#alttext

Should I colour it???

separate panels

If you really love an artwork or drawing or cartoon writing an image description of it is an excellent way to connect with it more. You could just say "I love this it's amazing" but if you describe it so that someone else can see exactly why you like it so much?

I don't know you really "see" it then in a way that's deeper.

My grade 5 students make animations and we have a "showcase" where we watch them all together. I write descriptions of each animation and read the description before we watch it. For some reason they LOVE this. Once I skipped reading the description and there was nearly a riot.

The descriptions are very literal. I want the students to know what parts of their idea were clearly communicated in their animations. I didn't expect them to be so popular, though!

For my students and when trying to write alt text online I try to be objective. I think this is important even though it's also important to recognize that it's impossible to be perfectly objective.

All descriptions say something about the perspective of the person writing the text. But, the challenge is to write descriptions that will meet with wide agreement from many different kinds of viewers. So, it's a very useful critical process.

I may ask older students to do this for each other.

I worry that when we say "nothing can be objective" some people take it to mean "it's not worth trying to be objective"

Taking the best objective stance you can is massively useful. It forces you to not just think about what you are thinking and seeing but what other people may think and see. And to look for, in the intersection of all of those perspectives, what is really *there.*

It's because nothing can ever be perfectly objective that's it's all the more important to make this effort.

The other thing I worry about is that my attention and excitement for crafting "The Best Possible Image Description" may intimidate people from just slapping on some alt text ... it's not that big of a deal. It's important that you do it more than doing it perfectly. And often I'm tired and just write something very basic. Because, otherwise the post is a mess and would make no sense. You don't want that do you?

I'm just saying, don't get uptight and intimidated and NOT do the alt text at all.

IDK it's just really neat to me that something that started out seeming like a chore I had to do for other people ended up benefiting *me* so much. Even informing the rest of my work.

Dethentine's 2022, Day 1: "In the style of a romance novel."

“Memory”

[ID: An abstract peach and orange painting. There are splotces what look like flowers. In the bottom right is a big black circle cutting a hole in the piece.]

@aivember Day 2: Ota route