1: https://blogs.ubc.ca/keizern/golden-record-curation-task-8/
I responded to Natalie’s blog on the Assignment 8 – the golden record curation task because of the similarities her response to the assignment was to my original. In her assignment she speaks about her process of breaking down the list of original songs to first omit vocals, second omit offensive sounds and then picked them according to specific terms – “cheery, friendly, lively, light, welcoming, or calming” (Keizer, 2025. It made me connect back to Smith’s (1999) article on the goals of digitization. That there are many challenges of accurate preservation with digitizing something – it is not a neutral process. In my original take on this task – I also viewed it as finding what would be best suited to appeal to all extraterrestrial life, I picked songs that were enjoyable and light. However, after reading through the assignment details and Smith’s work, I changed and rearranged my choices to best reflect myself, my heritage and what was completely subjectively appealing. Smith criticizes the notion that curation through digitization guarantees neutrality (1999). He reflects that choices will always be subjective and personal – even within the confines of the original sets we are choosing from.
References:
Keizer, N. (n.d.). Golden record curation (Task 8). University of British Columbia. https://blogs.ubc.ca/keizern/golden-record-curation-task-8/
Smith Rumsey, A. (1999, February). Why digitize? Council on Library and Information Resources. Retrieved February 25, 2025.
2: https://sites.google.com/view/etec540blois/second-week?authuser=0
Patrick’s work on the Language Task was very interesting to me. In his assignment, he pulls quotes from the readings and videos that resonated with him and responds to the assignment by partially questioning the intersection between language and technologies. I find this idea very intriguing – how technologies can really shape language in ways we can’t foresee. We both zoned in on bilingualism, that difference in language can, “change how [we] see the world depending on which language [we] are speaking” (Boroditsky, 2011, p. 65). Patrick’s question for this poses the chicken vs. The egg problem – which comes first, language or thinking? The answer likely lies in-between. Boroditsky’s work offers compelling evidence for showing how much language can shape our cognition – perceptions in space, time and objects. Patrick’s question about technologies makes me reflect on the other – the ways that extraneous forces like technologies have continued to impact language we use. That ‘lingo’ from popular memes videos amongst young students seems to spread and dissipate fasters and faster. As we lean more into globalization and an interconnected world – I wonder if language will continue to shape our cognition in the same ways it has before. Or if emerging technologies will push deeper into shaping the language we use to think.
References:
Boroditsky, L. (2011). How Language Shapes Thought. Scientific American, 304(2), 62–65.
3: https://blogs.ubc.ca/etec540dj/2025/02/16/an-emoji-story/
David’s Emoji Story task appealed to me as I found many similarities in the ways we approached the assignment and struggled through it. David describes how he first tried to translate the media directly – but later leaned towards the beauty of a partial simplification. This is the idea that this assignment conveyed to me as well, how print has been a remediator of oral communications and illustrations, and how we can follow that process back with these emojis (Bolter, 2001). Bolter argues that this digital age we live in coincides with the prominence of visual culture. It is such an essential skill in today’s workforce to constantly distil information into smaller and smaller chunks. That prose and narrative are left behind, we aim to communicate more quickly, more effectively to a bigger and bigger audience. David and I both struggled to complete this task at first – reflecting on Bolter’s argument that text and media are competing and refining each other. But ultimately we both abandoned the idea of translating the media – instead transforming and integrating our ideas with the nuances of the medium of Emojis. David’s task makes me question – as visual medias continue to evolve will narratives continue adapting? Or will it just be pushed further to the sidelines?
References:
Bolter, J. D. (2001). Writing space: Computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print (2nd ed.). Lawrence Erlbaum.
4: https://blogs.ubc.ca/veltri540/2025/01/12/task-12-speculative-futures/
Isabella’s narrative, like mine, tapped into some of the most pressing issues of our time – mental health, struggles with democratic decision making and educational priorities. What the utopia promised was to rid society of any of these problems. The floating cities and AI-driven policies of this world implied a level of technological advancement and assumed universal access to wealth and decision making. This would go against historical patterns of large advancements concentrating wealth and power within elite groups (Allen, 2017). The narrative leaves out how economic structures were redistributed to ensure this utopian access – leaving the probability of such a place in question. The similarities between our narratives follow this idea of a pre-determined, singular vision of the future – with little room for possibilities. Dunne & Raby (2013) argue that future planning must be debated and redefined constantly – rather than pre-determined. It can be deeply intoxicating to believe that our problems can both be solved and pushed away forever. After completing the readings and going through many of these narratives, it leaves me critical that utopias can exist at all.
References:
Allen, R. C. (2017). Reboot for the AI revolution. Nature, 550(7676), 324-326. https://doi.org/10.1038/550324a
Dunne, A., & Raby, F. (2013). Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction, and Social Dreaming. Cambridge: The MIT Press. https://muse.jhu.edu/book/28148.
5: https://sites.google.com/view/etec540/weekly-tasks/attention-economy?authuser=0
Tatiana’s experience with userinyerface differed from my own only in the fact that she was successful with completing the ‘game’. I really enjoyed reading her post and reflected that her use of subtitles within her web text really helped me identify main ideas and absorb the information faster. I particularly enjoyed how Tatiana used Brignull’s work to analyse her experience as their idea that small, accumulated manipulations can create significant barriers was ideally lined with her experience (Brignull, 2011). Her frustrations with the language ambiguity of ‘light’ and ‘bow’ really highlights how uncertainty can be weaponized to increase failure – conditioning users to see friction as part of the experience. While her post focuses more explicitly on the emotional tolls of dark patterns – mine focused more on the broader technological manipulations normalized within large tech companies today. I found Tatiana’s post more personal and therefore more pleasant to read into as I felt it was both an analysis and a narration of her experience.
References:
Brignull, H. (2011, November 1). Dark patterns: Deception vs. honesty in UI design. A List Apart. https://alistapart.com/article/dark-patterns-deception-vs-honesty-in-ui-design/
6: https://blogs.ubc.ca/quinn540/task-7/
Quinn’s Mode Bending task really intrigued me with its sensory and interactive literacies. It encouraged active participating and exploration with the information in a way that was also super fun! This work aligns well with Peña and James’s (2024) model of transmediation – shifting content from one representation to another. They suggest that shifting between semiotic modes can enhance cognitive engagement (p. 1614). By having users interpret audio and interact with the digital elements – Quinn’s approach helped create a more experiential understanding of his content. However, he does express the tradeoff’s in terms of time and efficiency. As well, with gamification across educational systems on the rise, I often wonder if I am exacerbating the problems of impulsivity and inattention amongst my young students by planning lessons this way. I try my best to strive for a balanced approach – including faster and engaging lessons but also ones that take time and rely on more traditional literacies.
References:
Peña, E., & James, K. (2024). A framework of transmediation. Convergence, 30(5), 1610-1624. https://doi.org/10.1177/13548565231220325