Task 1
My first linking assignment is on Megan C’s Emoji Story
Something stuck with me, in Megan’s post is how universal (and not) emoji can be. She described herself as a “late adopter” when it comes to the use emojis and it reminded me of my own journey from making a concise decisions of not including any emoji to now I feel it is a part of how I communicate now. I share that initial hesitant to use emojis in my communication early on and my main concern was I would appear less professional or ingenuine with too many emoji. Perhaps silly but it has its merit.
Back in 2017, I read an article on Quartz called “Why women overload texts with emojis, as explained by one hilarious video” and after that, I become hyperaware of how I could be representing myself in a way than the image I was hoping to build. The video mentioned in the article is Emoji Avatar (for those who don’t have the time to read the article) and even though it was dramatic, it did demonstrate of how often people, especially females, try to soften the tone by inserting emojis in their daily conversation.
When Megan talked about the use of emojis can also change the tone of two identical sentences, it reminds me that emoji is now a type of language and similar to other texts/languages, it is also socially constructed. It is also subjects to societal expectation, including the clear line of how senders’ genders can also impact how a message is interpreted (Butterworth et al., 2019).
References:
Fessler, L. (2017, March 23). Why women overload texts with emojis, as explained by one hilarious video. Quartz. https://qz.com/938165/emoji-piece/
Sarah E Butterworth, Traci A Giuliano, Justin White, Lizette Cantu, and Kyle C Fraser. 2019. Sender Gender Influences Emoji Interpretation in Text Messages. Frontiers in psychology 10 (2019), 784
Task 2
In this linking task, I want to talk about Anne’s mode bending assignment. I am amazed by the creativity Anne shows and if I may, I would say her work makes me think deep into how important it is to keep exploring different ways to express ourselves.
I attended elementary school and up to junior high in Taiwan and since that was decades ago, take my observation with a grain of salt. For the most part, there is a formula or template to follow for assignments and exams to ensure high grades are achieved. The whole point of assessment should be to find out whether one understands the material and if there are certain areas that should be focused on. However, with the process of simply plugging in answers to questions, students lost the motivation to learn. The true purpose of learning was lost in the process.
In this course, we learn how text technologies have evolved and also the perception and the meaning people assign to them have been very different as well. Text is more then simply transmission of knowledge, it is now a state of arts. What Anne did in her task, using different forms to convey the same information, was a real demonstration of that. I find this is something I struggle with at times, and that is, I haven’t exposed myself enough to how the same information can be presented differently. This is probably a common issue for anyone who is in education the past year – how do we convey the same course content in a meaning way that speaks to students? Though people often praise technology for its versatility, there is only so much individualization can be done. I am looking forward to the day when creative contents like Anne’s can be made available to everyone!
Task 3
Lyon’s What’s in my bag assignment caught my attention and I enjoyed reading his writing. I took another course with Lyon before and I appreciate the humour and easy to read style. Just like everything else (or almost everything), presentation is important. True the old saying of “Don’t judge a book by its cover”, but speaking from my own experience, I have a hard time reading a wall of text. Perhaps the writers have something valuable to share but with that one long paragraph without any visual aid, I most certainly wouldn’t engage much.
Almost all design on the virtual world focused on user experience, which really is another way to say keeping their clients “hooked” in the services. For text technology, especially in a more traditional form of blogging, user/reader experience and formatting go hand in hand. Taking Lyon’s assignment as an example, the writing flows well but the way he chose to present his work also helped to keep his readers engaged.
Breaking a long paragraph down to subtopics prevents reading fatigue. It is important to remember who the target audiences are and the purpose of your writing. The What’s in my bag assignment was the first task for this course and it also served as a self-introduction to fellow classmates. Therefore, the goal is about keeping content concise and hopefully to encourage interaction. I remembered that in some instances, where weekly discussion posts were required for some ETEC courses, instructors had to remind the class that the posts were meant to engage and share information with others and not to write an essay.
Task 4
I find data economy to be fascinating and I even created a website based on that for another ETEC course before. Melissa’s analysis and reflection on her Attention Economy assignment was a very interesting one and I see some overlapping with how we approach this topic. I treat my personal data very carefully and I didn’t start online shopping until recent years. My motto when it comes to the virtual world is to trust no one. This is probably an extreme approach but after seeing how unverified news can have a huge impact on the society, I’d rather be skeptical with everything.
Recently I created an account on a video making website for my assignment and even during the initial sign up process, I already experienced some dark patterns that used by the specific website. For instance, the system asked whether I would like to receive regular email update from it and the options are either “Yes” or “No. Ignorance is bliss”. I figured my integrity does not worth anything compares to the annoying promotional emails so I decided to be an ignored person. However, immediately the next page said “Even if you want to be ignorant, sure you want to learn a few things?” and there were options including emails on tutorials, discount, and new features. Did I feel great about the whole experience? Definitely not!
Melissa talked about how much information Google already has about us based on our search terms and the ads we clicked on. Even though Google and other companies packaged the tracking as a way to provide more accurate results to their clients, we all know after all, who actually benefit from this. It is rather ironic that the virtual world branded itself to be accessible to everyone and yet, there is still certain control over what people will get to see (first). Data literacy has become a hot topic in recent years and it is important to have more people become aware of it.
Task 5
Kirsten’s satirical work of network analysis on golden record was hilarious while highlighting the current trend of fake news. It gave me a good chuckle because I was a part of the “high school cliques” that displays ignorance in my music preference (for anyone reading this without context, I am just joking) but I started to think how someone who just read Kirsten’s blog by chance without reading to the end? Their takeaway message would be very different from mine.
In ETEC 522, my group worked on data visualization and how it can be used in education. In the same project, we also touched upon how data is presented can greatly impact people’s perceptions. It is almost a running joke now that if you plug in a random number or stats in your presentation, you instantly make yourself sound more credible!
In Week 8, we talked about the politics of text and the Golden Record. From traditional printed advertise to now digital media, after decades, it seems like the game is still whoever controls the media, controls the world. At the same time, people become more divided and there seems to be either us or them mentality. I remember reading an article on Tinder and humanitarian hook-up from a few years ago and it shares some similarities with the current popular term of “virtue signaling”. I am not sure where I am going with this but the topic of politics of text really can be a course of its own!
Task 6
Twine is a great tool for anyone who wishes to creative an interactive digital story and I had an the opportunity to visit many classmates’ work. Deirdre’s Twine Task caught my attention because of its simplicity. It is a common misperception and I, for one would admit that I fell for it, that educational technology involves something overly complicated. Certainly having a background in design and technology would be helpful but people sometimes don’t put as much attention on the education portion. I remembered the first time a colleague mentioned the MET program to me, it was almost a reflex when I said “But I don’t know anything about technology! I don’t think this program is for me”. At that time, I was very interested in counselling and relationship development and I didn’t see any link or skill that I would be able to apply to ed. tech.
It was only when I started taking courses that I see how my experience working with university students would give me that advantage of knowing how to see things from students’ perspective too. Knowing how people learn and how to design course content in a meaningful way should be the foundation. In Deirdre’s assignment, she captured the essence of storytelling and that was to keep it simple.