This assignment started out by reading all of the discussion board posts from Unit 9 assignment 1. After reading these, we had to remind ourselves of the best way to respond to the posts of other students, which is located in the course syllabus. Next, we had to write two response posts, including one student who discussed the same topic as me, and one student who discussed a different topic than me.
I first responded to a girl named Erin that chose a different question than me. Although I did not choose to discuss this question, I was still interested in this topic, so I figured I would respond to her post. The question she explored was “Why was #TheDress perceived as White/Gold to some people and Blue/Black to other people?”.
I started out by saying that I really liked how she explained a personal connection to the topic. The fact that she always saw white and gold instead of blue and black made her frustrated, which must have lead her to be more interested in learning why this illusion exists. I am sure this made her more engaged in the readings and allowed her to do her best on this assignment!
She made a point that it is easy to mistake colors based on the context in which they are placed, which I agreed with. Based on the lighting as well as the colors around an object, it is not uncommon for a color to look different than what it really is.
I also really liked that she gave another example of this type of illusion, the Adelson checkerboard picture. I did not previously know about this one, but it allows me to understand the illusion more in general, which is very cool.
Her question is all about a visual illusion, which is already very interesting. However, I wonder how audio illusions work, and if they rely on similar principles. For example, a year or two ago, there was an audio message where people debated if it said “Laurel” or “Yanny”.
The second student I responded to was a girl named Holly. She chose to explore the same question as me, which was “What Are CAPTCHAs and How Do They Work?”.
I started out by explaining that we chose the question for a similar reason! I have also seen photos comparing puppies to bagels, and other comparisons like this, but I had never heard the term CAPTCHAS before, so I wanted to learn what they were. It is funny how we have all ran into these on the computer before, but at least I never really thought about their purpose or what they were called or anything.
I also discussed that I liked how she broke up her answer into 2 parts and separated them into separate paragraphs. She explained what a CAPTCHA is with support from a couple articles and a video, and once this was done, you explained how they work, with information from a couple more sources. This made your post easy to follow. I also like how you included reCAPTCHAS at the end, because it explains the more modern form, rather than more outdated examples.
I wonder how CAPTCHAS will continue to adapt over time. As Holly and I know from reading these articles, there are many different forms of them, and as new ideas emerge, I am sure the idea of CAPTCHAS will evolve and become more and more effective!
Reflecting on this assignment, I always think it is valuable when an assignment tells us to read through all of the other posts from our section. Because I tend to finish most of my assignments before most other students, there are not many there when I publish my post, and I generally don’t check the discussion board after I make my post for an assignment. Reading through all of the other posts allows me to learn about the material better, and in this case allowed me to interact with some material that I did not read about for this assignment. It also allows me to get to know the other students better, including what they are interested in and ideas they have about various topics.
Additionally, I always like when we get the choice to respond to one student who explored a similar topic and one who explored a different topic. Responding to a student who explored a similar topic is good because allows me to take in the information one more time, leading to longer retention of it in the future. Responding to someone from a different topic is important because it allows me to learn something new.
These assignments are always nice because they are fairly simple yet effective. There are not many steps we have to follow in this assignment, however, it allows me to learn more about material I had already learned about, material I didn’t learn about, and new ideas from various people in the same section.
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