Linked to post: https://blogs.ubc.ca/jocelync/task-1-whats-in-my-bag/

Aside from the fact that we share a name, this Jocelyn has integrated technology seamlessly into her everyday lifestyle-  and packs far lighter! While I can connect to the few essentials she included, I seem to take it to an excessive scale- my wallet contains at least 10 cards, my key chain has additional keys and I carry extra masks. Do I actually use these extra items daily? Not quite. Thus, I can appreciate Jocelyn’s minimal yet cautious approach and use of technology to downsize her lifestyle. 

I was captivated by the use of genial.ly to present the items in her pocket. It was the perfect tool for this task, taking it one step further  than the original Brown’s Bag project with the static photograph  by introducing this platform. It seemed to go naturally with her profession  in organizational development. Not only was it visually appealing, but the interactive interface  to select the items along with the description made it easier to focus on each individual artifact. It was another example of how she implemented technology to enhance and supplement her work. 

Jocelyn delved into the underlying literacies by defining terms, outlining its  history and analyzing  how they evolved over time. An immediate rush of memories came back when she mentioned the T9 predictive text technology on the older models of phones and how advanced that felt like at the time. Similarly, we have moved from clunky mobile phones to sleek smartphones with extra functionalities such as Internet access and hundreds of applications at our fingertips.  A search on the word ‘smartphone’ in the OED actually showed its first appearance in 1980 Telecommunications Policy to demonstrate how ‘telephones are enhanced with computer technology’ (Oxford University Press, 2021) Upon further examination of the compound word smart-phone, it becomes apparent that these two words combined are meant to attribute the human intellectual quality of being ‘smart’ (adj)  to an inanimate object, the ‘phone’. In doing so,  Berkowitz suggests in his episode  “…words that were used in the age before the computer and the internet now have additional meanings.” Now phones have enhanced capabilities with artificial intelligence such as voice assistance, that were once unheard of! These features have the ability to streamline everyday tasks to make our lives easier,  just as Jocelyn pointed out in the use of her phone as a wallet and key.