Mark Pepe’s ETEC 540 Course Site

I have to admit that I did not reach the expected 500 word limit because my hand started to cramp. That goes to show that I definitely do not write by hand nearly enough, or long enough. When I do, it’s to jot down notes into my notebook, or in the margins of my printed typed work. These are usually lesson and unit plans.

Essentially, I did find this task difficult in a few ways. One was tension in my hand, and the second I will call a cognitive workout. When writing, I found that I was pressing hard into the page and holding on to my pen tightly. This may have been because when I usually jot down my notes I am writing in a mix of cursive and printing. To compare, I added a few lines of how I usually write below my official entry. I needed to write in a clean manner for the diary entry so that others could read, but I don’t write like that which is why it was a struggle. All this printing brought back memories of high school English essays, and short reflection paragraphs in university. In the past, I embraced typing as soon whenever I could.

This diary entry was also a cognitive workout for me because I had to really think ahead while I was writing my entry. Though I never ended up thinking that far ahead. Rather than think of the whole sentence, I would just think of the next word to write. Usually, when I type a sentence I’ll take a look to see if it works, or sometimes I’ll just type a few paragraphs just to get my idea out on to the screen, and then I would revise after. Since writing on paper doesn’t afford that option I would end up just changing what I wanted to say so that it matched the word that I had just wrote. For example, the point where I confused the recipes for Tinga de Pollo and al Pastor (which is where I wrote ”…wait…”) I changed my mind from writing my original idea of the process of making those dishes to just wrapping up the idea and moving on. Why did I do that? Because I did not want to crumple up a piece of paper and start again. Furthermore, I would just scribble out the penmanship errors that I made. Unlike the printing press, where one would have to disassemble an entire stamp if there was a mistake. No thanks! 

I prefer to type than to write by hand, the reason is that the document is never in a final state. It is malleable and can be ever changing. I can delete and undo. Certain word processors will allow me to view and edit versions from a few days before. I don’t have to rip out a piece of paper from the note book and throw it in the recycling bin.

That being said, I do find some handwritten work visually appealing which has also helped me learn and make connections.  To conclude, I have added some past work of mine below. Here, we have a concept map that I created for ETEC 524 using ProCreate on my iPad. Like typing, I was able to erase, redo, and even add a grid to keep things symmetrical. Not only did I have a lot of fun being able to get creative, but that creativity and the writing down those concepts really ingrained those connections.

This is a photo of a few pages of an opera score from a show I did a few years back, Dvorak’s Rusalka. For a while, I was in the habit of colour coding musical directions as a way of check marking that piece of content off the learn list. Also, there are three languages, Czech, German, and a poetic English translation that I wrote; not sure what I taped over to write though. Then various pencil marking for direction, breaths, and phrases are written during rehearsal and coaching. Writing down the translations, making coloured highlights for musical directions, and other pencil marking help me learn the opera deeply.