Golden record curation

My 10 songs (in no particular order):

1. Bach, Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F. First Movement, Munich Bach Orchestra, Karl Richter, conductor. 4:40
2. Senegal, percussion, recorded by Charles Duvelle. 2:08
3. Zaire, Pygmy girls’ initiation song, recorded by Colin Turnbull. 0:56
4. Mexico, “El Cascabel,” performed by Lorenzo Barcelata and the Mariachi México. 3:14
5. Mozart, The Magic Flute, Queen of the Night aria, no. 14. Edda Moser, soprano. Bavarian State Opera, Munich, Wolfgang Sawallisch, conductor. 2:55
6. Georgian S.S.R., chorus, “Tchakrulo,” collected by Radio Moscow. 2:18
7. “Melancholy Blues,” performed by Louis Armstrong and his Hot Seven. 3:05
8. Beethoven, Fifth Symphony, First Movement, the Philharmonia Orchestra, Otto Klemperer, conductor. 7:20
9. Bulgaria, “Izlel je Delyo Hagdutin,” sung by Valya Balkanska. 4:59
10. Holborne, Paueans, Galliards, Almains and Other Short Aeirs, “The Fairie Round,” performed by David Munrow and the Early Music Consort of London. 1:17

What were my criteria?

References

Brown University (2017, July 11). Abby Smith Rumsey: “Digital memory: What can we afford to lose?” [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBrahqg9ZMc

California Institute of Technology. (n.d.) The Golden Record.  Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA. https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/golden-record/

Mode bending

Find my original task here.
Access my updated task here!

Original task:

When completing Task 1, my focus was mostly on sharing the contents of my bag and identifying the different text technologies found therein. Looking back, my priority was not how I shared the contents of my bag (one picture), but the analysis itself.

Through this activity, I identified some of the assumptions viewers might make about the owner of these objects. However, I think my analysis was quite broad as I identified things such as nationality, my love of reading, etc., rather than reflecting on the more specific assumptions that could be made about my background and experiences. As mentioned in Task 1, I used to really enjoy getting a glimpse of ‘What’s in my bag’ in the back of some magazines, but I think that I did not realise the more specific assumptions we can make about the owners of the bags and their age, education, income, race, etc.

Mode bending:

For this task, I wanted to reimagine the way I shared the contents of my bag to make it more engaging for the viewers. This task was done with my peers and professor being the intended viewers, but it is something I can consider when planning lessons for my students. In their video, Puentedura states how, as teachers, we need to persistently re-examine our practice to ensure that we are using technology in the best way (Common Sense Education, 2016). Cazden et al. (1996) similarly encourage the re-evaluation and evolution of our practice. One way to do this is by looking at the Substitution Augmentation Modification Redefinition (SAMR) model to improve our practice by doing what the name suggests: substituting, augmenting, modifying, and redefining (Common Sense Education, 2016). Cazden et al. (1996) propose considering “six design elements in the meaning-making process: those of Linguistic Meaning, Visual Meaning, Audio Meaning, Gestural Meaning, Spatial Meaning, and the Multimodal patterns of meaning that relate the first five modes of meaning to each other” (p. 65). From the moment of original design to the evaluation and redesigning of the lessons, there is always a multitude of things to consider in order to make the content more relatable. Cazden et al. (1996) recommend multiple modes of meaning on top of linguistic, such as visual, audio, gestural, spatial, and multimodal (p. 80). When redesigning my task, I wanted to take this into consideration and develop my means of expression.

Benefits of mode bending:

As the SAMR model recommends, teachers need to evaluate and re-evaluate their teaching strategies (Common Sense Education, 2016) not only to encourage productiveness and positive learning environments through relevant learning opportunities (Cazden et al. 1996), but also to extend the learning they have already developed by living in a technological world (Dobson & Wilinsky, 2009). Thanks to the development of technology, we have access to innumerable amounts of documents, indexes, and databases on every theme imaginable spanning over centuries (Dobson & Wilinsky, 2009). Granted, having this kind of access is unique to a technologically developed society, but access to written works is not what is unique; our ability to communicate, share, debate, question, and work with peers around the world in an instant is (Dobson & Wilinksy, 2009). This environment is conducive to rapidly evolving technologies and information, so it would be natural that our means of teaching would also need to evolve alongside them. According to Cazden et al. (1996), multiliteracies “overcomes the limitations of traditional approaches by emphasizing how negotiating the multiple linguistic and cultural differences in our society is central to the pragmatics of the working, civic, and private lives of students” (p. 60). A multiliteracies pedagogical approach allows for a broader representation when it comes to language, culture, and social differences (Cazden et al., 1996).

Through this mode bending activity and looking at the SAMR model, I was able to modify a simple picture into a more interactive activity including audio, text, and a few more pictures. After completing this activity, I can re-evaluate and consider ways in which I could redefine this activity to increase attention and performance.

Challenges of mode bending:

One of the challenges that comes with mode bending is that technology is rapidly evolving. Something that may be new to an educator could be something quite natural in their students’ lives. As we grew up in different generations, we “most likely do not share the same learning styles as [our] students” (Mabrito & Medley, 2008, para. 4), but perhaps even our colleagues. It is possible that students interact with new information in a completely different way than their teachers (Mabrito & Medley, 2008). This can be a challenge for instructors that are trying to develop learning opportunities while trying to learn about new technologies themselves.

It would be good to keep in mind that advances in technology do not make previous technologies irrelevant. There are benefits to embracing older technologies as we move forward. For example, although online texts offer hypertexts, print offers footnotes and options for physical interaction with the materials being used (Dobson & Wilinsky). At times we may be so focused on incorporating modern technology that we forget the basics or overlook how to discern the appropriate modifications. “Good technology integration isn’t about using the fanciest tool, it’s about being aware of the range of options and picking the right strategy – or strategies – for the lesson at hand” (Terada, 2020, para. 1).

When it comes to developments in technology, it is also worth keeping note of who may have access to those advances in technology. For example, “the likelihood of someone in a high-income country being a regular Internet user [is] 22 times greater than in a low-income country (Dobson & Wilinsky, 2009, p. 13). Geography is to be considered, but also age, gender, education, income, etc. It is one thing to determine the access of a small group of students, but it can become more challenging when it comes to larger audiences. Offering an array of learning opportunities and using different elements in the meaning-making process is a good place to start (Cazden et al., 1996).

Moving forward:

References

Cazden, C., Cope, B., Kalantzis, M., Luke, A., Luke, C., Nakata, M., & New London Group (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review, 66(1), pp. 60-92. https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.66.1.17370n67v22j160u

Common Sense Education (2016, July 12). How to apply the SAMR model with Ruben Puentedura [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQTx2UQQvbU

Dobson, T.M., & Willinksy, J. (2009). Digital literacy. In D. R. Olson, & N. Torrance, The Cambridge handbook of literacy (pp. 286-312). Cambridge University Press.

Mabrito, M., & Medley, R. (2008). Why professor Johnny can’t read: Understanding the net generation’s texts. Innovate: Journal of Online Education, 4(6).

Terada, Y. (2020, May 4). A powerful model for understanding good tech integration. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/article/powerful-model-understanding-good-tech-integration

Emoji story

Title:

Plot:

When I got my first email address as a pre-teen, I was not strong at typing quickly without errors. Thankfully, as mobile phones became more popular, we started incorporating short form (e.g., gr8, brb, l8r, etc.) in our emails, instant messaging, and texting. After quickly learning how messages can be misconstrued, my friends and I were careful about adding in emojis using keyboard symbols (e.g., =), ;-), :p, <3, etc.). With the new updated emojis on messaging applications and phones, we happily started incorporating those instead. This is around when Kress (2005) wrote that “writing is giving way, is being displaced by image in many instances of communication where previously it had held sway” (p. 5). Although I remember adding in emojis, I can not say that I personally used them in lieu of text. I have never used emojis with the intention of having them convey meaning. For example, I would say “I went apple picking *apple* *smile*” rather than “I went *apple* picking.” Although my use of shorthand and emojis has declined over the years when it comes to communicating informally, when new emojis come out, I happily look through them. When it comes to messaging friends, I use emojis to clarify my current emotion or to make my messages lighthearted. I was intrigued by Bolter’s (2001) statement about how it would be “interesting to speculate how photography, film, tele­vision, and multimedia might have been developed and used, if Western culture could somehow have jumped over the technology of printing and gone directly from medieval iconography to photographic and electronic vi­sual presentation” (p. 55). Perhaps we would rely solely on images to communicate rather than written words, but, then again, maybe we would not have had the same pressure to create platforms with an abundance of information because, although images do have the power to portray meaning, they lack the ability to share information as is without the flexibility of different interpretations (Bolter, 2001).

Reflection:

I had a lot of fun scrolling through the emojis at my disposal and deciding which ones would best convey what I wanted to say. There were a few times where I could not find an emoji I thought existed and times where I wanted to use a word I knew could not be expressed as an image. Throughout this exercise, Kress’ (2005) statement rang true, that “meaning in language is clear and reliable by contrast, with image for instance, which, in that same commonsense, is not solid or clear” (p. 8). In the same way that written words can remove the emotion conveyed in spoken word, writing in emojis removes the intricacies of written sentences. I could not substitute words such as ‘unfortunately’, ‘but’, ‘then’, etc., which meant that I had to come up with a different perspective on how to express the storyline. Interestingly, although I felt that this form of electronic literature limited my expression in terms of syntax and grammar, it is also said that, as electronic literatures evolve, they develop their own grammatical structures and syntax that are solely seen in the digital world (Hayles, 2003).

Did you rely more on symbols, syllables, words, ideas, or a combination of all of them?

Did you start with the title? Why? Why not?

Did you choose the work based on how easy it would be to visualize?

I had several prerequisites for my title, following what was instructed on the task page. I wanted to choose a movie or book I had recently watched, something I remembered well, and I also didn’t want it to be too easy. I wanted to avoid anything too complicated as I wanted it to be possible to interpret. I ended up choosing a movie I watched recently with my brother and tested my emoji story on him to see if he could get it. Although he did not agree with all the choices I made in how to represent the story, he was able to guess the movie and follow the plot. I was happy that my emoji story proved to be successful, since, just as Stern (2015) expressed, when solely using emojis and no text, “the result can be complete and utter ambiguity, which is why most are confused by a string of characters sewn together” (para. 6).

Although I had fun exploring the world of emojis, I do see the benefits of being able to write out my thoughts more exactly. It is curious to think of how, in some situations, a picture may be worth 1000 words, portray more emotions, and offer more interpretations than words, however, words can be precisely selected to depict exactly what we mean to convey. “The attempt to make words do what pictures do might be taken to mean that pictures are primary and words secondary. However, earlier peri­ods seemed more inclined to think that words were up to the task of bring­ing images under control” (Bolter, 2001, p. 56). Perhaps, embracing pictures, words, emojis and symbols allows us the best of every world, which is what we find in a several online resources today.

References

Bolter, J.D. (2001). The breakout of the visual. In Writing spaces: Computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print (2nd ed., pp. 47-76). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781410600110

Hayles, K. (2003). Deeper into the machine: The future of electronic literature. Culture Machine, 5. http://svr91.edns1.com/~culturem/index.php/cm/article/viewArticle/245/241

Kress, G. (2005). Gains and losses: New forms of texts, knowledge, and learning. Computers and Composition, 22(1), pp. 5-22. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compcom.2004.12.004

List of writing systems. (2021, October 17). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_writing_systems

Stern, J. (2015, May 19). How I learned to love writing with emojis. The Wall Street Journal. http://graphics.wsj.com/how-i-learned-to-love-writing-with-emojis/

Twine task

My Twine task: Journey to Greatview Mountain.html

First, I tried the Temple of No game (Johann & Pugh, 2016) and I was reminded of some of the interactive Netflix shows where you can decide where the story goes. For example, You Vs. Wild (Buchta et al., 2019), the Bear Grylls series where you help navigate and survive the wild. It is almost completely visual, whereas Temple of No relies solely on text. While playing, I was reminded that every option moves you on to another page, or brings you back to the previous one, which helped me think of what I needed to look out for when creating my own Twine.

Next, I thought I would explore the application, map it all out on a paper and then start on Twine. However, I got a little bit carried away with trying out different codes and creating buttons. For the story itself, I was inspired by Jack and the Flumflum tree (Donaldson, 2011) where the main character packs objects they end up using throughout their adventure, and Fortunately (Charlip, 2017), where a man keeps facing alternating fun and disastrous scenarios.

I enjoyed learning as I went. When I faced a problem, I watched parts of the Five College Digital Humanities (2016) video. Later, when I wanted more specific questions answered, I found videos like DigitalExposureTV (2017) where they show you how to change background images. One bigger challenge was to ensure the text was legible. I found that I couldn’t make changes to individual parts of texts that already included coding.

I haven’t had many opportunities to create something like this and it made me think about how quickly new tools are created for us to interact with the technologies around us. It also highlighted what Bush (1945) emphasized about instruments giving us access to unlimited knowledge.

References

Buchta, R., Grylls, B., Shoopman, D., Buckley, D., Grant, C., Owens, H., & Silverman, B. (Executive Producers). (2019). You vs. wild. [TV series]. Bear Grylls Ventures; Electus.

Bush, V. (1945). As we may think. The Atlantic Monthly, 176(1), pp. 101-108. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1945/07/as-we-may-think/303881/

Charlip, R. (2017). Fortunately. Little Simon.

DigitalExposureTV (2017, October 28). Twine 2.0 – How to add background images / Tutorial #11. [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2xl9JaGqpM&t=290s

Donaldson, J. (2011). Jack and the flumflum tree. Macmillan Children’s Books.

Five College Digital Humanities (2016, June 30). How to use Twine to make your own text adventure games! [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M41FFlLqu_M

Johann, D., & Pugh, W. (2016.) The temple of no. Crows crows crows. https://crowscrowscrows.itch.io/the-temple-of-no

Potato printing

For this week’s task, I decided to try out potato printing. However, in the spirit of ‘manual scripts’,  I wanted to handwrite all of my notes. After some thought, I decided to try something I’ve never tried before – handwriting on an iPad. It’s similar to writing notes by hand, but has the added perk of easily erasing mistakes and the added challenge of not seeing my word count.

Was there something particularly challenging in the process?

How much time did it take for you to create the stamps?

Have you noticed anything particular about the letters that you have chosen to reproduce?

Considering the time and effort that took you to create a 5-letter word, how do you feel about the mechanization of writing?

References

Barton, M. D. (2002). Writing space: Computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print. Computers and Composition, 19(4), 499-502. https://doi.org/10.1016/S8755-4615(02)00139-1

Danny Cooke Freelance Filmmaker (2013, January 26). Upside down, left to right: A letterpress film. [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6RqWe1bFpM&t=1s

Voice to text

Here is the text that I dictated to Word:

“After some reflection I decided to talk to you a little bit about my favorite places to go and visit while in Paris until recently I was living there for three years and so they got him thinking about a lot so I thought I would tell you a bit about it I have 60 replaces that I would recommend going to see obviously there are hundreds of more places to go and explore while you’re there number one would be the loop of course people typically go there to go see the Mona Lisa however I love to go see lots of different things in the local museum I used to go there mostly during the night hours because it’s a lot more quiet there are hardly any tourists and you kind of get some space yourself if you’re in the hue sector of the museum as sunset is happening look outside the window and you’ll see a beautiful sunset across the museum my favorite painting there is called the coronation of Napoleon I think the painter was called Jack something David there’s also this really cool underground area that I didn’t really explore until later on in my time in Paris super interesting and as a teacher I got a year pass which allowed me to go to the museum for free throughout the year and so one of my favorite places to go with the the statues room it’s really bright it’s really lit up it’s really beautiful and sometimes I would just go read there would you mind marking their this leads me on to my second museum the museum else it used to be a railway station I think in the late 1800s there’s lots of impressionist and post impressionist paintings you’ll find paintings by Monet Monet deaga and so many more I see your money you can also find sorry not money money see you money you can go see monies waterlillies called only it’s just across the river I really love to go in there too it’s super small mostly most of the time it’s super busy um it’s really beautiful to go and see that at least once I would recommend would be the hotel museum I didn’t go down to my last year in Paris but I really loved it because you got to go visit hotels house you got you can go visit his gardens and all the rooms of the house pretty much and it’s in the middle of the city but you wouldn’t know it by walking around the grounds you can go admire all the statues the place I would recommend to go see is of course the versaille are palace I know a lot of people have to go see the palace however I usually go to her side to go explore the gardens there so many places to go and see and every time I go I explore a different part of the garden scratch there so huge my favorite parts of the garden so far is when you go to the palace come come clear now it’s like a smaller palace I think it was built by Louis XIV’s are kind of escape from palace life at Versailles which is kind of funny because it’s still quite a big palace but you get to walk through that into other parts of the gardens and that’s where you can find the Queens hamlet which to me was absolutely insane there’s an entire village out there the windmill and bunch of houses you still like to go and relax and kind of forget that she was living in a palace but it’s still very extravagant very beautiful surrounded by gardens and trees and rivers and animals and all those things very breathtaking lastly I’ll mention the sexy girl it’s the I guess in English would be called the basilica of the Sacred Heart I’ve found in mark area of Paris it’s very old part of Paris and this statue there actually nearby it’s called the best nearby and is based on the story about a man who could walk through walls Anne until I have saved up various for now”

I have never used voice-to-text technologies before so there are several things I missed that would have made this text more coherent. In general, I find it a bit odd to record myself speaking, so to avoid overthinking about what was being recorded, I focused on what I was trying to say instead.

If you are curious, here is the recording:

How does the text deviate from conventions of written English?

The dictated text is a run-on sentence with absolutely no punctuation from start to finish. Punctuation is used to “provide visual rather than auditory cues for information structure in written English” (Moore, 2016, p. 1). Without it, it is difficult to determine the tone of the text, where the emphasis of the sentence is and therefore the emotion behind it. Although I believe one can say “comma”, or “exclamation point”, or “full stop” to the voice-to-text software, this is not something that comes naturally to me. If I had been focusing on dictating punctuation in the text without reading it off a script, I would not have been able to have a natural flow in my story. Ironically, what would allow for a story with good audible flow (one voice-to-text) would be a story with terrible visual flow.

This text also lacks structure and editing. There are no separate paragraphs and the misspelled or misinterpreted words remain uncorrected. When the time is taken to write a text, one can structure the way the text will be read and mistakes can be corrected. Whether those be grammatical errors, spelling errors or simply correcting the flow of a sentence.

What is “wrong” in the text? What is “right”?

Other than the missing punctuation, there seems to be missing words, spelling mistakes and incorrect words. The incorrect words are ‘wrong’ because they misrepresent the meaning of the text. For example, “and so they got him thinking about a lot” was actually supposed to be “and it’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot”.

There are a lot of missing capital letters which would be ‘wrong’, like “Water Lilies” and “The Coronation of Napoleon” which are names of paintings. However, there are other instances where the capital letters are put in the ‘right’ place without it having been specified. For example, “Paris”, “Versailles”, “Monet”, “Louis”, and others.

There were two instances where words were written down correctly from what I dictated, but that would have been considered ‘mistakes’ in written texts. First, Word wrote down “it’s super busy um it’s really beautiful” which, if it were written out and not dictated, the “um” would have been omitted. Second, there were a few places where I made mistakes when telling my story and corrected myself and Word wrote it all down. For example, “money you can also find sorry not money money” was ‘right’ in the sense that I dictated “Manet, you can also find, sorry, not Manet, Monet.”

What are the most common “mistakes” in the text and why do you consider them “mistakes”?

I put the biggest ‘mistakes’ in bold in the text. I consider them mistakes because they change the meaning of what is trying to be expressed. The most common mistakes would be the names of the locations I gave. Many of them are French, so perhaps that is why there was difficulty in writing down those words.

• “the loop” and “the local museum” are supposed to be the Louvre
• “the hue sector” is the Richelieu sector
• “museum else” is Musée d’Orsay
• Some of the “Monet” and “money” is supposed to be Manet while some of the “money” and “monies” is Monet
• “only” is l’Orangerie
• “hotel museum” is the Rodin Museum
• “palace come come clear now” is palace called Grand Trianon
• “sexy girl” is supposed to be Sacré-Coeur
• “various” is Paris

I would also consider some of the missing words to be ‘mistakes’ as they also change the meaning and understanding of the text.

What if you had “scripted” the story? What difference might that have made?

I believe that a ‘scripted’ story would have helped minimize some of the ‘mistakes’. Firstly, the scripted story would have a more cohesive structure omitting repetition and the audible correction of words. A script would also have stopped me from saying “um” as much as I did as I tend to say that to fill the silence while I think about what to say next. Having a text you read from stops you from doing that. In the ‘scripted’ story, punctuation could have been included for the oral text to help with the flow of the sentences in the written text.

The biggest changes would be in the punctuation and the ‘audible mistakes’. Some of the ‘mistakes’ that would remain would be the missing words I do not pronounce properly, the lack of capital letters, and the unknown French names. Interestingly, in order for the dictated story to make more sense written down, the script would seem to make less sense written down. As Ong stated, one can make their talk sound more like writing only once they have seen writing (Abe Aboud, 2014). In this case, knowing what writing should look like can change the way I speak, when knowing the way the dictation device works. Without having seen this, I would never have known the types of errors that could and would occur.

In what ways does oral storytelling differ from written storytelling?

When speaking, we can give ourselves more flexibility when it comes to the numbers of words we use. “Writing is generally done more deliberately than speaking, so finished written pieces are much more carefully crafted than a typical spoken sentence” (Gnanadesiken, 2011, p. 5). Only five minutes of talking got me over 700 words whereas if it were typed out, it would be more concise as “written texts can […] convey their message more precisely” (Gnanadesiken, 2011, p. 5).

In oral storytelling, there is no punctuation that can be seen by the audience, so the storyteller needs to make the emphasis on the key words, speed up or slow down to highlight parts of the story, and add emotion and energy to captivate their audience. When we read a text, the author is not able to use their voice to guide us through the changes of emotion or energy, so they must do that by selecting their words carefully and using punctuation wisely.

Oral storytelling used to be constrained by physical presence. If someone was not in the right place at the right time, they would miss out on the story. When writing came along, it changed our ability to experience things we are not physically there to experience. As Haas (2013) stated, “writing extends human beings’ ability to communicate with others across space and through time (p. 6). Thanks to advances in technology, we have come to a place where oral or visual storytelling can be seen without the constraints of time and space as well, thanks to videos that are now easily access via streaming websites (TedX Talks, 2016).

References

Abe Aboud (2014, September 8). Walter Ong – Oral cultures and early writing. [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvF30zFImuo

Gnanadesikan, A. E. (2011). The First IT Revolution. In The writing revolution: Cuneiform to the internet (pp. 1-10). Wiley-Blackwell.

Haas, C. (2013). The technology question. In Writing technology: Studies on the materiality of literacy (1st ed., pp. 3-23). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203811238

Moore, N. (2016). What’s the point? The role of punctuation in realising information structure in written English. Functional Linguist, 3(6). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40554-016-0029-x

TedX Talks (2016, February 26). Oral tradition in the age of smart phones | Alexander MacDonald|TEDxFulbrightDublin [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egO_46P894k

What’s in your bag?

I’m Danya Sprott and I am currently taking my fifth MET course. I am from Geneva, Switzerland, but I attended Queen’s University for my undergrad and have recently arrived in Huntsville, Ontario to spend some time with my brother.

I found this activity particularly interesting because I remember that, when I was a teenager, I was gripped with the ‘What’s in your bag’ pages found in countless magazines. Out of curiosity, I looked it up and it seems as though quite a few magazines continue to release articles on what celebrities have in their bags (The Verge, Us Weekly) and some even release them as videos on YouTube (Seventeen).

I think I was just curious about what someone’s bag contents would say about them. Now that I have had the chance to do this activity myself a few years later, I feel like the contents of my bag, at first glance, are not exactly breath-taking. However, after putting a bit more thought into what I can say about the contents of my bag, I see that they say a lot about me.

Necessities

These would be the items that I rarely leave the house without.

• iPhone (set to French) – to contact my family and friends. Most importantly while I’m travelling, I tend to use Google Maps quite a bit as I don’t like feeling lost
• Sunglasses
• Agenda – I hardly ever leave this behind. I have a terrible memory and I don’t like using the calendar or reminders on my phone
• Wallet
  • Driver’s license
  • Debit/Credit card
• Small blue bag
  • Plaster/hand cream/glasses cleaner/hair tie/hair clips/essential oils/lip balm
• Car keys/house key/mail key
• Water bottle
• Hand sanitizer
• Mask
• Tissues

Extra items

These items seem to be more unique to me. They aren’t essential, but I choose to take them with me either out of preference or temporary necessity.

• iPad (set to English) – I only carry this around with me when I have readings to do and know I will have time to read. I try to save paper, so I do not like printing out my readings.
• Postcards – I love receiving and sending postcards. Something about them being handwritten means a lot to me. These three postcards are the last ones to be sent out and their final destinations are Paris, Lausanne, and London.
• Pencil case – I love handwriting thoughts and notes and prefer to carry a pencil case than loose pens and pencils in my bag.
• Reading book – I enjoy reading and am currently reading Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl. I almost always carry a book with me.
• Notepad – I had this notepad in my bag because I wanted to leave a message on my aunt’s door. She lives close by.
• Library card – I have not been to the Huntsville library in a few years. I tend to carry it on me when I’m in the area in case I ever want to go in. Interestingly, I do not go there to rent out books, but classic movies.
• Boater’s license – In the summer and early fall, I love spending time on the boat. I tend to forget to take my license, so now I always keep it on me.
• Headphones – I used to hate forgetting my headphones as I loved listening to music, but now I mostly take them with me if I expect long wait-times. I listen to audio books and podcasts.
• Polaroid picture of my sister and me.
• Passport – I needed to bring my Swiss passport to my aunt’s house so that I could scan it to myself. Generally, I wouldn’t use it as my everyday ID.

Texts

The Oxford English Dictionary (n.d.) defines ‘text’ as the “wording of anything written or printed”. There are quite a few items in my bag that would be considered ‘texts”. More apparent would be the book I am reading, which is telling a story through written text, my agenda where I take notes and write down my schedule, and the post cards I have written. I would also add that, although the notepad is currently blank, I would consider it as a ‘text’ in the sense that its purpose is to write something down on it.

Another category of ‘texts’ would be my phone and my tablet. Most of what I do on these electronics involves either writing or reading even though they have multiple other uses. Next, I would have these items as ‘texts’ in the sense that they provide a small amount of important information about myself. My driver’s and boating license state that I am legally allowed to drive cars and boats (at least in Ontario). My debit and credit cards allow my banking information to be accessed and used. My library card allows me to rent out books and videos and links me to their system. Finally, my passport states that I am a citizen of Switzerland.

The last category of ‘text’ would be things that purely provide information, but that I don’t read anymore. This would include the hand sanitizer, tissues, essential oils, glasses cleaner, hand cream and lip balm. I maybe read them once when I bought them, now I no longer need to as I know what they are.

These items would probably allow someone to conclude that I speak French (iPhone) and English (iPad), that I enjoy reading (book) and writing (agenda, notepad, postcards), that I am Swiss (passport), and that I have international friends (postcards).

Text technologies

After taking a close look at the items in my bag, I could only find five items that did not have a single piece of text. These were the blank notepad, my face mask, my headphones, my hair tie, and my hair clips. My glass bottle technically wouldn’t have had any text on it, except that I placed a sticker that says “Get it” on the side. Out of every single other item in my bag, only one of them only has handwritten text and that it the polaroid picture. I wrote the date on the back. Every single other item has text that has been written using technology, either printed or stamped. Some items use both handwritten and digitally written text such as my agenda (my notes), the reading book (a note from my dad who offered me this book), the debit and credit cards (signatures), my passport (signature) and the post card (the written note).

It is interesting to think about the technology linked to ‘text’ beyond what is visible on the items. For example, my credit and debit cards link to my banking information. My passport is biometric, so it has a chip that links to my facial measurements and travel information. My library card links me to my account which determines what I have checked out and my address. Finally, my iPad and iPhone allow me to connect with anyone I want to connect with and find almost any information I may be looking for.

Narratives

I find it interesting to think about the narrative the contents of my bag portray. Thinking back to those ‘What’s in your bag’ articles I loved to look at, I just wanted to see the unique and individualised items in their bags. Obviously, these contents say a lot about my nationality, my address, my schedule, my credit card, what car I drive, my prescription, etc. This seems like a lot, but, at the same time, I feel like the contents of my bag do not say that much about me. Something my bag does not say about me is that I love spending time outdoors, my family is extremely important to me, I am a teacher, I am vegetarian, I love playing music, and I have a dog named Molly. I do not outwardly project all these things, but I think these are things people know about me when they meet me.

Past and future

15 years ago, I would not have carried this same bag or contents around with me. In high school, I had a black Eastpak backpack, no smart phone or tablet. At the time, I liked to read, but only really spent time reading books for school. I had no credit cards, car keys or licenses, and my parents would have kept my passport at home. I would have carried around my Swiss identity card. In my bag I would have had my mp3 player with a set of headphones (not wireless), a bigger agenda and a bigger pencil case. I was not very good at drinking water, so I probably did not have a bottle. Finally, I never would have carried a mask or hand sanitizer with me in my bag.

The mask and hand sanitizer would maybe be an important indicator for an archaeologist rummaging through my bag in the future. My agenda would be of interest in the sense that it would indicate the year. The phone and tablet model could be of interest as technology is continually evolving. Passports could change format again. Physically stamping passports will most likely become irrelevant in the future. In my phone, my music playlist could be of interest. Perhaps languages will evolve enough for the English used on my items to be of interest linguistically.

References

Oxford University Press. (n.d.). Text. In Oxford English Dictionary. Retrieved September 9, 2021, from https://www-oed-com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/view/Entry/200002?rskey=hSy3jz&result=1&isAdvanced=false#eid