For this week I was curious what ChatGPT would recommend as a Poetry Collection based on my interests.
Below is a screencast:
there is a lot of background noise I would recommend muting the video
After I stopped casting I continued prompting it and very quickly is began suggesting poetry collections that did not exist. It very obviously does not have much data on Canadian female poets or poetry collections themed around women’s experiences and injustices. This is a shame as I know there is a lot of content that does exist out there which is found easily through search engines.
the concept is three unnamed young women on a night out partying in a city (in my head, Toronto, where the writer spent 10 years of her life). It brings us forwards and backwards in time throughout the night. It is messy and dark and chaotic perfectly representing a night out in Toronto with two friends.
Th title of the collection is swines and on the cover there are three women diving so I thought it would be interesting to ask Bing Microsoft image Designer AI what it thought swans personified as three young women in a dive bar would look like. What they came up with fits the collection swimmingly.
*note my mom was with me when I was generating using microsoft designer and was shocked that most of the renderings looked like me. This makes her and now me wonder if microsoft somehow knows what I look like. A little strange that 80% of the renderings are brunette girls my age with my skin tone and features.
What strategies can we employ as educators to teach the ethical and productive use of AI?
I think a good strategy is to do what has been done in this class and by that I mean explaining how AI works, how it can be unreliable, and the politics or lack there of surrounding it. Ethic and Productivity can be combined as it gives the student the ability to decide for themselves if what is being generated is ethical and how to critically think about that. It’s interesting to think of AI as a means to develop critical thinking because it seems a theme in criticism amognst many is that reliance on AI will prevent us from thinking for ourselves. I disagree.
Develop or incorporate modules that explicitly address the ethical considerations of AI within the curriculum. Cover topics such as bias, transparency, accountability, and societal impact. Integrate case studies and real-world examples to illustrate both positive and negative aspects.
Hands-On Projects with Ethical Considerations:
Assign practical projects that involve designing, developing, or evaluating AI systems. This hands-on experience not only deepens technical understanding but also allows students to grapple with the ethical implications of their work.
Promote Critical Thinking and Collaboration:
Foster a culture of critical thinking by encouraging students to question and discuss the ethical implications of AI. Emphasize collaborative projects, where students work together to consider ethical considerations, promoting a holistic understanding of AI’s impact on society.
Honestly this collection as a whole wasn’t a vibe.
I thought I would like it because it was marketed as capturing the mundane and the city (Toronto)
And I love the mundane, lyrical poetry, and Toronto so I was like heck yeah
Except it was too mundane and not enough City so it was meh
disappointing
the lyrical poetry was good though.
It was also marketed as Canadian but it was like not that Canadian. That was a let down.
There was not much of a theme or narrative, which made me realize when reading and writing collections, I prefer strong cohesion through theme or narrative.
My favourite poems were titled ” ” which paralled a woman being flayed with a sunset and ” ” which had the most city vibes and featured a fifteen year old girl crying in the rain.
Here are AI representations of 15 year olds crying in the rain in downtown Toronto. THEY ARE EXACTLY WHAT I IMAGINED!!!!!!!
Reflect on what we discussed in this weeks zoom class, including issues in the visibility of certain disabilities, accessibility-minded frameworks (UDL, for example), using web accessibility tools, and other methods for supporting inclusivity. Try using speech-to-text in your post creation.
I used a program called Otter.AI to do speech-to-text. I was having trouble finding a software/website to do the speech-to-text. Otter.AI is meant to record meetings/conversations for professional use. It’s very user friendly and a aesthetic professional platform.
This is what it came up with:
Okay, so this is me using speech to text. I’m using a program called otter.ai. That’s, I think meant a function to like record meetings like for professionals, but it’s just the easiest one I found the platform which actually looks great. I think this would be perfect if you’re interviewing someone, or even maybe to just like us, when students are doing like an oral presentation or something. Yeah, as for that week, that lecture, I thought it was really interesting when we looked at, like accessibility of websites and like contrast colors, and then also UDL since then I’ve like done more assignments, obviously. And I found that it’s once you put your mind to it is really easy to implement UDL because you do a lot of it without realizing it. Like one assignment I was like, Okay, for the write up. I’m just going to connect it to UDL as much as I as much as I could and I connected literally everything to UDL, and all of the like, boxes were ticked and it was like perfect. So, yeah, that’s my thoughts on accessibility. Okay, bye
I thought it fascinating that it creating a summary of the “meeting” using buzzwords
For this week, I read Joshua Whitehead’s (he/him) poetry collection Full-Metal Indigequeer.
I had read the poem Mihokwaniy in an introductory Canadian Literature course during my undergrad and it has sat with me ever since. Mihokwaniy means rose in Whitehead’s cultural language which is also the name of his grandmother for whom the poem is written. Rose Whitehead . Who is not just a murdered or missing indigenous woman. She is a grandmother. She is “a beauty queen extraordinaire” (see pages 99-104) .
I decided to order the collection as a whole when I embarked on this journey of exploring new (to me) forms, themes, and organization of poetry collections. Of all the collections I have acquired, this one is by far the most unique and experimental in form. I went in knowing it was not similar to my own style of poetry. I am glad I went out of my comfort zone because I really did learn a lot.
The collection is from the point of view of an indigequeer rebel computer virus named ZOA. Zoa creates a continuity in the collection, which is inherently discontinuous in a way for a purpose. It sounds confusing, but it really works, and it’s really beautiful. Most of the collection is incredibly visual in form, which gets across the computer virus angle. Poems are interspersed with computer code and lots and lots of seemingly random numbers. I have opted not to include photos because of copyrights and to support the integrity of the work, but if you are interested come see me!
The video below is a talk Joshua Whitehead did following the collection’s release. It touches on many of the themes of the collections. In the video, he also provides information about his background, including his indigenous nation, his family, and the work and connections he is making in Calgary, where he completed his Ph.D. and continues to work/study. It also highlights the power and poetry Joshua Whitehead’s words have both in their oral and written form.
If you can’t find the collection at a local bookstore here are some links from the publisher (TalonBooks), Indigo, and Amazon.
