Prompt:

Describe or narrate a scenario about a news headline found a few years into a future in which society as we know it has come apart. Your description should address issues related to artificial intelligence and elicit feelings of cheer.

Scenario:

The year is 2040 and the health industry as we know it has changed for the better. With the creation of the new website and app called HealthLink Canadian residents can now have unlimited access to their health information at their fingertips.

The application allows for patients to:

• Book an appointment with an available doctor
• Have access to their own medical information at their fingertips
• Get within the hour access to most blood tests and lab results
• Be provided with customized nutritional information based on their individual health concerns
• Have a comprehensive understanding of their vitamin levels

The HealthLink app was created to fill a void in the healthcare industry. Just a few years ago, access to doctors was extremely limited. Many Canadians had a hard time finding a family doctor to see or even a clinic to go to with reasonable wait times. The HealthLink app allows Canadians to take control and access of their own health. The artificial intelligence in the HealthLink app allows the algorithm to locate available medical professionals as well as store and house safely patient medical information so patients always have access to their own important data regardless of which medical professional they see. 

HealthLink has revolutionized the patient experience in Canada and has now received global recognition. The European Union and Great Britain are looking to implement the HealthLink app in their own countries and are looking to Canadian professionals for support in doing so.

HealthLink is currently looking to expand its market to provide patient access to other areas of health, including mental health, dental, and physiotherapy.

Reflection:

“Speculative design asks questions about the future and offers some alternatives for the world of today, but more importantly, the world of tomorrow. It is a discursive activity founded in critical thinking and dialogue reflecting design practice” (Mitrović, Auger, Hanna, and Helgason p. 69). 

When thinking about this writing prompt and how AI can be used to elicit feelings of cheer, I immediately thought about the healthcare industry and how AI could be used to make healthcare easier for many, “Computer scientists are developing artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms that can learn, analyse massive amounts of data and recognize patters with superhuman efficiency” (Harari, 2017, p. 324). I think when using AI, simplifying everyday experiences, especially ones as sensitive and important as healthcare is, is really important and can make a difference for many people.

AI and computer algorithms, often times, have the power to do much more that what is in the realm of capability for many individuals, therefore, taking advantage of these programs and intelligences to better the health of many can be crucial.

References

Using the Palladio website to interpret our class network database from the Golden Record curation task for me was a new experience that came with some frustrations due to lack of understanding this learning tool. I liked how the tool was able to show the songs that were chosen and the mutual connections that formed form this which me some time to understand. I had not understood what each node represented but I learned that, “The degree of a node in a network is a measure of the number of connections it has to other nodes. This degree of connectivity can be interpreted in terms of the immediate likelihood of a node catching whatever is flowing through the network…” (Systems Innovation, 2015). Despite understanding this, I still found looking at my own name and interpreting all the connections I had and where they all lead to quite challenging to look at. Additionally, what I found most frustrating was a lack of explanation or other source of data to interpret these results. What I expected from this assignment was to be able to see which songs were chosen by my classmates and to be able to see how we aligned and possibly how we differed but I think that would require much more data to be collected in the survey our class took.

In terms of looking at the specific data that the Palladio data shows, I was curious to see how many connections there were to certain song choices and how few there were to other song notions. I found it interesting to see that there were so many connections to specific songs which meant that many people had chosen them in their own personal top ten lists. This made me curious about whether or not my colleagues and I shared the same reasonings for putting those songs on our lists. It was also curious to note that a few songs had very few connections and a couple I noted had no nodes, which meant no connections. They were all songs that I did not include on my top ten list either, so I was curious as to why others omitted these songs from their lists as well. This got me thinking about the Palladio data, and how, although, it does show connections to data, it does not provide reasonings for the data which leaves out a lot of room for interpretations. For me, I have the ability to go to my colleagues’ blogs and read about their song choices, but how often to people looking at data in similar fashions to this, have access to doing that?

As helpful and transformative looking at and understanding data and network connections can be, there are often times many pieces to the puzzle that remain missing when interpreting these results which could lead to skewed opinions and understandings of the data. It is important to think about what information is being presented to us and what information is left behind, whether intentionally or not. It is our responsibility as consumers of media and information to look at what we see, whether that be scientific data or not, with a critical lens.

References

Palladio. (n.d.). Retrieved March 11, 2023, from https://hdlab.stanford.edu/palladio-app/#/upload

Systems Innovation. (2015, April 19). Network Connections [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iViaEAytxw&t=12s.

I was nervous to do the Detain/Release simulation as I knew that it would invoke some feelings in me. I also knew that I would have a hard time deciding which people I would detain and which people I would release. I know that personally, I lean more on the release side especially when reading about cases in the news or elsewhere.

Some of the personal biases I have:

• I am a woman of colour
• I have close family members who have been in jail
• I have read a lot of crime novels
• I have watched a lot of crime television shows (true crime and fictional)
• I stay informed with the news

These are just some of the criteria I used when deciding if I would release an individual or not:

• The crime they were charged with
• Their explanation or reasoning as to why they should be released
• Their level of violence (high, medium, low risk)

When making these decisions I thought about the crime that the person was charged with first. For me, drug possession ranks pretty low on my list of crimes so I would often release the individual unless they had a medium or high risk for violence, in which case I would question that decision. I also looked at the individual’s explanations. Some individuals with a smaller level offence discussed how they would be unable to feed their families if they were detained. This also effected my decision.

When reading the article by O’Neil (2017) on algorithms used in the police force to detect and predict areas of crime the question was posed, “whether we as a society are willing to sacrifice a bit of efficiency in the interest of fairness.” The fact that this is a question makes me a bit frustrated. Fairness should never be traded off for efficiency, especially in matters that are of legal importance and hold significant weight in people’s lives. Algorithms like “PredPol, even with the best of intentions, empowers police departments to zero in on the poor, stopping more of them, arresting a portion of those, and sending a subgroup to prison” (O’Neil, 2017). In the case of the Detain/Release simulation, many of the individuals who were arrested on crimes like drug possession were poor and expressed that they would not be able to feed their families if they were to be detained. Are these types of software only working to target the poor who are involved in drug possession crimes and leaving out the wealthy who are just as equally involved in these types of crimes. The simulation also used blurred out cartoon faces to represent those charged with crimes but race and gender were clearly visible and I wonder if those factors would also effect someone’s decision making process as well.

References

O’Neil, C. (2017, April 6). Justice in the age of big data. Retrieved from: ideas.ted.com website: https://ideas.ted.com/justice-in-the-age-of-big-data/

Porcaro, K. (2019, April 17). Detain/release: Simulating Algorithmic Risk Assessments at pretrial. Medium. Retrieved November 21, 2021, from https://medium.com/berkman-klein-center/detain-release-simulating-algorithmic-risk-assessments-at-pretrial-375270657819.

Playing the game User Inyerface was much more challenging than I anticipated, as you can see from the time it took me to complete it. I actually attempted the game one time before but was unable to complete it and I think, looking back on that, it was because I was very tired and not very engaged in what I was doing at the time. During my second attempt, I tried to be more present and focused in what I was being asked to do. The game is a good example of attention economy and I felt that firsthand.

There were many things about the game that left me feeling very frustrated but also allowed me the opportunity to think about the fact that my internet usage is very rote in memorization and that I rely on a certain algorithm or way that website interfaces work that allows me to breeze through the simple process of setting up a username and password and completing tasks that prove I am not a computer.

Some of the things that I found the most frustrating were:

• The countdown pop-up that told me I was running out of time (this made me anxious and afraid I would not get through the process)
• Having to delete the greyed out words before I typed my own answers (this is usually done for me on websites when I click to type)
• Not knowing where exactly to click to move forward (the word that I needed to click to move forward on the first page was written in all caps but I wanted to click the underlined word or the large green circle)
• Having to unclick to accept the terms (this is not the case in every other website I have gone to)
• Age scroll (I was unable to put in my actual age of 34 because it would not scroll properly so I could only get 33)
• Identification questions (example: the website asked to identify bows but that included traditional decorative bows, bow and arrows, as well as a bow as a greeting

In Brignull’s article (2011), it is stated that websites and businesses can “Ensure default options benefit the business, even if this means some users convert without meaning to”, this is just one of the things I thought about when going through the game. A website could easily manipulate me into doing something that would benefit them as they are relying on my lack of attention and my reliance on websites to keep the same format throughout regardless of if they are connected or not.

Brignull also brings up the point that business could add small processing fees that rely on customers to not abandon the checkout process, ” Even if customers notice this, they probably won’t bother dropping out as the cost is too small to justify going through the checkout process on another site.” (2011) I have personally noticed this when shopping on Amazon. Recently I decided to cancel my Amazon Prime membership in an effort to defer myself from shopping mindlessly. When going through the checkout process, I noticed that the default is now changed to paid shipping even though my order qualifies for free shipping and often times the date of delivery is the same or a one day difference. Although I am more aware of this as I do pay attention to the total cost of my items, this could easily manipulate many others into paying a shipping fee without having to.

References

Bagaar. (2019). User Inyerface [web game].

Brignull, H. (2011). Dark patterns: Deception vs. honesty in UI design. A List Apart, 338.

Firstly, when listening to the Twenty Thousand Hertz podcast discussing the Voyager Golden Record I was intrigued and also happy to learn about the thought behind each of these records and why they were added to the record. I was struck when Tim Farris stated that diversity was a serious intention behind the record. I must admit that I had not known about the Voyager Golden Record and therefore this was all new and interesting to me.

After listening to the entirety of the podcast and also sampling some of the tracks on the Spotify playlist, I had a hard time narrowing down the song list to just 10. Listening to Tim Ferris and Linda Salzman Sagan and their reasoning’s for each song made a lot of sense to me and each record seemed very intentional. Because I was struck so much by Tim Ferris’s comments on diversity, I wanted to ensure that my choices reflected that as well. I also wanted to honour and recognize time and place in my choices. I put the Navajo Night Chant first because for me, I felt that this was important in my place and time to honour Indigenous ways of knowing.

I also chose tracks that were of interest to me. I chose Beethoven and Mozart as classical music has always held a special place and gives me a sense of peace which reminded me of Tim Ferris’s comments about wanting to make sure the record did not sound threatening and was more of a greeting.

Listening about why each record was chosen to be a part of the Voyager Golden Record was an eye-opening experience and although I do not believe the record should be narrowed down, I did my best to narrow down the record to reflect my own interests and understandings.

References

NASA. (n.d.). Voyager – music on the Golden Record. NASA. Retrieved March 4, 2023, from https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/golden-record/whats-on-the-record/music/

Taylor, D. (Host). (2019, April). Voyager golden record. [Audio podcast episode]. In Twenty thousand hertz. Defacto Sound.

Voyager golden record. Spotify. (n.d.). Retrieved March 4, 2023, from https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6pcuzwZSIw7OgL149bgJmZ

For this assignment, I decided to redesign the assignment by firstly, arranging the items in the order in which I pack them when going to work each day. This was important for me because it gives more context into what I find essential and why I pack the items in the way that I do.

Secondly, I decided to play a sort of word association game but, in this case, more of an item or picture association. I showed what each item in my bag reminds me of, particularly in the context of what I would imagine someone who had any given item to look like.

The New London Group (1996) discuss particularly how multi-modal meaning has become and with this assignment and the item association I did, help to ascribe more meaning to the products I carry with me to work each day. This task and thinking of redesigning it made me think about the many ways, as educators, we have to be flexible in our delivery of content and instruction, “the process of shaping emergent meaning involves re-presentation and recontextualization” (New London Group, 1996, p. 75). For many learners in classrooms, the traditional way of instruction is not suitable. In my classroom in particular, I try to incorporate a variety of teaching methods in terms of delivering instruction (digital presentations by me, reading, researching, etc.) as well as multiple modes of assessment to gauge student learning. If as educators, we are expecting students to be prepared for an ever-changing world, we must start in the classroom, by allowing them the ability to learn in a variety of different formats and contexts.

References

The New London Group. (1996). A pedagogy of Multiliteracies: Designing Social Futures. Harvard Educational Review 66 (1), 60-92.

• Did you rely more on syllables, words, ideas, or a combination of all of them?

For my Emoji story, I chose a novel that some of my students are reading for novel study this term in my classroom. This is a middle grade novel and it is one I used for novel study for the first time last year because I really enjoyed it. I found the process of completing the emoji story a bit challenging because there were some words that did not have an emoji for them. I decided to stick only to my iPhone’s emoji keyboard as that is the one I use the most and wanted to be authentic in this process but I found this challenging when trying to complete certain parts. I think I stuck to the basics of the plot of the book as opposed to any specifics because it became very difficult to find images that worked.

• Did you start with the title? Why? Why not?

I started with the title of the book as that made the most logical sense to me but I was surprised that I needed two emojis as the title of the book is one word and I thought there would be an emoji for that word but there was not in my iPhone emoji catalogue. Kress argues that, “unlike words, depictions are full of meaning; they are always specific… on the one hand there is a finite stock of words — vague, general, nearly empty of meaning; on the other hand there is an infinitely large potential of depictions — precise, specific, and full of meaning (2005, p. 15-16). Although there is an infinite potential for depictions (or emoji’s in this case), I was limited to the depictions available in my iPhone which made the process increasingly difficult.

• Did you choose the work based on how easy it would be to visualize?

Initially, I had chosen a book because I do not have much time for watching television or movies right now and I also thought that a middle-grade novel, written in verse, would be a bit easier for me to summarize using emoji’s but, I was quickly proven wrong. I also feel that I may have “cheated” or taken an easy way when I utilized the checkmark emoji, the x emoji, and the equal emoji to drive my story. There are many benefits to images in story, Bolter states that, “The use of images for cultural communication is nothing new. Even before the invention of the printing press, the Middle Ages had developed a sophisticated iconography that served in the place of words for a largely illiterate audience” (2001, p. 54). The difference between many Middle Ages cultures and today is that there is no set of rules or norms when it comes to the use of these types of images or emojis. Emojis are up for interpretation; what I view as important and how my brain chose to showcase a therapist in my emoji book summary may be different for another.

References

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

Kress, G. (2005), Gains and losses: New forms of texts, knowledge, and learning. Computers and Composition, 2(1), 5-22.

For this specific task, I chose to do Option 1 as I have found that in my daily life, I do not physically write as much anymore. I do write a daily sentence reflection on my day everyday and I do physically write out the things we are doing in my day plan as a teacher but other than that, everything has been digitized for me. Even my planner message and daily schedule are digitized and on projected display for students as they walk in to my classroom. Just the other day, I asked students to do their good copy of a poster project printed and not typed and some were aghast that I was asking this so I have been noticing the lack of printing in my own life and my class’s life as well.

I decided to reflect on a day this past week in my life that I felt a bit overwhelmed and thought it would be a good practice to write out my feelings. Below is my stream of consciousness and thoughts.

Do you normally write by hand or type? Did you find this task difficult or easy? Explain.

As mentioned above, their are a few times a day where I write by hand but most often I type everything of real significance and importance. Especially in a program like MET, everything is completed online so I rarely have an opportunity to write by hand and in an effort to reduce paper waste, going digital has also been helpful in that effort.

I actually found that I enjoyed writing my reflection/diary entry but I think it was because it was also a type of cathartic experience as I did have a difficult day and I found that writing physically helped to clear my mind. I will say that writing by hand consistently would probably frustrate me because I do not like how my printing becomes worse once I write for longer.

What did you do when you made a mistake or wanted to change your writing? How did you edit your work? Did you choice of media play a part in how you edited your work?

When I made a mistake or wanted to change my writing, I decided to embrace it. I crossed out a couple of words on the page and some letters I was able to change if it was a minor mistake. I was writing with my favourite uni-ball gel pen and my writing experience was very smooth and enjoyable but that meant I could not erase any work and would need to cross out or use a white-out for corrections.

What do you feel is the most significant difference between writing by hand and using mechanized forms of writing? Which do you prefer and why?

I would say that I prefer writing on a computer. I am grateful for the neatness and organization of it all but there are certain times when I need to write by hand for my own personal idiosyncrasies. I did this more in in-person university classes because when I take notes by hand I find I memorize the information better than if typing it on a computer so I would often leave my laptop at home for classes but now, in teaching, and trying to reduce unnecessary waste, I limit my time writing by hand.

The story I chose to tell was about my first experience kayaking on Alta Lake in Whistler. I thought it would be a good story to tell because it ended in a funny way and I look back and laugh about the situation now. I also found myself telling my students this story, last year when we took our grade 6/7 camp trip and one of the activities was kayaking.

(pre lake submersion)

Reflection

I used the app called Dictate to complete my voice to text assignment. I chose this app because it was the first one I saw when I completed my search in the app store. I tried to tell this story in the app without thinking about it much beforehand because I wanted to try and get a realistic view of what it would be like to use a voice to text app. I do not have much experience with using these applications as I have not found it necessary in the past. As an English major, I do enjoy writing and typing so these types of apps defeat the joy for me.

• How does the text deviate from conventions of written English?

One of the most important things that stood out to me in the text version of my oral story is the lack of proper punctuation in the correct spots. The text does include periods and some commas but they are not always in the natural spots in which I would place them if I had typed or written this story out. For example, I had said: “It was Canada Day 2018 my friends and I were in Whistler for my friends bachelorette party and we had decided to go kayaking one morning we had booked this adventure and I was a bit nervous because I had never been kayaking before and I wasn’t sure how to do it.” I would have split this portion into two sentences and put a period after the word “morning”. I remember when speaking this text into the app that I had tried to take proper pauses when speaking because I thought that would trigger the app to add a period but it did not. I also found that I was surprised that some of the words had changed from what I had said. There is one sentence towards the end where I had spoken “one of the students did” but the app had changed the word “did” to “dead”.

• What is “wrong” in the text? What is “right”?

One of the things that surprised me was the places the app was able to get right. I was not too shocked with the app recognizing Whistler and capitalizing it but I was surprised that Alta lake was recognized. There are also many places in the text where commas are used more than once in a sentence that is grammatically correct.

As previously mentioned above, the text has some errors in forgetting punctuation or not recognizing a couple of the words I was saying.

• What are the most common “mistakes” in the text and why do you consider them “mistakes”?

Many of the mistakes in the text have to do with grammar and the lack thereof. There are many run-on sentences that make me a bit frustrated because they make the story feel like it is being told by a child who is not used to conventions in writing. When my story gets to the part where we are trying to paddle back to the dock and the kayak tips over, there are so many commas but no logical stopping point or period that would have added to the story and made it easier to follow and understand. They are mistakes to me because they don’t elevate the story and instead make me notice the flaws.

• What if you had “scripted” the story? What difference might that have made?

I think that scripting the story would have made it easier for me to deal with pacing issues. Had I had a script to read off I maybe would have been better at taking the necessary pauses I needed to as well as perhaps enunciating more which would have hopefully triggered the app to clue into where punctuation, specifically commas, were to be placed.

One drawback to scripting the story would mean that it may have been shorter and I may have struggled to add more details. As I was telling the story into the app, I was watching the clock on my laptop to pace my story to get to five minutes. If I had scripted the story, I would have cut out what I would deem “unnecessary” parts and therefore may need to include more to make it to that mark.

• In what ways does oral storytelling differ from written storytelling? 

Oral storytelling, for me, is more colloquial and less formal but on the other hand, sometimes more powerful and has the power to leave a lasting impact. As someone who reads a lot of books, I find that written storytelling has the hinderance of having to be descriptive enough without being boring so to envelop the reader into the characters and the world that is being described. Oral storytelling already has an element of interest because it is being spoken and tone and pitch can draw the listener in.

Oral storytelling has been around since the beginning of time, it has been how most civilizations have been able to pass down and share information whereas, writing, is a bit newer; “Humans created two major systems of visual symbols to express themselves and to communicate with others: art and writing.” (Schmandt-Besserat and Erard, 2007, p. 7) Written storytelling has often had an air of sophistication surrounding it because it requires a greater deal of knowledge surrounding language structures and conventions in order to thrive but both oral and written storytelling aim to inform, entertain, and pass down knowledge to a vast majority of people.

References

Schmandt-Besserat, D., & Erard, M. (2007). Origins and forms of writing. In C. Bazerman (Ed.), Handbook of research on writing: History, society, school, individual, text (pp. 7-26). Routledge.

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Hello everyone,

For this activity, I have chosen to share with you my everyday bag that I carry specifically to and from work. This is the bag that I use the most often. I have a smaller purse but I only carry that when I am going somewhere and do not need as much stuff.

To give you a bit of context, I work in an elementary school as a grade 6/7 teacher. I work a full-time schedule and travel by car to and from work.

The items I carry are in the image below but are also listed here:

Essentials:

Work Laptop
Phone
Water Bottle
Smoothie Cup
Wallet
Car Keys
Work Keys and ID Badge
Lip Balm
Hand Sanitizer
Sunglasses

Non-Essentials:

Advil
Polysporin
Band-Aid
Tide-To-Go pen
Emergen-C
Sanitary pad
Pen
Hair Ties

For the first set of items, those are the ones I use on a daily basis. I need my work laptop for work as I rely heavily on technology when I am teaching, from displays and PowerPoints of lessons to everyday tasks like emails and communication with students and colleagues. I have two hydration bottles to stay healthy. My wallet, keys, and phone are essentials whenever I travel anywhere, which I do for work. My lip balm, hand sanitizer, and sunglasses are not extreme necessities and I could travel without them but I do use them constantly and therefore included them in the essentials category. I think that the first set of items are more standard items and honestly don’t say too many unique things about me. Most people will probably have a variation of those standard items in their bags more or less. The contents of my bag are usually only filled with essentials that I require to go from home to work. The other things that I need are usually kept in my home or in my classroom.

The second set of items I think are a bit more unique to me. The Advil and Sanitary pads say that I am a female and experience a menstrual cycle that I need to be prepared for. The Polysporin and band-aids I travel with because I tend to be quite accident prone and find having these things on hand to be quite useful, the same could be said for the Tide-To-Go pen as I often get stains on my clothing. The Emergen-C was given to me by a co-worker who I complained to about feeling low-energy.

The items in my bag can be considered texts because they speak to myself as a person. Some of the items, specifically, say that I have literacies in a couple of different areas. The sanitary pads say that I have knowledge, in some way, of what it means to be female and experience some of the experiences that go along with that. My laptop and work keys clearly state that I work at Surrey Schools, which shows that I have some literacies and connections in the education field. My smoothie may say that I have knowledge and literacies in the health field as I try to incorporate my daily intake of fruits and vegetables into my smoothie. My car keys also say that I have some road knowledge and driving literacy as I needed to pass a series of written and practical tests to obtain a license.

In terms of text technologies, the contents of my bag say that I rely heavily on technology for communication both in my personal life, with my phone, but also in my professional life with my work laptop. I am constantly sending texts or emails and getting notified on my phone and laptop of my students work progress on their digital portfolios so I need these items in order to communicate and engage with others.

I think that, in terms of basic essentials, this bag would be pretty similar 15 or 25 years ago, minus the technologies like a laptop and phone. I think that most people would carry essentials like a wallet and keys to go from place to place. But the technologies in my wallet like debit and credit cards with tap features as well as store membership cards have changed and evolved over time.

If an archaeologist or another person was to view this bag and try to gain context about the time period, I would say that my bag would do a decent job of showcasing essentials that are relevant to this particular time period. For example, car keys, wallet, phone, and laptop can all be dated to this time period. As technologies evolve in the future, keys to access buildings may become obsolete. With the invention of digital pay, a wallet may also soon be unnecessary to carry around.

My bag and the picture I chose of myself, I think go hand in hand and give context to the contents of my bag. Initially I was hesitant in showcasing some items in my bag, particularly sanitary pads but I as a grade 6/7 teacher who does health lessons with my class and encourages them to not be ashamed and to talk openly about these issues, I wanted to ‘walk the walk’ so to speak.