Task 1 | What’s in my bag?

• 3 years ago
• Posted in:Weekly Tasks
• 2
• Author: marwa kotb

My name is Marwa Kotb. Etec540 is my 8th course in the MET journey. I work as a system engineer. Since August 2020, I moved to Dubai to be part of the “Expo2020” enterprise project that will now run from October 2021 till March 2022. For the “What’s in your bag? I emptied the bag I carry to work. At the current duration, my company has incorporated a hybrid working policy combining remote work with office work.

I take a backpack for work, which is convenient considering the number of items that I hold. It also helps me stay organized and a healthy option to avoid back pain or other problems. The organization of the contents mimics a filing system, all objects with close or similar characteristics are packed together so they can be easily reached whenever needed. There are duplicates of few items, and this is relevant to the backup strategy I intake just in case any of these items were finished, worn out, or inapplicable. Here is an itemized list of content and their location in the bag.

• In the front pocket (dedicated to valuable belongings), I keep the following:
  • A keyring holding the car and house keys. 
  • A small wallet that has two credit cards (the first is issued by a Canadian bank institution, whereas the second was published recently by an Emirati bank), the Emirati driving license, and few Emirati coins (might be needed for parking meters in Dubai).
  •  “Zomig” 2.5 mg tablets. 
  • A smartphone enduring numerous apps, a wealth of personal and work information, digital reserves of IDs, health insurance card, access passes to the community facilities (gym & pool) in my current residential area, and my Apple wallet.
• In the second compartment (dedicated to other personal belongings), I keep the following:
  • A cosmetic bag holding light makeup, hairband, and the essential protection products for COVID-19 (a couple of wrapped disposable masks, two hand sanitizers, and disinfectant spray).
  • An old pencil case that has two sharpened pencils and two highlighters.
  • A small notebook labeled “Insider program presented by Google” that I received in a Google Insider tech sessions event held on December, 2019.
  • A dual-language (Arabic and English) printed receipt and warranty certificate for household appliances purchased January 8th, 2021, and an empty plastic bag with the label “Orthodontics Latex elastics”. Both items were clipped to the cover the notebook.
  • Printout of Etec540 Task1 and the example provided.
• In the laptop compartment (dedicated to work essentials), I keep the following:
  • A black “Park Avenue” laptop sleeve, received throughout my company’s annual meeting in February 2019. Inside it, I keep my laptop, laptop charger attached to a 3-pin power plug (type G, the standard power plug-in UAE), card-bus adapter (not pictured as it is a work property), one pair of wireless earbuds (mainly for web-conferencing and online work meetings), and iPhone USB charging cable.

Considering the modern definition of “text” as “the wording of anything written or printed; the structure formed by the words in their order; the very words, phrases, and sentences as written.” (Oxford English Dictionary, 2020), I believe that the “text” found on my possessions conveys, to some degree, a complete picture of who I am, what I do, and where I live. One can predict that I might have a profession in the technology sector easily said by reading through the card-bus configuration adapter and the label of my notebook. The Zomig tablets show that I struggle with migraine attacks (the long hours behind screens are key triggering factor in my case). The Covid-19 essentials would tell that I care about my health and would serve as an indicator of the world’s unprecedented challenge. The wallet’s bank cards indicate that I have been living in two countries (Canada and Dubai). The dual-language receipt shows the most recent shopping activity I have engaged with; it also indicates my preference for brick-and-mortar stores; furthermore, it demonstrates that English occupies a unique role in Dubai residents’ multilingual texture. I usually clear my bag of any printed receipts, but I kept this receipt and clipped to my notebook until I get the chance to examine the purchased appliances during the coming weekend. The plastic bag’s writeups show that I had visited a braces specialist, and that is true as I accompany my daughter in her monthly visits. However, this bag was there to remind me to pick up a new pack of elastics this coming weekend as my daughter ran out of elastics and her next scheduled visit is on January 30th; I would like to highlight that I have added this task to the reminders on my phone. Still, I kept the empty bag to designate the task as necessary. Lastly, the print of Etec540 indicates that I am a life-long learner and that I am engaged in some formal type of education.

In terms of “text technologies,” the possessions are a delicate balance between both old and new—analog and digital. On the one hand, my pencil case utensils, notebook, and etec540 printout (the traditional forms of writing, thinking, and reading technologies) are utilities that I grew up with; I am still holding on to them as they constitute for me the most comfortable and effective methods to communicate my initial thinking. With my notebook and pencils, I can draft problem statements, scribble and draw possible solutions and think of the bigger picture of the problem at hand before I reach my computer. Similarly, the printout of the Etec540-task enables me to interact with the task, mark and highlight important parts, add hints or the dictionary meanings of words in the text, relate to previous readings in the course or other materials that I came across and so forth. On the other hand, the digital text technologies (laptop, cell-phone) are essential companions in my daily life, enabling multimodalities that helps me to engage with language and communication verbally, visually, and auditorily. Lastly, bank cards, other digital text-traces, transmitting ciphered text that secure access, transit payment, and cashless vending.

I believe that my bag’s items accurately represent how I interact with the contemporary paradigm of “multiple literacies.” I lean towards traditional literacy and favor conventional forms of text (over digital) for tasks requiring in-depth reading, cognition (e.g., comprehension and long-term memory), and algorithmic thinking (literacy). However, I use screens for techno-scientific processes (technological, critical, and design literacies) such as composing programmable solutions, writing and organizing text materials and reflections, visualizing spatial patterns, and explaining/ demonstrating abstract concepts in alternative versions (like infographics, presentations, videos, etc.) that are essentially based on a text foundation and media literacy principles.

The narrative of my bag captures a glance of the narrative of my being. I perceive myself as a multi-tasking, organized, focused, and task-oriented person. Thinking and planning in advance are vital before taking action, anything I keep needs to be purposeful, and for the most, I try to my level best to be well-prepared with a backup plan(s) in case of emergencies.

If I were to think about what I would have packed in my bag fifteen years ago, it would look a bit different. I was a lab programming assistant at an educational institution, and my bag would have contained: An older type of laptop and cellphone, programming books, student papers, binders, and an external portable hard drive and USB (the items were required for backup storage at the time). Twenty-five years ago, I was a freshman in a computer engineering college. There were no credit cards, laptop, or even cellphone (I had my first cellphone in 1997) in my bag. I was completing my programming tasks and projects in the college labs, so I had an entire box of floppy disks (a box had a dozen) to backup copies of my course works (note, floppy disks were easy to damage just by folding) and few CDs to save final copies of any complete project.

I imagine that an archeologist will refer to this temporal period as the ” tipping point” for a complete digital transformation and non-print days (Fadilpašić, 2020, March 27). Shortly, the digital forms of text and hybrid/remote working will be the new normal rather than the unusual (i.e., due to the pandemic) in several industries and businesses.

References:

• Fadilpašić, S. (2020, March 27). Businesses approach digital transformation tipping point. Itproportal. Retrieved from Businesses approach digital transformation tipping point | ITProPortal
• Oxford English Dictionary (2020). Quick search results: Text. Retrieved from Home : Oxford English Dictionary (ubc.ca)