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Part B – Reflection

 

Our ETL504 online discussion forum and case study wiki provided opportunities for collaboration and leadership within the digital realm. Many professional organisations now have online platforms for their workforce so lessons learnt here will be applicable to future workplaces. I perceive my leadership abilities stemming from my vision of connecting people and information but as Smith (2016) describes leadership styles rarely being exclusively practiced (p.66) I hesitate to suggest I practice transformational leadership and see my strengths mostly combining instructional and transactional leadership.

 

In my first forum post (3071 Melbourne), I share my passions of “education, programs, and visitor experience…. [and my hope] we can collaborate in person” as I was already seeking a collaborative in-person environment to support working on case studies and reflecting. The challenges of this semester appeared to leave little room for much intrapersonal development and I also reflected that my repeating of this unit could affect others’ experiences so I kept my case study 3 contributions general, stating solutions that “definitely involve moving the staff” (Initial thoughts) would work. The importance of considering where others are in their learning journey and how I impact them through engagement is a critical meta-cognitive understanding. Providing complete answers would ease my ego but detract from others’ learning.

 

For case studies 4 and 5 I contributed by making the starting contributions. I know that my analysis and processing happen quicker than some others so have developed the strategy of coming to the table with richly prepared offerings but also face my weakness with ongoing project management which aligns with the description by Belbin (2010) of a resource investigator (p. 22). The ramifications for my future workplace are that I will function best in a diverse team

 

A key moment was losing a member of our group who felt they could not continue balancing children, teaching, and study. I responded to their departure email to our group with compassion for their situation and shared my own vulnerability of not succeeding in ETL504 previously. I also informed the others I had started the latest case study and suggested ways they might add while stating that many minds make light work. The attributes of compassion and vulnerability are key to working with authenticity and trust in a team. I see being able to communicate clearly in these domains as a strength that will serve whichever team I work with in future.

 

Learning through case studies and modules has served me well pedagogically and I can see how if I worked as a teacher librarian I could reformat the model for students. The key lessons I experienced were in how quickly the world changes and how long and short term must be balanced within both strategy and operationally. I keep my optimism in front when leading, attempting to lift my team with words like “We have just one last collaboration to do … Nearly there team Be well” (Case Study 5). This is my authentic voice and how I wish to contribute to school, museum, or public library once I finish this masters.

 

References

 

Belbin, R. M. (2010). Team roles at work. Taylor & Francis Group

 

Smith, B. (2016). The role of leadership style in creating a great school. SELU Research Review Journal, 1(1), 65-78.

 

The ramifications of the pandemic continue

With my role in employment being made redundant it certainly has made space to study in my life. The challenges facing the world have not been seen for 100 years but this time we have smartphones, youtube, and online learning environments.

I have shifted into full time study and completed my placement in order to finish the Master of Education (Teacher Librarianship) this year. I will not be having the traditional graduation in Wagga Wagga but will find a way to celebrate finishing from within the Melbourne lockdown, perhaps reading a good book would be appropriate. Perhaps buying myself a Kobo or Kindle.

I am down to to my last 3 assignments now totaling about 8500 words and will be adding more reflections to this blog before quoting from them over this last month and a half.

After all my musings and reflections about how I made it into a secure full time permanent position the pandemic ramifications have resulted in my role being made redundant.

This leaves me half way through my second to last semester of the Masters of Education (Teacher Librarianship) with 3 assignments remaining in ETL504, ETL507, and INF447 and 4 weeks to do them all. I found it difficult to continue with the readings and assignments in the immediate aftermath of being made redundant but kept up with all the online zoom videos for meetings and study visits.

Now is the final push to get everything in order for finishing the semester in the ways that meet my goals. In some ways having the virus hit during the semester when I was enrolled in the most units was the best time for it to happen as I don’t have 40 hours of work to distract me. I am also looking forward to my final semester when I will have the second half of ETL507 including the 10 day placement and my final elective which will be either INF520 or INF529.

Then I will have completed everything required for the course and will have to wait and see if an in person graduation is possible for my fourth lifetime tertiary qualification as I haven’t been able to attend any of the other actual graduation ceremonies.

Wearing robes in Wagga Wagga; that is the dream!

Below is the digital story I devised. It is intended to be enacted through twitter over 10 weeks with the events and posts as described in the order below.  As I cannot submit my story over the 10 weeks it would take to tell it I provide it here with all the content as a list with weekly headings.

 

Week 1

 

All School Assembly

 

Year 7 Students are notified that a Twitter account (@Year_7_Sam) will have a mixture of fictional and real pseudonymous persons posting updates a couple of times a week across their first 10 weeks of term. They are advised to follow what is going on in this account as there will be content relevant to their own journeys and discussions regarding the content in homeroom classes. Students are advised to engage online with the account but reminded that online speech has consequences just like speech in the real world.

 

School Website

 

The Twitter channel is embedded on the school website which is used by teachers, parents, students and staff. The goal of this is to provoke conversations between and within these groups. This provides a consistent point of access in an often used digital space which means the narrative is not dependant on the audience downloading the twitter app or navigating to an extra website.

 

Tweet 1 [Sam]

 

I am starting year 7 today and feeling scared about finding all my classes and making new friends. I guess everyone else is feeling the same. I want to connect with new people this year as my new school is bigger than my last. The best tactic I’ve come up with is to introduce myself to people I think I might want to talk to and then try and find something that connects us and see how it goes. Could anyone let me know if they have other good ways to meet people? 

 

Tweet 2 [Sam]

 

I found my favourite place in the school so far in room A7 and I even talked to some friendly students and teachers. It’s the school Library! I thought libraries just had books but we have access to board games, comics, and even a rad as makerspace. The library is open for half an hour each day before school, I can spend all lunchtime there, and it has after school special events like this Friday’s livestream of a Circus performance from the Sydney Opera House. I wonder what else we get access to. Has anyone found any other cool spaces or resources? 

 

Week 2

 

Tweet 3 [Sam]

 

I’m still getting my head around all the elective options at this school

We get to pick electives for two of the subjects we study this term though English, Maths, and P.E are compulsory. The coordinator for year 7, Mr Gormsby, said that anyone is welcome to discuss electives with him at any time in his office located at G1 or we can discuss it with homeroom teachers who are invested in us having the best experience we can choose. 

 

Tweet 4 [Sam]

 

I was exploring the hallways during lunch and found our school’s Wellbeing team in their office in room C8. With a psychologist, social worker, and chaplain I reckon they would have already faced every problem under the sun. I entered my second week having made a few friends and found my way around the school to classes so I didn’t have any problems yet to bring up. However I discovered they sell Chupa chups for a cheaper price than the canteen and they all said to pop back for a chat any time. I’ll be back for the lollies!

 

Week 3

 

All School Assembly (final assembly used for this narrative)

 

All students are reminded about how starting secondary school can be a challenging time and to assist our new Year 7s when they are seen looking confused, lost, or in need of other kinds of help. Thanks are given to our fictional student Sam for their informative tweets and students are reminded that they are able to pseudonymously post through the same account as approved by our Teacher Librarian. The Student Wellbeing team and then the Teacher librarian deliver short speeches outlining what is on offer in their spaces to reaffirm Sam’s communications.

 

Tweet 5 [Sam]

 

I can’t believe they brought up my tweets in assembly; that is so lame. Could someone else please tweet to take the focus away from me. I’m definitely off to the Student Wellbeing team at lunch for some Chupa Chups and perhaps a chat will help me calm down.

 

Tweet 6 [Mr Gormsby]

 

This is Mr Gormsby reminding all students that their elective choices are final at the end of this week and no further changes will be entered into after Friday 3pm. We encourage all students to discuss decisions with their parents and wish you the best as we approach the halfway mark of the first term.

 

Week 4

 

Tweet 7 [unidentified student]

 

Hi everyone we have started up a daily lunchtime game of soccer on the bottom playing fields and everyday we need more players. It’s captains pick and we have rules for mixing up the year levels so it’s fair. If we get enough we will get two games going. Hope to see everyone there and perhaps we might meet Sam finally !?

 

Tweet 8 [Sam]

 

Thanks for the lunchtime invite and I hope you are all enjoying the soccer but I just discovered the lunchtime social clubs coordinated by Miss Plumbtree and am looking at spending the rest of my school life lunchtimes watching anime in the Japan club. There are also groups for writing, partner dancing, circus, and many more so check out the link on our school website.

 

Week 5

 

Tweet 9

 

One of my new friends is having a really bad time since their dog died and is having trouble completing school work, talking about their feelings, and none of their teachers know about it yet. I’m gonna walk them to the Student Wellbeing team next break. Worst case scenario we get Chupa chups and best case scenario they can provide some support. We all have to look after each other occasionally as life’s ups and downs keep happening and that is part of what makes us a community.

 

Tweet 10 [Mr Fawkes]

 

This is Mr Fawkes your friendly Teacher Librarian tweeting to say that the library is open all day, not just during your breaks, and we have quiet spaces with bean bags for students who need a chill space to hang out in away from our group learning areas. Ask your teacher if you feel you need to leave class and we will help you find a book to sit with or have any conversations you need to have.

 

Note: computers are only available during interval and lunchtimes unless supervised by a teacher.

 

Week 6

 

Tweet 11 [Sam]

 

We have made it to halfway through the term! My choice of electives ended up being Art and Drama so I thought I’d try to combine the two into a treasure hunt. I have stencilled 3 QR codes inside the doors of 3 rooms that I have mentioned previously. Each links to an audio file that contains a clue and if you put the three clues together you will have a 3 word sentence. If you speak the sentence to Mr Fawkes in the school library, then you will receive an additional item towards your borrowing limit till the end of term.

 

Tweet 12 [Mr Gormsby]

 

Students are reminded that at the end of next term we will be competing in the interschool sports and athletics carnival. There are spaces available if you want to join one of the sports teams that play on the weekend and athletics practice happens on Mondays and Wednesdays after school. Please contact our head of Physical Education Mr Pollock if you wish to sign up to either of these opportunities

 

Week 7

 

Tweet 13 [unidentified student]

 

The student year leaders are calling all students and especially year 7s to come to our first rehearsal to learn our school chants and songs for the interschool sports and athletics competition at the end of next term. Rehearsal will be during Thursday lunchtime for 40 minutes from 12:10pm – 12:50pm at the sports grandstand. Get ready to roar and learn what being part of this school is all about.

 

Tweet 14 [Sam]

 

Chanting and singing with the whole school was the best time I have had all year and if you didn’t come to the first rehearsal then definitely come to Thursday next week so we can confidently drown out all the other schools and support our school’s competitors against everyone else. I feel like I know a lot more people now in both my year level and others and it is all through engaging in what activities are available to all of us. What activities have you enjoyed that you would recommend others join in with?

 

Week 8

 

Tweet 15 [Sam]

 

I am doing well at all the social things but haven’t kept up as much as I would like with my school work and home work. Luckily I have discovered there is an every day after school activity in room H3 called homework club where there is a teacher on duty each day for 2 hours after classes have finished who facilitates a quieter and more focused environment. I sometimes wish they would do the work for me but they are at least good at encouraging and supportive words. I’ll see you there everyone no need to book just turn up at room H3 after your last class.

 

Tweet 16 [unidentified student]

 

Calling all students on the last day of term we are joining students around the world in a climate strike where we will not be at school but instead travelling to the steps of parliament to make our voices heard and our discontent felt. Talk to your teachers, parents, and friends and join everyone else in making change happen to begin mitigating the damage that previous generations incurred and ignored. See you on the steps of parliament on the last day of term at 9am.

 

Week 9

 

Tweet 17 [Sam]

 

I had a chat with some of the teachers about the school strike for climate change and am surprised by how supportive they have been, how much of the curriculum supports engaged citizenry, and how many of them are coming along as well. I am definitely going to join our school there and plan to be live tweeting during the event. We are all connected in our communities, cities, and countries around the world and through our actions we can demonstrate our strength and appetite for change. LET’S DO THIS!

 

Tweet 18 [Mr Gormsby]

 

I am tweeting to let you know that the senior leadership team has met and decided that students attending the school strike are acting in the best interests of themselves and the wider community and that the things you learn from engaging in this experience are in alignment with the Australian Curriculum. If you choose to go we ask you to be appropriately careful and if you choose to stay at school for the last day of term then know that you will be supported here as well in content and conversation.

 

Week 10

 

Tweet 19 [Sam]

 

We have all made it to the last week of the term. The hardest part of starting Year 7 has passed and I’m looking forward to several more years with the friends I’ve made and even some of the teachers. Now that we have connections within the Year 7s and between the older years and us, I am confident with the resources that I have built within myself and have available through our school. Special shout out to the Student Wellbeing Team and Mr Fawkes in the school library who have both been there for me whenever I’ve needed advice, listening, or even just a really good book. Thanks everyone for your contributions and I hope to celebrate our empowerment by seeing you at the climate rally on Friday.

 

Tweet 20 [Sam]

 

I am tweeting this from the climate rally on the steps of our parliament while the chanting of my fellow students and several teachers surrounds me. We are more powerful together and in person than I ever imagined. I am closing this account after today. Lets focus on connecting and supporting each other to grow and make changes in the world we desire. Connect with next year’s Year 7s, connect with the people at school you haven’t talked to yet, connect with your parents or caregivers. We are the future and we inherit what is left behind of this world when all the people older than us die. Let’s stop the planet burning and begin the work on improving everyone’s lives while healing the physical and cultural scars left to us by previous generations. See you next term everybody and let’s continue to strive for connection and progress together!

The work of an education professional in digital environments is changing as the place of technology within our lives and institutions is shifting. The affordances of digital mediums including accessibility, reproducibility, and the diversity of software and hardware interacting with academic theory are potential game changers in education but our current market based mechanisms of content distribution and the monetisation of individuals or organisations data seeks to maximise revenue and has the effect of increasing costs to education organisation’s budgets.

The creative techniques that are used in dealing with reproducible and remixable formats existed before the digital computers we use today. The education professional needs to clarify to learners that “The first medium to lend itself towards the capabilities of the digital medium was film even if this originally meant physically cutting and reattaching strips of film stock to itself. We could copy, cut, rearrange, and join unique works together to make further new works” (Sacha.juggler 2019 October 7). Computers have made this kind of creative process a lot faster but then as now our imagination always seeks to produce what is at or slightly beyond the capacity of our tools. Education professionals can emphasise to students that this dynamic is ongoing, normal, and healthy; while guiding them to achievable ends within the confines of their formal education and showing them examples of both success and overreach from the past.

The education professional in digital environments is ongoingly navigating new changing forms of literature defined by how they are disseminated rather than literary style and the “works being manifested across genres with increasing freedom; including Harry Potter starting as a series of novels then transitioned to being movies, computer games, and online interactive website exploring the phase space of the work” (Sacha.juggler 2019 August 26). This diversity of expressions increases the importance in teaching of students fluency in media literacy and them being able to synthesise information from across different forms of the same text. This trend of increasing diversity of texts in the digital environment involving the same or similar narratives is set to continue to be part of the education professionals teaching remit.

A notable instance of pushback against imposed limits by the education sector was when (Fox & Brainard 2019) the University of California this year stopped paying to subscribe to Elsevier, a publisher of scientific papers, in order to be able to access and distribute the papers produced by their institution which constitute 10% of academic papers in the U.S.A, instead of paying once for them to be hosted and paying again for them to be made openly accessible. This decision was driven by education professional “Jeff MacKie-Mason, who heads UC Berkeley’s library and is also co-chair of the negotiation task force [who] says Elsevier just didn’t move far enough to UC’s position” (Fox & Brainard 2019). The barriers that were presented to the educational institution were in conflict to the potential of modern digital mediums which are characterised by “The increased speed of reproduction and transmission [which] changes the nature of the medium into one where we can modify, reimagine, and remix works back into the cultural milieu that in the past may have seemed inviolable sacrosanct works” (Sacha.juggler 2019 July 9). Elsiever is resistant to change as it could undermine its very profitable model but the greater value of the information is in its interactions and in being read rather than being locked behind a paywall.

A further development relevant to the practice of education professionals has been the increased diversity of texts studied by students in the classroom and the physical forms in which they encounter them. Whereas literature in the past would have been predominantly in the form of a book, now education professionals must guide learners through hardware such as interactive whiteboards, Ipads, and smartphones in combination with ebooks, apps, and interactive websites. This has increased the complexity of the teaching environment but allows for the educator to emphasize using general principles applied across different contexts rather than a monolithic repeated process that does not serve interpretation in a more diverse world. We are required to accept that “different use cases of learners, projects, and systems will dictate a range of resources for different circumstances” (Sacha.juggler 2019 October 7).

The changes for education professionals in digital environment are ongoing, exponential, and radical. Interactions between markets, technology, and the educative systems of society create friction due to each accepting change at different speeds. By holding steadfast in enabling the  positive potentials of digital and empowering learners with more flexible practices that can be generalised across evolving mediums we equip the next generation with the tools to remix their world in the ways they see fit.

 

References

Fox, A., Brainard, J. (2019). University of California boycotts publishing giant Elsevier over journal costs and open access. Retrieved from https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/02/university-california-boycotts-publishing-giant-elsevier-over-journal-costs-and-open 

Sacha.juggler (2019, July 9). Reflections for information professional transformation [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://thinkspace.csu.edu.au/sachareflections/2019/07/29/inf533-assessment-1-reflections/

Sacha.juggler (2019, August 26). Reflections for information professional transformation [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://thinkspace.csu.edu.au/sachareflections/2019/08/26/critical-reflection-of-digital-literature-experiences/

Sacha.juggler (2019, October 7). Reflections for information professional transformation [Blog post]. Retrieved from 

https://thinkspace.csu.edu.au/sachareflections/2019/10/07/digital-literature-milieu/

 

• What makes a good digital text, what counts as one, and what purpose do digital texts serve?

The purpose that digital texts serve is for our storytelling to take advantage of the capabilities of our technology. The risk for the author is for technological spectacle to take over from message and for the audience to feel distanced from the connection that drives the relationship between artist and viewer as Sadokierski (2013) states “electronic books can do certain things that print books cannot, and therein lies their value. Enhanced electronic books are changing our definition and expectations of books” but the work of most value is the one that drives an audience to read it, return to it, and explore their internal emotional landscape in ways they had not imagined previously. Not just to give novel interactive experiences but experiences that explore the human condition in novel ways.

What counts as a digital text is still being defined as permutations and iterations of technology continue to allow for storytelling to develop in fascinating ways. I have recognised certain key attributes that help define the genre. It involves hardware with electronic components and software that translates the work held in ones and zeros from a digital file into the familiar letters and pages we are used to whether this is in an app, eReader, or personal computer. What is more interesting and useful than constructing a watertight definition of digital literature is exploring the affordances of purpose that the medium allows for the audience and author. As the technology of the printing press increased the dissemination of previously hand copied works so the internet has, by several orders of magnitude, increased the ability to disseminate works of digital literature. This has created entire new genres defined not by literary style but “the ways in which works were disseminated, documented and preserved” (Rettberg, 2012). Audiences are getting used to works being manifested across genres with increasing freedom; including Harry Potter starting as a series of novels then transitioned to being movies, computer games, and online interactive website exploring the phase space of the work.

Compare your experience of reading digital texts with reading print. 

For me a key component of being driven to read is seeing the physical item in front of me. For a work on my computer I have to navigate to it. It simply does not have a presence in space. I read the eReader work i reviewed in one evening and, without the impetus of an assignment, it would have been easy to read a number of pages and never return to it or be distracted to read a different work. I love going to the library and carrying a pile of an entire series out with me, seeing the piles of unread and read books shift to different sides of the mantlepiece, and I understand I could download numerous series into the eReader application freda that I downloaded but they lack the weight that pulls at my consciousness. I would like to buy a dedicated reader device to experience the benefits of weightless tomes. One that is submersion proof that I can enjoy in the bath would fit my needs well but from my experience of moving from a physical collection of music to digital storage which no longer exists. I am wary as we now live in a world where we have more data available that we can transmit at greater speeds and never before has its existence been so fragile.

• Choose the digital text you most enjoyed and discuss how you might incorporate it into a program at your institution.

The execution and capabilities of The O from The Museum of Old and New Art are inspirational and the capability to remove text and its gravitational effect on the attention of visitors in cultural institutions is transformative for object based learning. For my workplace at The National Sports Museum I have already been part of a program of app development and learned much from the failure of that process. To succeed it would need to be optional for interpretation, work on a variety of devices going back several generations, connect intimately to the collection, connect to the tone of our institution, and given that we are sports focused have at least an element of available competition. I would like to try again to make a work that would add to people’s meaning making and social interaction and with the experiences of the past and the learnings from INF533 Literature in the Digital Environment I believe I could make a better go of it.

 

Reference List

Sadokierski, Z. (2013, November 12). What is a book in the digital age? [Web log post]. Retrived from http://theconversation.com/what-is-a-book-in-the-digital-age-19071

Rettberg, J.W. (2012). Electronic literature seen from a distance: the beginnings of a field. Retrieved from http://www.dichtung-digital.org/2012/41/walker-rettberg.htm

This is a review of a work of interactive digital literature called ‘The O’. I will  evaluate it using the effect on the reader of the conceptual frameworks of grasp, figure, and memory as outlined by Bourchardon and Heckman (2012).

The work’s context comes from the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) in Tasmania where it serves as a replacement for text in the Galleries allowing the bare brutalist interior architecture to showcase the objects without the distraction and obfuscation of traditional didactic panels which traditionally would be combined with supplementary material and sold as a hardcopy exhibition catalog for your coffee table. ‘The O’ represents a radical departure from tradition in educating and guiding the audience’s journey in the museum context which is important as “since the beginning of museums, exhibit labels have been used as instruments for torture on helpless visitors” (Bitgood, 1991, p.115) and now they can choose to interact with an IOS application of much greater sophistication and flexibility.

On the museums web page describing the app the first paragraph starts “You can ignore the O and wander around in a state of pleasant reverie / moderate anxiety. Or else use it to read and listen to stories, essays, music and interviews” (The O, 2019). The collection is the focus and the information accessible within the app provides additional optional lenses through which to engage.

Grasp is scaffolded for the audience in multiple ways through (2006–2019 Fresh & New(er), 2011) “technology concierge skills of the ticketing staff [and seeing graphics] clearly explaining each of the main interface screens of the O as well” behind their desk. You can either borrow an Ipod touch loaded with the work or download, with MONA’s WiFi, to your own IOS device. Wherever you are in the museum you can tap the ‘O’ button to see a list of objects around you and then you can click on that object on your screen to access several different flavours of information about it called Artwank, Gonzo, or Ideas. You can also book into exhibitions that have limited or timed entry. The temptation of institutions for creating their apps as an overwrought swiss army knife of options has been avoided through the outsourcing of design to an external and proficient contractor.

Figure is carefully considered through the design of the work. The simplicity of tapping the O button whenever you wish to engage and the limited flavours of information the app provides

Combine effectively to satisfy the viewer’s need for immediacy. Artwank describes the works in a traditional curatorial art history fashion, Gonzo is mostly words from the museum’s owner David Walsh, and Ideas are questions or statements related to the object but are not the same on everyone’s devices which obviates a siloed experience when visiting as a group. Audiences are wary of sloppy visual design or user interfaces due to increasing exposure to quality applications and “The O” satisfies in action.  

Memory is to me the most distinctive dynamic of my experience with the work. I visited MONA on the 11th June 2018. I know this because within the work is a section on my visit which contains a list of works I observed, a list of works I missed, and a section on any ratings of love or hate. Although I used the app for a significant period of time while visiting I have now spent more time observing my journey from the mainland of Australia rather than Tasmania. Problematically I know that there were other works that intrigued me that are not on the list as well as some entries that I stood outside but did not enter that are there as if I engaged. Seeing the thumbnail images brings back memories of how I felt in the locations and images or sounds in my mind from within the specific exhibitions. I find this aspect of this example of digital literature the most evocative of all as it draws me back into the sensory experiences of moving through and discovering a plethora of wonders and horrors amidst a collection themed explicitly around sex and death.

Though the work is an app it replaces the manifestation which would normally be bound into physical book form combining all the didactic panels designed to sit on your coffee table. It is world leading digital literature from the museum context that evokes engagement, recollection, and interaction.

Grasp 4/5

Figure 4/5

Memory 5/5

 

Reference List

Art Processors. (2019). Off The Wall. Retrieved from https://www.artprocessors.net/projects/mona/

Museum of Old and New Art,. (2019). The O. Retrieved from https://mona.net.au/museum/the-o 

Bitgood, S. (1991). The ABCs of Label Design. Visitor Studies: Theory, Research and Practice, 8, 115-129.

2006–2019 Fresh & New(er). (2011). Experiencing The O at MONA – a review. Retrieved from https://www.freshandnew.org/2011/10/experiencing-the-o-at-mona-a-review/

 

This is a review of the piece of digital literature Fight the Ship: Death and Valour on an American Warship Doomed by its Own Navy (Pro Republica, 2019) evaluated using the effect on the reader of the conceptual frameworks of grasp, figure, and memory as outlined by Bourchardon and Heckman (2012).

This work was published online by Pro Republica, an investigative journalism newsroom, which has a strong reputation within online reporting due to winning the first ever of The Pulitzer Prizes (2019) for an online work. The work is accessed from Prorepublica.org and consists of white text overlaid over a variety of mediums such as computer generated videos, maps diagrams, movies, and cartoon drawings.

Grasp was achieved easily for the reader with this work as it was accessible through a secure https website hosted by the publisher. I was able to access it on any device with a browser including computers with different operating systems and my smartphone; it functioned as intended on all of these. Within the work itself all but the initial non-text media was activated by scrolling down until the narratively relevant media for that part of the text popped up providing visual depth to the page as well as mental depth in the experience of the story being told. The work is substantial in length and the reader only realises as they navigate down the page how little the scroll bar moves down compared to how much content they have digested.

Figure was the most utilised aspect of my evaluative criteria within this work and the experience and excellence of Pro Republica in digital delivery was evident. The non-text media was used sparingly. For example to set the scene when you open the work and the background image is a computer generated shaky first person blurred double vision scene of moving around bulkheads and towards stairs. These images are effective in foreshadowing the confusion and context of the story to come and place the reader within the crisis that is about to unfold. Larger passages of text are broken up by sections with non-text media and small amounts of text and in doing so the narrative adjusts to cater for the different bandwidths of the human senses. Busy images with walls of texts would overwhelm the reader so instead once the reader scrolls past the first visual representation on the ships collision they receive just  a couple of sentences before the visual representation enhances again to provide further information related to the narrative of how many degrees the ship was turned in its collision and then with more scrolling a change of perspective to show how much the ship was listing at three different points in the incident. 

The interaction of memory and this work are multifarious. The story itself is a tragedy that the military power structures did not have interest in providing clear access for the public. This is part of the function of the fourth estate to research and disseminate stories that others do not want remembered. The post modern way that the narrative is constructed with different characters reminiscing from different parts of the debacle and the automatic repetition of non-text elements until they are scrolled past push the story upon the reader. An additional memory feature is a subscription option specifically for updates on this story. The reader does not have to remember to look out for developments if they are interested in them but instead allows Pro Republica to do that memory work for them.

The intersection of text and other media within this work felt like it did enhance the work. Details that were better communicated visually were done so. The subscription options connect to the social aspects of digital literature albeit in a web 1.0 sense; finding a trusted content producer and choosing to continuously receive material from them. News organisations have always told stories to entice readers but the opportunities of digital literature provide scope to add further depth of content, interactivity, and increase the scale of transmission to potential audiences.

 

Grasp 4/5

Figure 4/5

Memory 4/5

 

Reference

Bourchardon, S., and Heckman, D. (2012). Digital manipulability and digital literature. Retrieved fron http://www.electronicbookreview.com/thread/electropoetics/heuristic

Pro Republica. (2019). Fight the Ship: Death and Valour on an American Warship Doomed by its Own Navy. Retrieved from https://features.propublica.org/navy-accidents/uss-fitzgerald-destroyer-crash-crystal/ 

The Pulitzer Prizes. (2019). Sheri Fink of ProPublica, in collaboration with The New York Times Magazine. Retrieved from https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/sheri-fink-propublica-collaboration-new-york-times-magazine

This is a review of the piece of digital literature Out of Nothing, Everything: Conversations with Larry Harvey (1989 – 2019 burning man project, 2019a) evaluated using the effect on the reader of the conceptual frameworks of grasp, figure, and memory as outlined by Bourchardon and Heckman (2012).

 

This work is offered in eReader and PDF files rather than the most widely adopted ebook file format Epub developed by the International Digital Publishing Forum. It consists of transcripts of 3 interviews conducted by the author Jeff Greenwald between 2013 and 2015 with Larry Harvey who was a founder of the Burning Man event which as described on the website is “a temporary metropolis dedicated to art and community” (1989 – 2019 burning man project, 2019b) of 70,000 people aligned in their actions by the words of Larry Harvey in his 10 principles of Burning Man 1989 – 2019 burning man project, 2019c) which were written in 2004 to promulgate what was happening with the project around the world as further regional iterations occured. The book’s journey to me was fuelled by the principle of gifting which is one of the above principles that intersects with ease the capabilities of digital literature. I discovered the work through an email I received from the Burning Man Journal regarding a new publication from the Burning Man Project’s Philosophy Centre. The interviews were originally conducted for potential newspaper publication but when that didn’t go ahead the author gifted the content to Burning Man who then published it as a gift available to all.

Grasp was most challenging with this format. I focused on exploring the eReader version from my computer and when I clicked on it found myself in a database. My initial journey of accessing the work was exploring the folder system it was placed within and I was distracted into exploring the Burning Man Colouring Book before trying to open the item I was originally trying to access. The online accessibility of related texts is a mixed blessing allowing both distractions and delving into content. None of the software on my computer displayed an eReader file so I used Microsoft Store and downloaded freda due to it being the highest rated free application and was amazed to see it would function with personal computer, mobile device, surface tablet, and hololens. Two critical parts of how the reader experiences digital literature formats are both the hardware and software but I theorise that having to place a hololens on my head to read something would only be a barrier to more reading. I downloaded the freda application was able to proceed into the work quite seamlessly but the barriers to access were high.

My engagement with aspects of figure were mixed with this work. The cover image did not appear on freda’s virtual bookshelf just a black square thumbnail with the title at the bottom. It is uncertain whether this is due to freda or the publisher’s misstep. I clicked into the book and find a default format of white text on a black background with 2 pages viewable at one time. The opposite of Microsoft Word or Google Docs and I surmise this is due to the use-case of spending a significant amount of time focusing on reading text and how it may impact a reduction of eye strain. I read half of the book before exploring display options other than the default of which there were many. Changing the view to a single page gave the reader not only longer line lengths to read but also changed the number of pages in the work displayed at the bottom of the page. Thus there are cataloging issues as the workdoes not have a discrete number of pages; the number depends on how the work is formatted for viewing. I also try the autoscroll function so I no longer have to navigate pages myself but even on the slowest setting I find that I am being left behind. This may be due to the nature of the content as a dense philosophical treatise which left me rereading parts and slowing down for others and I would suggest this function may work well for less dense texts or if multiple people were reading a document the speed may represent a compromise to the slowest to allow all enough time.

Memory was not particularly engaged with in the simple format. The freda application was able to remember what page I was up to when I reopened it. The work had a couple of hyperlinks which were out of date. One for example said it would link to a photographic exhibition but instead linked to the local newspaper that had hosted that page.

The only benefit of this work being digital literature was that I discovered and was able to access it. Otherwise it would have functioned better in my life as a traditional work of print.

 

Grasp 2/5 

Figure 3/5 

Memory 2/5

 

References

1989 – 2019 burning man project. (2019a). Burning Man 2019. Retrieved  from https://journal.burningman.org/2019/06/philosophical-center/tenprinciples/out-of-nothing-everything-larry-harvey/

1989 – 2019 burning man project. (2019b). 10 Principles of Burning Man. Retrived from https://burningman.org/culture/philosophical-center/10-principles/ 

1989 – 2019 burning man project. (2019c). Burning Man 2019. Retrieved  from https://burningman.org/event/brc/ 

Bourchardon, S., and Heckman, D. (2012). Digital manipulability and digital literature. Retrieved fron http://www.electronicbookreview.com/thread/electropoetics/heuristic