JOCELYN CHAN
Jocelyn Chan’s webspace includes a post engaging in the first task of the course. Jocelyn’s experience differed from mine in terms of the connections she made to text technologies. While she contemplates and discusses a detailed reason for how her items in her bag are enabled by technology in terms of the specifics of what the items contain, my written post indicates how my items in my bag are enabled by technology as a whole. This is particularly evident in the way Jocelyn utilizes an appropriate and engaging web authoring tool to manifest her work. This tool is genial.ly.
As seen from the above photo, she identifies the differing technologies and their literacies well. For instance, she highlights effectively to her audience in a way that the user can click on images to read a break down of the technology. Conversely, I share a narrative in my post with a photo that describes basic text technologies as a whole, and how they can be personalized to assist me in my everyday life, “Kindle – I am able to alter the way the text looks by changing the size of the writing”.
Jocelyn’s genial.ly privileges written and visual literacies. When combined together, these interact to motivate users to continue reading while also feeling in control of when and what they read next. Additionally, there is an end goal to what they read based on the number of items they are able to click on.
On the other hand, my site solely privileges written literacies. As it appears as a blog post, my users are restricted to a scroll with no end in sight until they reach the bottom of the post. As such, this denies control from the reader. To improve this, it would have been a great addition to include an oral podcast that shows an end time. The reader/listener would then be able to pause the podcast or click different parts in the audio bar that a particular topic.
While Jocelyn and I were given the same task and using the same blog format, we created completely different rendering of the content. I appreciated visiting Jocelyn’s webpage and engaging with the textual architecture that she has carefully chosen.
STEVE SU
Steve Su’s webspace has an organized layout of links to tasks completed. For the purpose of this reflection; however, I will be focusing on Task 6: An Emoji Story owing to how Steve’s post opened my eyes to thoughts regarding how we communicate or make understanding of texts, especially with visuals. In particular, emojis.
For one, I instantly noticed how our experiences differed owing to the style of emoji utilized. I would argue that I am a movie/television fanatic and have been challenged in the past to guess a movie, catchphrase or character based on emojis or other images. What I did not realize is how dissimilar iOS emojis are from other systems such as Android or Google. Growing up with iOS, I have never witnessed anything outside of this text technology. As such, when presented with Steve’s post, I instantly was stumped on the television show he was referring to as I could not figure out the meaning behind the non-iOS emojis included. This was a surprising moment!
Despite the distinction between imaging systems, our answers were still similar. For instance, Steve explains that he relied on words and ideas, began the assignment by assigning emojis to the media’s title first, and completed the task having had limited usage of emojis in the first place. Similarly, I too felt this way.
Kress (2005) mentions, “as language can be described as a natural phenomenon, linguistic rules can be described as natural rules, and these natural rules are used as both metaphors for the social and as means of enforcing the social conventions” (pp. 16-17). Reflecting on our comparable posts, I wonder if this is due to where our generational and/or dominant rules meet in the historical timeline of text technologies. Additionally, I am concerned with what today’s definition of “natural” or “social” is, just the same as what constitutes as being “literate” or “illiterate”. As Steve and I indicate that we are uncomfortable using emojis as a communication tool, does this make us unnatural or antisocial?
Finally, I would like to end this reflection by mentioning how mine and Steve’s webspace lacks inclusivity. It is clear that our sites privilege those who can read and are comfortable deciphering and/or decoding an emoji’s Westernized meanings. However, it denies access from users who are from differing backgrounds that might not understand their meanings or are able to make connections to the content. In other words, our webspaces deny universality.
This issue reminds me of a project I worked on titled, “Let’s Rethink Multiculturalism In Our Classroom Libraries”. Specifically, “books that are mirrors reflect our lived experiences including race, class, gender, ability, sexual orientation, family structure, and other categories that might reflect our lives, while books that are windows allow us to see an experience that is different from our own” (Vandehei-Carter et al., 2021, p. 182).
I argue that with our 21st century new learners, this quote and the above information extends to other literacies, such as media or emojis, and not solely books. As such, when considering how we communicate visually with emojis, it is important to keep in mind that they have different meanings based on different cultures. For instance, “[w]hile the thumbs-up symbol may be a sign of approval in Western culture, traditionally in Greece and the Middle East it has been interpreted as vulgar and even offensive” (Rawlings, 2018).
References
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
Rawlings, A. (2018, December 11). Why emoji mean different things in different cultures. BBC.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20181211-why-emoji-mean-different-things-in-different-cultures
Vandehei-Carter, A., Villanueva, N., & Clark, C. (2021). Multicultural curriculum transformation in literacy
and language arts. Lexington Books.
KATHERINE KELLY
Katherine Kelly’s webspace is a blog. Mostly, her work is manifested through visuals. In particular, I notice that Katherine converges engaging colours and text using a tool such as Canva. In this way, she is able to guide users to feel motivated to read the content, not only by text, but through her careful choice of design editing. Owing to Katherine’s visual-text combination, this instance reaffirms the idea that “control is not just a matter of the ratio of images to texts, but of the way in which text gathers around the image and supervises its reading” (Bolter, 2001, p. 49).
Focusing more on Katherine’s “Mind-Bending” post, our experiences differed. This is particularly evident in the way that we redesigned “Task 1: What’s In Your Bag?”. While Katherine created a video including images and a voice over describing herself, I am unaware what motivated her to engage in this kind of content authoring. However, I am aware that for myself, I became inspired by Jocelyn Chan’s initial post and wanted to transform the genre by including a podcast describing my bag, and creating a genial.ly quiz to reveal a picture of the items that belong in my bag once questions are answered correctly.
Gnanadesikan (2009) states, “writing is not language, nor is it necessary to language” (p. 4). Katherine’s textual architecture confirms this in the way that ideas and information need not be communicated solely through the so-called norm of reading written output. I imagine that the way that Katherine has approached this task affects one’s experience of the work because it becomes more inclusive. Ultimately, users accessing mine or Katherine’s webspaces are obtaining language through technology in its visual and spoken formats and shows that with attention to our 21st century audiences, “the dominant modes of representation of speech and writing are being pushed to the margins of representation” (Kress, 2005, p. 17).
References
Bolter, J. D. (2001). Writing space: Computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print (2nd ed.).
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.,. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781410600110
Gnanadesikan, A. E. (2009). The writing revolution: Cuneiform to the internet. John Wiley & Sons.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9781444304671
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
JOSEPH VILLELA
Joseph Villela’s webspace is designed with users in mind, making it a very usable online space to navigate. That is the “quality of interaction” between the webspace and its viewers is quite high based on simple and effective principles included (Issa & Isais, 2015, p. 52). Looking at the screenshot below, these standards follow closely to some of which Friedman (2021) suggests: intuitive exploration of site with simple blocks; more eye-catching visuals than written text; focused concentration from viewers by organizing and publishing recent posts at the top of the page; incorporating appropriate usage of bolding, text colours and size for maintaining user interaction; and lessening users’ thinking efforts with a minimalist perspective. It is important to note that Joseph’s quality blog is not limited to the homepage; however, in other posts as well, such as “Task 10: Attention Economy”. The good design of this post is explained when they write, “the most exciting part of creating a website is the design aspect. It is always a challenge to come up with new innovative ideas that give a website the “pop” it needs to stand out from competitors”.
Focusing more specifically on Joseph’s reflection of Task 10, I noticed that we had differing experiences despite having the same connections to Brignull’s (2010) concept of dark patterns. Firstly, I noticed that Joseph completed the User Inyerface game in 4:50 minutes (see screenshot below). On the other hand, I finished the game in 19:32 minutes (see screenshot below). This was surprising to me and I wonder if we both used similar devices to reach these end goals. Nonetheless, I also observed that while I was annoyed of the task, Joseph was able to find humour and interest in it. I wonder if this may be due to our varying interests and passions, as mentioned above with their experience in website accessibility.
I appreciated visiting Joseph’s post, especially since he challenged me to start considering how to apply and share this knowledge in lessons for even our primary students, as a part of the ADST BC Curriculum. Ultimately, it is essential that our 21st century learners are exposed to more current ways of how to “use materials, tools, and technologies in a safe manner in both physical and digital environments” (BC Ministry of Education, 2018).
References
BC Ministry of Education. (2018). Applied design, skills, and technologies 3. BC curriculum. https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/curriculum/adst/3/core
Brignull, H. (2010). Deceptive design. Deceptive design. https://www.deceptive.design/
Friedman, V. (2021, October 1). 10 principles of good web design. Smashing magazine. https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/01/10-principles-of-effective-web-design/
Issa, T., & Isaias, P. (2015). Usability and human computer interaction (hci). In Sustainable design: HCI, usability and environmental concerns (pp. 19-36). Springer, London.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-6753-2_2
KAYLI MCKAY
Kayli McKay’s webspace, in particular, her post response to Task 4 is enlightening. Being not much of a crafts person myself, I felt I missed a learning opportunity and/or point of view because I did not challenge myself to go outside of my comfort zone and complete the potato printing exercise.
Watching Kayli’s YouTube video was a great choice. Unlike typical tutorial videos, her spin on content-authoring gave more depth to the word she was carving into the potato, “Pride”. She mentions how “Pride” goes beyond Pride Month and the inclusion of the LGBTQIA2+ community, but that it provides a unique connection to her culture and how she is proud of who she is being a Metis woman. At this point in the video, the authoring tool she used for the post is justified with her personal storytelling. Additionally, the potato printing activity has become more than the word itself and her interpretation; however, more about the mechanization of writing and how indigenous languages are dying because a lot of them are not written. This idea is closely related to Ong’s (2002) statement that, “When an of ten-told oral story is not actually being told, all that exists of it is the potential in certain human beings to tell it” (p. 11). While orality may appear less preservable than written manuscripts (how I responded to Task 4), podcasts are one of many other ways language can be recorded and change the course of dying languages.
Text can be oral or written and it is not a matter of which one is better, but more of the fact that one may be more important for a culture, generation or community than another. This is why diversity exists. It also sheds some light on how this idea can be applied in which I have a more wholesome understanding of my students’ learning styles. Text and text technologies are everywhere and I need to consider “the affordances of multimedia for learning” more carefully (Dobson & Willinsky, 2009, p. 5).
References
Dobson, T., & Willinsky, J. (2009). Digital literacy. In D. R. Olson & N. Torrance (Eds.),
The cambridge handbook of literacy (pp. 286-312). Cambridge University
Press. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0740-624X(99)80019-7
Ong, W. J. (2002). Orality and literacy: The technologizing of the word. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203426258
ALEXIS
Alexis’ webspace, regarding Task 12: Speculative Futures, is the final reflection I will be making as a part of this Linking Assignment. Alexis opened up a possibility of how information can be effectively communicated through text technologies, such as Powtoon. I found myself shying away from Powtoon owing to my comfortability writing and typing. Reflecting on the why of my choice, I recognize that to me, “writing has the potential for even more profound transformations of humans because it operates on both of these levels-both its psychological (semiotic) aspect and its material-technological aspect [that] have the potential to transform” (Haas, 2013, p. 16). While I have practiced the art of writing for many years by making creative writing pieces, blogging poetry and writing papers for my education, I still feel detached from making meaning with my writing with the overshadowing of today’s communication formats. I have been stubborn and have not evolved my toolkit of text technologies.
Watching and reading Alexis’ post, I am aware that “the treatment of text as image becomes even more popular and more culturally compelling with the rise of digital media, because of the ease with which images and words can be combined” (Bolter, 2001, p. 52). I am glad that I got to view her blog before completing the task, as it helped push me out of my old habits to try and do something (e.g., make my first Powtoon) that can communicate more appropriately to the audience of this generation.
References
Bolter, J. D. (2001). Writing space: Computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print (2nd ed.).
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.,. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781410600110
Haas, C. (2013). Writing technology: Studies on the materiality of literacy. Routledge.