Summary

While exploring final projects I came across Margaret Irwin’s “An Evolution of Recipes” that really caught my eye. Margaret’s final project was an infographic of how recipes have evolved over time. She includes oral traditions, written recipes, recipe collections, the recipe card, algorithms and questions about the future. On Margaret’s blog she describes connecting her project to her Food classes that she teaches as a teacher in B.C. The infographic is displayed as a timeline from the top of the page to the bottom as recipes have changed overtime.

Margaret’s post: https://blogs.ubc.ca/etec540margaret/2020/08/10/final-project-describing-communication-technologies/

I was drawn to Margaret’s project as it had similarities to mine. I also created an infographic that describes how the term DNA changed overtime and came to be. I designed the infographic as a timeline that began at the top and concluded at the bottom. I like how Margaret used the term “evolution”; that would have been a good word to include in my title and also would have payed tribute to Charles Darwin, who is connected to the history of DNA, just not included in the history of the term DNA. Similar to Margaret, I also wanted to create my final project to support my teaching. In this case I connected this assignment to my grade 12 Biology class that learns about DNA.

My Post: https://blogs.ubc.ca/paslawski540/2020/08/10/the-untold-history-of-dna/

Reason for Link

I really like how Margaret created something meaningful to her by including her family and her husband’s family recipes and connecting to her students as a Foods teacher. She also intentionally tried something new, which in her case was using Canvas. I also intentionally tried a new application by using genially, which I learned about in ETEC 540. I did not know that Canvas allowed for interactive components such as YouTube videos as Margaret used in her infographic. One of the reasons why I chose genially was for the interactive components.

User Interface

A considerable difference in user interface between my infographic and Margaret’s is the tools to present an image on the UBC WordPress Blog. Margaret’s page allows for the PDF to expand into a new tab using Google Drive which creates a large visual that is easy to read along with the zoom button at the bottom. My post is quite large; however, it does not allow the viewer to see the image any larger. I did include a PDF file to download, however this removes the audio clips that are embedded within.

 

Another difference between our blog pages is the links on the right-hand side of the page. On Margaret’s blog she chose to include links to recent posts, comments and a search function which limits the size of post itself. On my blog page I chose to remove the right-hand links to allow for more space for the posts. However, this does take away the ability to quickly view other posts or search on my blog. There are pluses and minuses to this decision that I only noticed when viewing Margaret’s infographic.

Summary

Thinking about the future of education can be exciting. Each of us have different perspective and opportunities within education and may have very different predictions about what the future may hold. While reading various future I came across a prediction very similar to mine.

Daniella Balabuk described a future in her post about a 15-year-old year named Sami. It’s the year 2035 and Sami attends school via an education pod. Daniella describes this to be a 360-degree screened pod where lectures take place with her classmate and teacher. Sami’s education is similar to my character Julia. I described Julia to be 16-years old and in the year 2045. Julia also does not attend a physical school but participates with classmates and teachers in VR from her home. Unlike Julia, Sami is able to participate in activities like soccer with members of her cohort at a community centre. This component was not an aspect that I had considered, the social aspect and physical activity. I like how Daniella addressed the ability for students to be physically active and interact with other students her age in person.

Reason for Linking

When reading Daniella’s post, I was amazed by her narrative of Sami’s life. Daniella’s ability to describe what the future will be like for education was so descriptive that it feels almost real now. I really liked how her included specific names of places in her story. This was a huge contributor to the realness of the narrative. Reading this post made me reflect on how I could have added more detail to my story about Julia and allowed for the text to truly describe what life could be like rather than a brief summary. Daniella’s post inspired me to reflect on my own writing and challenge myself in the future.

Daniella’s Post: https://blogs.ubc.ca/dbalabuk540/2020/07/31/task-12-speculative-futures/

My Post: https://blogs.ubc.ca/paslawski540/2020/07/27/task-12-what-if-world/

The task of finding an alternative method of presenting the “What’s in your bag” task was a challenging one. There are so many ways in which you could do so and that was demonstrated by the variety of modes within our class. Tyler Graham had a similar approach to this task as I did by adding a musical twist to the items in our bags.

Tyler wrote and create a song with lyrics that describe the items found in his bag. In my opinion, based on the image of Tyler playing guitar and the production level of the audio clip I would say he knows what he is doing. Tyler’s approach allowed his musical abilities of song writing to complement the items found in his bag. He also used technology to create the background music to match his song with an incredible production level.

Tyler’s post and song can be found here: https://blogs.ubc.ca/monsieurgraham/mode-bending/

Tyler’s Lyrics

What’s in your bag? Is there a yarn to spin?

What’s in your bag? Gonna tell you everything.

Got the produce not to eat, and its protective shell.

Got the cables I got the cords, cause this Apple’s electrical.

I got a hairbrush folded away, that look good, feel good fun.

I got erasers at the end of my lead, gotta fix it all before it’s done.

Packin’ a couple of reference books, it’s quicker easier on the web.

But flippin’ pages like a bygone age, there’s somethin’ tangible to be said.

Got this citrus dossier to keep the labour safe on the run.

And records kept in ink so red for this trip around the sun.

 

My Post can be found here: https://blogs.ubc.ca/paslawski540/2020/06/26/task-7-a-parody/

My Lyrics

At times it may be difficult to understand what I was saying, like I said, music is not my strong suit.

Yeah, I’m gonna take my bag to the grocery store

I’m gonna pack ‘til I can’t no more

I’m gonna take my bag to the grocery store

I’m gonna pack ‘til I can’t no more

I got the keys in the back

Cell phone is a must

Cash from the bank

Got the wipes that’s packed to clean

Reading when I wait, yup

You can use my pens

I have hand – sani

You ain’t prepped like me

Your always gunna find somethin’

It is never nothin’

Your always gunna find somethin’

It is never nothin’

Water when I need more

Oils when I’m feelin’ sore

Food can come in handy

So, I don’t be hangry

My bag keeps my stuff safe

That is up for debate

The bag is from Kate Spade

Purchased this decade

 

In comparison, I used the approach to incorporate music by borrowing the melody from a music artist, Lil Nas X, and remixing the lyrics to match the description of my bag. This had some limiting factors as I was trying to match the syllables and beat in Old Town Road. This led to some tricky lyrics and difficulty pronouncing while recording. Had I written my own song I could have avoided these issues.

Overall, I applaud Tyler for his creation. His post allowed peers to learn more about him as an extension of his bag. I felt this was the goal I had in mind for my song. However, with the disclaimer that I do not find myself to be musically inclined and really showed myself and my peers a new side of me.

There were many amazing twine creations this week, but one that really stood out to me was created by Carla.  I decided to link my twine post to Carla’s creation.

Carla created a twine story for her little cousins that makes for a great digital storybook with so many possibilities. I absolutely love the idea behind this story and the possibilities it offers children when they think about a career. I think Carla has a second career in writing children’s books. This story really spoke to me because the main character shares his uncomfortable feelings about career day, this would have been me as a child. I would have been very anxious to go to school on career day and had similar thoughts as Marty. This story makes children feel like it’s okay to be anxious and has a wonderful ending.

Carla’s approach to her twine story was in contrast to mine and provided me with a great example of another way to think about using twine. My story is more of an educational tool to teach children about the processes of digestion in grade 11 biology that allows students to learn along the way. Carla created a story that uses hyperlinks to allow the reader to guide the direction of the story and provides career advice along the way based on interests.

Another aspect that Carla’s twine contrast mine is her original images. I love how Carla drew the images that she embedded into the story. These images make the story very unique and provides a relaxed vibe while reading it. In the future if I were to make another twine, I would consider creating my own drawings, unless I decide to make a twine based on the human body, then maybe not. The images for my twine were taken from https://smart.servier.com/ which allowed me to include great detail for the digestive system. However, due to the size of my images  the text got pushed down and out of site without scrolling. In Carla’s twine, the structure of the images allows for an easy “read” without the need to scroll, this design is important to the overall user experience and will be something I take into consideration next time.

As Carla mentioned in her post, this twine activity took significantly more time than other tasks and I would most definitely agree with her on that. I found myself deep into the Twine world and YouTube videos learning how to edit text and font. Carla even discovered how to add in effects which is super cool! This twine is a great example of the possibilities twine has to offer, thanks for sharing your creation Carla!

Reading Valerie’s post from potato printing inspired me and reminded me to think outside the box. For this link I would like to reflect on my potato printing post to Valeries.

I loved the creativity expressed in Valerie’s potato printing post. Valerie shared her experience and her process in great detail which provides a great opportunity to compare her experience to mine. As I shared in my post, I enjoyed printing with the potato’s despite the challenges along the way.

Valerie’s experience contrasts mine as she describes the brainstorming process that she did with her son. She explains other words that they consider to select when brainstorming and allowed her son to take control of the selection process. I had not considered brainstorming words or creating a prototype for my image. The process of creating a prototype resulted in a beautiful final product that Valerie used to create a t-shirt for her son. Valerie documented her journey with images that display the attention to detail she had for her stamps including alignment, type face and layout on the shirt. When I was creating my stamps I had not considered how to create a design that would result in a beautiful type face as Valerie’s. If I were to do this again I would consider how I want the print to look aesthetically.

I do not know for certain but if I were to take a guess, I would say that Valerie has experiencing teaching children how to write. Valerie includes specific comments about the letter heights and their correct position, something that I had not considered. I imaged potato stamps to be capital letters, and that is what I did, without thinking twice. The greatest difference between my experience and Valerie’s was the creation of the final product. I love how Valerie’s son choose to print the text onto a t-shirt rather than onto paper. She brings up a great point about imagination and children and I love how she just went with it and made a shirt. Valerie really took this activity to the next level and I applaud her for it. If you have yet to check out Valerie’s post I highly recommend it!

 

Thanks for sharing Valerie!

I discovered a link between my post and Shaun Holma’s post for the Speech to Text Analysis task.

Shaun used Adobe Spark to create a website  and share his content which he then posts on his UBC blog page. I admire Shaun’s creative approach to use another tool to share his content. The website allows for content to be shared that is visually appealing and easy to read. I enjoy the interactive visuals and scroll feature that adobe offers when designing to create a slick website. Shaun’s work transitions smoothly as you read and provides eye catching visuals along the way. I would consider using an external application to create my tasks in the future based on Shaun’s creation. His post gives a professional vibe to his blog that gives me the impression that he has important things to say, and he does. While reading this post I made a few connections to my task for speech to text analysis.

Shaun used the Samsung voice recorder on his phone to translate his oral story into text. This tool is an app on a mobile device that would allow him to transcribe an oral story anywhere. This app allows for a maximum 5 minutes when using the feature on this app along with reading back the text at varying speeds. Since the app is a voice recorder you can store voice memos in your phone and convert them to text whenever you would like and allowing you to edit the text. The web application Speechnotes which I used allows for longer recording times but does not offer varying speeds of playback or the option to record a voice memo and convert it later. The Samsung voice recorder allows you to save as many voice memos or text files as you would like that the phone can accommodate.

Shaun has a similar experience to me when it came to the lack of natural stops in the text. Like him, his text lacked periods and commas that would have made the text easier to comprehend. Something that I noticed about Shaun’s text was random capital letters on words that were not names like “so”, “she”, and “no”. This surprised me because it appears as though the app was able to recognize that a period would have been in place for a period or comma, but since he did not say “period” it did not put one and instead it capitalized a letter. My text was unlike this because it mainly capitalized names of people, places or an abbreviation.

Wonderful job Shaun! I enjoyed your creative approach and connections to my task.