Task #10: Attention Economy

How has your colleague’s experience differed from yours? And how do you know?

Well to state the obvious, Emily McDougall finished the challenge whereas I did not. After 5 attempts and ultimate mental frustration, I decided to give up. Emily did mention that it took about 10 minutes to get past the first page of the challenge, I must’ve spent at least 40 minutes. Reading through her post, she wrote about the continued frustration that she experienced as the challenge continued. I commend her for completing User Inyerface in 8 minutes and 53 seconds. I read a different post, where the blogger “cheated” and looked up how to complete the first page on the internet. I could have done the same but I refrained. Perhaps I will try again. Maybe. Maybe Not. Nah.

What theoretical underpinnings are evident in your/your colleague’s textual architecture and how does this affect one’s experience of the work?

We both discussed the various “dark patterns” found within the challenges of User Inyerface. Emily mentions in her post that Harris (2017) states, the best way to combat this web deception is to acknowledge that we are persuadable and use this to be more alert. I agree with this point in that there are elements within each page of the challenge that persuades the user to do the opposite of what is being asked. This is explained further by Birgnull (2011)  who states that, users don’t want to read pages, they want to scan them, therefore a deceptive website can hide a lot of information in the fine print. I can see how companies can take advantage of consumers because of this very fact. I wonder how much money has been made by various companies using dark patterns? Are there any companies that don’t use dark patterns and are honest?

References

Brignull, H. (2011). Dark Patterns: Deception vs. Honesty in UI Design. Interaction Design, Usability, 338.

Harris, T. (2017). How a handful of tech companies control billions of minds every day. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/tristan_harris_the_manipulative_tricks_tech_companies_use_to_capture_your_attention?language=en

ETEC 540 – Task 8: Golden Record Curation

After reading Joseph’s blog post on the Golden Record Curation, I found some commonalities in the criteria that we set in the selection of our Top 10 tracks. We both have never heard of this curation before and are both fascinated by it. We also wonder what the curation would be like if it was created year to year and how different the choices in music and sounds would be.

Joseph “chose not to select music that sounded frightening as the goal of the Voyager Golden Record was to send a peaceful message in the hopes of either sharing what we accomplished on Earth or extended an olive branch to whoever may find it if we still exist.” I also based my criteria on this very point, although I did not express this thought in my blog. There were specific tracks that sounded very intense and suspenseful  to the ears, such as Mozart’s Queen of the night by Eda Moser.  The counter argument would be to try and justify that other intelligent beings would think the same thoughts. There’s no way in knowing, which makes this whole project even more interesting.

I appreciated Joseph’s personal notes on each track that he selected. He provided a thoughtful and analytical response to how the sounds in each piece of music spoke to him. I wonder what pieces of music he would’ve put together if given an opportunity to curate a record of Earth’s sounds?

Task 7: Mode-Bending

Reflections

• How has your colleague’s experience differed from yours? And how do you know? The experience differed in the digital platform that we each chose to present the mode bending task. I re-designed the task in the form of an interactive digital book, using the online program Book Creator.  Erin chose a social media application, Tik Tok, as her re-design for the task. The process that Erin had to take to create her Tik Tok video was quite strategical.  From the music choice, simple text, filming, transitions, and voice overs. Her mode-bending presentation allows for accessibility for different types of learners since Erin’s Tik Tok supports visual, auditory, and kinaesthetic learners. She used the text-to-speech application on the program to have her text be read aloud and made careful consideration of the timing in between frames. Using a social media platform forms a sense of “creation of virtual communities” enables “greater autonomy for different lifeworlds” (p 71) as stated by The New London Group (1996). The development of social media platforms allows for “private lives are being made more public as everything becomes a potential for media discussion” (p 70). Therefore the importance of acknowledging and teaching to digital citizenship is vital for all ages of learners. 
• What literacies does their site privilege or deny in comparison and contrast to yours?  As Erin states in her post, “mode-bending is a great exercise to get out of your comfort zone, try new things and be creative. It forced me to think about many possibilities that I normally would not pursue” I could not agree more with this statement, as I felt the same way when using Book Creator. I have used this application very briefly to utilize the camera and recording tools but I challenged myself with incorporating other options such as embedding links and GIFs to make the digital book more interactive for the readers.  The New London Group (1996), states that the “notion of design connects powerfully to the sort of creative intelligence the best practitioners need” in order to “redesign their activities in the very act of practice” (p 73). As an educator, I am continuously looking for ways to innovate my teaching practice to motivate my students to be engaged and involved with the process of being creative to showcase learning. 

• What theoretical underpinnings are evident in your/your colleague’s textual architecture and how does this affect one’s experience of the work?The New London Group (1996), says that when thinking about re-designing, the process of transformation includes the “new use of old materials, a re-articulation and recombination of the given resources of Available Designs” (p 76). It is essentially a form of metalanguage, which is “a language for talking about language, images, texts, and meaning-making interactions” (p 77). To further analyze this thought, I used Figure 1, “Multiliteracies: Metalanguages to Describe and Interpret the Design Elements of Different Modes of Learning” to create a graphic that shows our design concepts. Both Erin and I focused primarily on the Linguistic Design of the task. Visual design was the next highly focused area. (I’m sure we could argue that our presentations apply to many more of the points in the figure but I provided a brief analysis.) I am not surprised by the results since language is visual. You can’t describe language without including some sort of element that includes visuals to support color, perspectives, and foreground/background context.

Conclusion

I enjoyed this task and was quite inspired by what my other colleagues have created for this mode-bending assignment. I completed a quiz that was created through Genially on another blog and that has inspired me to give this program a try. I’m a little less inclined to use Tik Tok as a sharing platform that I could encourage my students to use at the elementary level. Perhaps, one of you can change my mind otherwise? How would you go about making Tik Tok classroom friendly and how do you factor in privacy issues?

References

• The New London Group.  (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. (Links to an external site.)  Harvard Educational Review 66(1), 60-92.

Katherine Kelly’s Post – Emoji Story

Task 6: Emoji Story

What web authoring tool have they chosen to manifest their work?

Katherine used https://emojipedia.org as the tool to present her Emoji story, This was after noticing that the copy and paste function from https://emojikeyboard.io; did not transfer correctly. I also noticed this same problem when trying to copy the emoji story onto the blog site, it changed the overall look of the emojis selected. When I copied and pasted onto a Word document, then the look of the emojis remained the same. I also connected with the struggle of being unable to search for emojis to retell my story, which made the task more difficult. I noticed that on https://emojikeyboard.io, there were different systems to choose from when it came to selecting a Emoji type (Twitter, Google, WhatsApp). I wonder what Emoji type was used for https://emojikeyboard.io and if there are other “types” out there for people to use?

Katherine also included a video “Frozen as Told by Emoji” to prove Bolter’s (2001) argument that images have the ability to bypass written work altogether. As I was watching this video, I was impressed by the use of emojis, but what we didn’t have was the ability to use music, sound effects, and animations within our Emoji story. What a difference it makes when you change the mode of presentation to make it conducive to all audiences. This video supported the visual, audio, and musical learner.

What literacies compare and deny in comparison and contrast to yours? 

Katherine chose to translate a classic picture book for her Emoji story, The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. She focused on individual words from each page of the book to represent her Emoji story. I focused on the ideas of the plot for the TV series, This is Us, to create my Emoji story. I believe that Katherine had an easier time translating her book into Emojis because the majority of her book contains nouns, which can easily be found in emoji form. I had a more difficult task since the TV series I decided to retell is about 6 seasons worth of content. So I focused on the main characters and briefly described the major events that happened with this family.

Katherine included a title in her Emoji Story, whereas I did not.  My title is too difficult to replace the words with emojis, since there are no concrete nouns within the title.

 What theoretical underpinnings are evident in your/your colleague’s textual architecture and how does this affect one’s experience of the work?

We both quoted from Bolter’s (2001) work in this task, and are both understanding of his point that emojis/visual images provide viewers with a visual experience that allows for an appropriate realization. The more visual the material, the more engaged the audience will be. Using emojis is a different kind of digital literacy that includes the need for translating, evaluating, analyzing and reading skills. Emojis have become a part of our language, especially in the digital world of texting and emails. They are an informal way of communicating but emojis provide context to what the writer is expressing in a quick manner.

References

Chapter 4. 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

Georgia’s Post – Manual Scripts

https://blogs.ubc.ca/gkadawong/2022/06/09/task-4-manual-scripts/

Georgia’s pictures from  her post on Manual Scripts

• What web authoring tool have they chosen to manifest their work? Georgia chose to use photo documentation to showcase her work. She wrote everything out by hand and provided photographs of her writing journey. Georgia even provided photos of her main subject, Kuma, to provide context behind her written journal entry of Kuma’s first camping trip. By choosing to write her post by hand, this allowed for a free flow of thoughts to be composed that was authentic. Her writing emitted flow within the words, emotions could be conveyed, and it also allowed the reader to be a part of something personal to connect with the author. I was able to draw similarities and differences within the writing sample to my own. We both crossed out mistakes in our writing sample and admit to not being strict on formal edits when writing freely.

• What literacies compare and deny in comparison and contrast to yours? I would like to focus on the writing tools that Georgia chose to compose her writing sample. I noticed right away, before reading the words, that she used two different coloured pens and a pencil for this task. It made me question why this was the case. As I read her writing, she addresses the reasons for the multiple writing tools for the task as a strategy plan. She discussed that efficiency is the main difference between writing by hand versus mechanized forms of writing. Georgia provided the example of how her original pen failed her and therefore she had to find a substitute. When writing about her camping trip, Georgia chose to write in pen because she was not concerned with providing formal edits and therefore this allowed for a free flow of thoughts without constraints. I also used ink for my writing sample because I felt the exact same way. There is a formality behind a typed out piece of writing, where the expectation is that it will be free of errors. I noticed that she used ink to highlight the questions for her reflections and answered the questions using pencil. The use of different writing tools to differentiate headings vs personal written thoughts, draws attention to the reader’s eyes. Georgia’s choice in using pencil when writing out her reflections allowed her the convenience of making “edits easier and more formally with an eraser.” I chose not to use pencil for this task because I find it physically harder to write with a pencil. You have to push down harder to have the lead transfer onto the paper and the width of the pencil hurts my fingers while writing, especially during long durations or if I’m writing quickly. Thus is the reason I chose to type out my reflections so that the writing appears more formalized and I was able to edit my work using the mechanics of software such as autocorrect spell checking. So I have to agree with Georgia that one of the main differences between writing by hand and mechanized writing is efficiency but I would like to add presentation and formality to the list as well.

•  What theoretical underpinnings are evident in your/your colleague’s textual architecture and how does this affect one’s experience of the work?  As I was reading Georgia’s post, I observed that she wrote her journal entry into the middle of a notebook which makes it appear that it had been used before.  When listening to the creators of the podcast, Stuff to Blow Your Mind, in their episode, “From the Vault: Invention of the Book, Part 1,” they speak of the purpose behind a book. The podcasters provide the argument that “books are fixed memories in documentation” and contain thoughts that are frozen. Books are a way of “storing and disseminating information” and an “extension of the human mind.” Although Georgia’s book is more of a journal, it is personal and it is a way for her to express herself. Journals or diaries are not always meant to be shared with an audience so I wonder how the writing would’ve changed if it was for her eyes only.

Journals are a kind of archaeological evidence, in text form, that represents the evolution of one’s life. The things I wrote about when I was in elementary school versus high school are drastically different. It shows how I have evolved overtime emotionally, socially, and personally. Even the physical shape and type of books I would write in changed over time. The type of diaries I used in elementary school included ones with a cute cover that came with a lock and key. The journals I kept in high school were more in the shape and form of notebooks.  I still have these diaries and journals but they are stored deep inside my garage and away from my children to find them. These documented memories are only fixed in writing and not in real life, thank goodness!

References

Georgia. Manual Scripts. https://blogs.ubc.ca/gkadawong/2022/06/09/task-4-manual-scripts/

Stuff To Blow Your Mind, entitled “From the Vault: Invention of the Book”, Part 1.

http://https://blogs.ubc.ca/samcharles5402022s/2022/06/03/task-3-voice-to-text-task/

Sam Charles’ Video Post

• How has your colleague’s experience differed from yours? And how do you know?

I appreciated Sam Charles’ post on “Voice to Text” in that he decided to present his reflection in a form of a video with closed captioning subtitles. As a visual learner, I was able to watch, read, and listen to his reflections on the topic. Sam had a different experience from me in that he was more successful in the outcome of this task. I had unknown trouble shooting issues with my recording which I now know is due to not using a device that has a microphone that is of close proximity to my mouth. I can see that he had a head set with an embedded microphone attachment to it. Therefore, the translation of his recording is more accurate , whereas my transcript was a string of repetition and nonsense words. Although the grammar and syntax was incorrect in some areas of Sam’s transcript, they are minor errors in comparison to my transcript.

• What web authoring tool have they chosen to manifest their work?

Sam chose to use  Adobe Premiere PRO to create the video and provide the transcription for the closed captioning tool.

The video provided a personal connection between the viewer and the author. It made the text being read more meaningful because I could see who was speaking and it felt as if Sam was talking directly to me. I could hear the rhythm and thought process in his voice as he was speaking, which helped me to analyze his transcript and derive meaning to the text. The video quality was quite grainy but the volume and clarity of Sam’s voice was able to be heard without any issues.

• Other Thoughts

Since the pandemic, educators have been challenged with adapting lessons to be accessible online for students learning from home. When B.C. educators taught remotely in the Spring of 2020, we had less than a month to create and provide a program using an online platform that we had no previous training in using. In Vancouver, we were restricted to only using Microsoft TEAMS to deliver content and provide communication to our students. When I recorded my Math lessons, there was a transcript provided. Each line was time stamped and included every word and sound I made, including when I laughed out loud! These recordings ended up being beneficial to my students that couldn’t attend live meetings but could watch the recording and still participate in the learning.

Fast track to current times, we are still maintaining class TEAMS pages but it is mainly used as a space to provide reminders and post assignments. Perhaps, this platform can be utilized for more than just this basic purpose.  I have read about the Blended Learning Environment, in which Vaughan et al. defines it as “the organic integration of thoughtfully selected and complementary face-to-face and online approaches and technologies.” This model supports a “framework for principles and guidelines that shape the design process of choosing content, creating student learning activities of collaboration and interaction, and identifying assessment procedures” (p 21).

This availability of providing online tutorials, recorded by the teacher, allows for an extension of learning to occur and for the parents to be included in the process as well. This is something I have been thinking about incorporating into my TEAMS page, especially when introducing a new skill or program such as coding. It would be like my very own Kahn academy within my TEAMS page!

References

Charles, Sam. “Voice to Text” http://https://blogs.ubc.ca/samcharles5402022s/2022/06/03/task-3-voice-to-text-task/

Vaughan, et al. (2013), Teaching in Blended Learning Environments: Creating and Sustaining Communities of Inquiry (pp 19-44).