons to written text. I have a student that I have to use an around the head portable microphone. It works effectively and they assure me they understand but I still worry that he has trouble with my German accent as it seems to be difficult for American students to understand and American tools to understand.
Having a variety of students try speech to text tools, especially the one that was recommended, could create a data set that could be used and analyzed overtime to improve these tools. Furthermore they could be used to narrow down the best tools for use in education systems with the least limitations.
Jamie’s post stood out to me the most because it was similar to one of my favourite books, “A brave new world” by Aldous Huxley. He begins with his story and then he takes time to explain his scenario and why it fits with our readings. In my case though I approached the task as a stand alone narrative focusing on how our future can be so quickly lost if we become complacent and quickly replaced by simplistic beliefs. Jamie’s story made me contemplate and reflect upon my entire life direction from my first degree and career to now with the rise of AI.
As a young man I often believed such a utopian society run by AI could be a possibility and was the ideal dream to strive for as a nation. As I became older and was shown Gattaca in one of my high school classes, I was inspired into pursuing Genetic engineering studies and I saw the futility in these societies. The answer of a utopian society is not hidden in our genes, nor is the solution AI. Human beings have an inner ambition and drive to seek greatness, create, and think beyond our office cubicles. If we are left to our own devices without direction we will lose our way and cause problems for ourselves that we can then solve. “A brave new world” was a successful utopia due to the drug-conditioning to keep any dissenting views and our natural human curiosity suppressed. There will always be a human desire to know more and seek greater achievements in life. Instead I believe our focus should be spent on developing AI to help us navigate the stars, to bring back the Age of Exploration beyond our planet.
I commented on Natalie’s Detain and Release because she was one of the students who was unable to complete the task and this had me go back and attempt it again to see if it was possible to fail and it seems to be the most common option. I simply was lucky in surviving my first attempt though, perhaps because I changed my own intuitive algorithm to fit the trend I was seeing in releasing criminals.
Her comment had me thinking about the three strike policy in the United States of America, which I have often seen as ridiculous and unfair for the vast majority of criminals. But in Vancouver, where we have repeat offenders with 20,30,60 offences committing crime after crime and eventually violent crime I begin to wonder if past crimes should impact the decision for detainment for future crimes.
Quinn’s post drew me the most because it related to my own experience with going back home for the first time after decades. His comment had me reflecting on what I missed in my mother tongue and how living in Canada for so long has changed my way of thinking. When I went home I remember my cousins had to check my language as I was speaking informally far more than I used to, and when I came back to Canada I was far too formal to everyone which is usually seen as a sign as a non-Canadian in North American culture.
Similar to my post Quinn broke down each of the moments that stood out to him by writing a description. Similar to how nearly every classmate completed this task as well. But if I was able I’d instead prefer to do one of those disembodied head bubbles that influencers post, where they pause the video and explain instead real time with the context around the video still kept in place. The focus and attention span of our society has been decreasing, and simply reading and going back to a video to find the timestamp is an efficient method of text technology. Instead, having the information provided in real-time while watching videos is an important element that I hope to develop and improve to add to my videos of teaching math and science lessons.
