Linked with Jane Wu
When I was reading Jane’s post (I went back to check her original post for Task 1), I made a lot of connections with her. I was also working in a BC offshore school in a southern province of China at the time, but only for a year comparing to her 9 years of service. I chuckled a bit when I saw her package of tissue paper as It was a big problem for me when I forgot to bring tissues to public washrooms in China. Things have changed a lot in the past 15 years though, I would say 90% of public washrooms in China are now providing free toilet paper. I also commented on COVID situation and how convenient the digital payment is in China now in my post. The only thing you need to go around in China now are your keys, ID card and your smart phone. People rarely carry around wallets anymore. I brought this habit to Vancouver as well by using Apple Pay instead of carrying around actual bank cards. A lot of places even accept Alipay and Wechat Pay. So much more convenient!
I noticed that Jane also took a picture of everything in her bag followed by paragraphs of explanation in words in her original post. One difference I liked was that she listed out all the items in her bag right under neath the picture just in case it is not clear. It is interesting to see how bags (to me, is a very personal item) reflect personal, cultural identities and are able to connect to others in this sense. It makes me feel like I start to get to know Jane even I have never met her in person. It made me turn to look at the mode-bending version of her bag.
She also chose to use genially to add multimodalities to her post. I liked how she added notes on her original picture and created the interactive buttons so her audience can click and listen to her voice. I think it gives more of a personal touch about Jane on top of her personal items in her backpack. I also liked how she noted what had changed in her bag over the last few months, so did her life.
I noticed she switched from teaching to working for an ed tech company. I wonder what has changed to make her switch from paperless note-taking using iPads to pen and notebook. I tried taking notes using devices, but it just doesn’t work. I always carry a multi-colour ball-point pen and some kind of paper (lined paper, back of scrap paper, half-broken notebook, etc) to write down daily to-do’s and random thoughts. Even thought I would misplace them here and there and it makes my place super disorganized.
I do hope she could include more modes in her genially interactive image besides written text and voice messages. Maybe add some videos, website links, images, etc.