My main takeaway from this course is how far outside of my
comfort zone I had to work to get through it. I may have mentioned once or
twice that I’m not the most comfortable when it comes to using digital
technology or AI. My social media savviness is still above “Oh no, Grandpa’s
trying to use Facebook” but I’m not exactly viraling up the socials (that’s
what the kids say, right?).
So, being confronted with creating a digital selfie with an
unfamiliar technology was certainly an interesting challenge. Throughout the
MACT program, I’ve read a lot about AI generated art, but the digital selfie
assignment gave me a real opportunity to experience it firsthand. Keep in mind
that I didn’t discover Microsoft Designer (part of my Office 365 subscription)
until I’d worn out every free trial I could find with other AI image
generators. The limitation of only having a certain number of free attempts
meant I didn’t have a lot of time to experiment, and I had to learn faster than
I normally would with new technology (that learning curve is steep!). Still, by
working through dozens of different word and sentence variations I gained more
insight into the strengths and limitations of what AI generators are capable
of. Additionally, working with the technology gave the social and ethical
concerns I’ve learned about in this class and others much greater context (I
don’t want this to be a multi-page rehash of my last assignment, so see “The
Adventures of an Analogue Man in a Digital World Parts 1 through 5 on a blog
near you for more details!).
Multimodality is always something that I’ve struggled with,
as well. While I enjoy the writing process, adding eye-catching visuals and
making my work attention-grabbing has never been my strong suit. This course is
built on multimodality and unlike most cases where I have a tech-savvy partner
to pick up the slack, I was left to my own digital design “skills”. I’ll admit my
abilities are rudimentary compared to other, very talented classmates in this
course, but I was glad that I pushed myself to be creative with visuals and
videos in ways that I haven’t been before.
Does that mean I’m suddenly going to invest in becoming a
digital design wizard and use AI all the time? Probably not- but I’m likely going
to be confronted with these types of challenges in the future, and I’m grateful
to know that I can learn to use AI and multimodality and do so with a bit of
confidence. That may not sound like much, but trust me, a bit of confidence is
a lot more than I started with at the beginning of this course!
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