For my second linking post, I found a link between Shaun Holma’s task #4 and my task #4; Manual Scripts.

You can find Shaun’s post here: Task #4 and my post here: Task #4

There were a number of reasons why I chose this particular task to link to. Not only does it link to my version of this task, but also to the experience that I had during it. 

Both Shaun and I were drawn to the events that were occurring in Minneapolis, and throughout the United States, in response to the senseless and brutal death of George Floyd. Firstly, I’d like to note that I am only responding to what was written in Shaun’s task #4 post and have no other background for his understanding or opinions on the matter. 

As I read through his manual script, I immediately noticed although we were discussing a similar topic, our scripts could not have been more different. While I was advocating for anti-racism, using my own words and knowledge on the topic, Shaun was explaining what he “thinks the new said,” and was using terms like “anarchists” in what I took to be a negative and demeaning way when it can, and in this situation should be deemed as someone who wants a kinder, more equitable society.

Furthermore, Shaun posed a question at the end of his script that stated, “What can be done to help frustration from boiling over in the event of this happening again? Or, was it just a matter of a small group of disrupti…” Although the end part of this sentence was cut off from the picture of his script he took, I believe it probably went something like this: 

“Or was it just a matter of a small group of disruptive people.” 

Firstly, this “event” of someone being killed by an officer of the Law kneeling on their neck while they yell stop, help, and I can’t breathe, SHOULD NOT HAPPEN AGAIN. I don’t doubt that Shaun feels the same way, but the way the question is ended with a statement about disrupt…gives me some doubt. Unless the disruptive people he refers to are the Police? 

I also noticed a line in his script, “Can justice still prevail?” that mimicked mine, “We need to end this with justice.” Again, these lines were similar in their delivery, they both were followed with something quite different. I found the “no” in Shaun’s next line to be negative, depressing, unfortunate, whereas mine was followed with, “compassion, empathy, and trust.” I’m not sure why I’m so shocked by this adversarial connection as we are all our own person, with our own ideas and opinions that have been formed by our unique experiences, yet here I am, a little shocked. It just goes to show that not only do we differ in how we think about what we’re going to say, and how we actually say it. 

With that being said, Shaun wrote in a more formal, informational style text, while I chose personal poetry. He also mentioned that writing was a challenge as it’s something he hasn’t done in quite some time – which was the same experience for me. Furthermore, we both can be quoted as saying:

“I need to consciously think about what I want to say before I do anything.”

“I wanted to choose my words wisely and thought about them a lot before I put them down on paper.”

These quotes have the same meaning and show that we both thought carefully about our words before putting them done on paper – something we wouldn’t have necessarily done if we had been typing.

 

Manifestation of Work:

The biggest difference visually between Shaun and I’s posts was the use of our web-authoring tools to manifest work. Shaun used Adobe Spark to create his graphics and then inserted them into a post using the WordPress photo gallery. He was kind enough to provide some important instructions on how to access the gallery photos which made viewing his post a little easier but not by much. I used the blog post format and inserted my photos of my manual script one after the other in reading order. I then reflected on the questions below whereas Shaun had created slide-like images of the questions and his answers.

I found this particular format to be visually appealing, but upon closer inspection and usage, quite annoying. You had to click a certain part of the photo, then it opened in the same tab, and instead of exiting that photo, you had to click the back button to return to his task page. If you accidentally clicked exit, you would have to head back to Canvas, open student web spaces, open Shaun’s space, click the task again, and go back. It just seemed like a lot of extra clicks that weren’t necessary. I did notice that both our script photos were unable to be clicked to become bigger so that the user wouldn’t have to squint or zoom in (although they were still blurry when this happened). This is something I will consider for later as I think it would be more user-friendly if the photos can be enlarged properly.