Post #1: Megan’s What’s in my Bag
https://blogs.ubc.ca/meganfrederick/2026/01/07/megan-frederick/
I chose Megan’s post on what she carries in her bag because I was drawn to the variety of items she photographed and described. One line in particular stood out: “The most significant item in my bag is my laptop. It feels like an extension of my body and is central to my identity as a teacher and musician.” This resonated with me, as I feel similarly about my own laptop and its role in my teaching. Like Megan, I use it for nearly everything I do throughout the day, from sending work emails, planning lessons, assessing student work, to collaborating with colleagues and connecting with others on digital platforms. Megan and I rely on our laptops in comparable ways, yet she reflects on how technological advances have enhanced teacher efficiency, especially over her twenty years of teaching. Although I have only been teaching for four years, it is striking that, despite our different levels of experience, we both use our laptops in such similar and meaningful ways. This shared reliance highlights how technology can create a connection, emphasizing a common teaching experience that transcends differences in years. It shows how certain tools become integral across stages of a career, shaping daily routines, pedagogical approaches, and professional identity. While our contexts and experience levels differ, the laptop remains a common thread that supports creativity, organization, and communication.
As I continued reading her post and learning about the contents of her bag, she revealed that she had Chapstick, a nail file, and a euro from a recent trip to Rome. Although her contents differed from mine, there was a similarity in what they represented when I compared them. In my bag, I keep a lipstick and a Taylor Swift Eras Tour sticker on my laptop, reflecting both my attention to self-care and my love of music and concerts. These small items, though different in form, both reveal personal interests and aspects of our identities beyond our professional roles. Megan’s Chapstick, nail file, and euro suggest self-care, practicality, and a love of travel, while my lipstick and concert sticker signal self-expression and enjoyment of cultural experiences. In this way, our bags become more than just functional; they offer a glimpse into our personalities, hobbies, and values, showing how even everyday objects can carry meaning and provide insight into who we are, both inside and outside of the classroom.
Post #2: Emily’s Language and Thinking
https://blogs.ubc.ca/etec540edouglass/2026/01/15/does-language-shape-the-way-we-think-task-2/
When I first visited Emily’s page, I was pleasantly surprised by the format of her blog, especially the organization and use of colour. Before this course, I had little experience with WordPress and struggled to set up my own blog, ensuring that tabs were visible and functional while also making it visually appealing. Emily, using the same platform, was able to create a site that is both engaging and well-organized. Her posts are clearly structured, and the navigation between pages and posts is straightforward, allowing a reader to easily follow her ideas. Compared to my own blog, Emily’s site seems to privilege visual literacy and organization, and observing her approach highlighted how the same authoring environment can be used in very different ways to reflect different literacies and styles of communication.
Upon reading this post in particular, I was intrigued by her take on Dr. Broditsky’s lecture, specifically when discussing time-based movements and how she learned American Sign Language in college, which offered a perspective I had not considered. This connection differed from the one I made with the lecture, as I wrote my reflection from the perspective of multilingualism, whereas Emily focused on the visual and physical aspects of language. I have never learned sign language and had not thought much about how facial movements function in linguistic understanding. For me, facial movements are more about conveying or expressing emotion, so Emily’s reflection introduced a new way of thinking about language and expanded my understanding of how meaning can be communicated beyond spoken words.
A point where our reflections aligned was the idea that learning a new language teaches you a new way of thinking. Like Emily, this concept stood out to me, and in my post, I discussed how embracing a language and culture allows you to see the world through that lens and adapt your thinking accordingly. While our examples differed, we both recognized that language learning reshapes perception and cognition, highlighting the deep connection between communication, thought, and cultural understanding.
Post #3: Claire’s Voice to Text
https://blogs.ubc.ca/clairej/2026/01/25/week-3-voice-to-text/
I selected Claire’s post on voice-to-text because the structure of her translation differed significantly from my own, which immediately caught my attention. I was particularly curious about the platform she used, as her transcription included proper punctuation such as periods and commas, as well as clear paragraph separation. In contrast, my voice-to-text translation appeared as one continuous block of text without punctuation. Claire’s version also came across as more formal than mine, though it still maintained a conversational tone and included verbal fillers such as “um” and “uh.” This is where our translations were similar, yet mine felt more informal and conversational due to the lack of punctuation and structure.
In her analysis, Claire discusses how voice memos tend to favour a conversational style and closely mimic the natural rhythm of thought, which I also found to be true when reflecting on my own transcript. While my ideas and story felt personal and authentic, the lack of organization made the overall meaning less clear and could potentially hinder the reader’s experience. Where Claire and I diverge, however, is in our interpretation of whether scripting would improve the translation. She suggests that scripting the story would preserve the emotional truth while enhancing clarity and organization. I approached this differently, as I believe oral storytelling allows for a deeper expression of emotion through tone, facial expression, voice, and gesture. When a story is spoken, these elements emerge naturally and contribute to its emotional impact in ways that are difficult to fully replicate in writing. Although written text can convey emotion through word choice and description, it often lacks the rawness of spoken language. For this reason, while writing a story down may result in a more polished and organized product, I feel that some emotional depth is inevitably lost in the process. This comparison helped me reflect more critically on how different modes of expression shape meaning, emotion, and reader experience, and how voice-to-text exists at an intersection between spoken and written language.
Post #4: Ellie’s Potato Printing
https://blogs.ubc.ca/ellieklintworth/2026/01/30/task-4-potato-printing/
While Ellie completed the potato printing option for this activity, I completed the manual script, creating a perfect opportunity for comparison. My task took approximately fifteen minutes and required only simple materials such as paper, a pencil, and my hand, whereas Ellie’s task took about an hour, highlighting how much text technologies have evolved and how efficiently written work can now be produced. Ellie carefully carved each letter into the potato and stamped them individually, trying to keep the letters aligned and evenly spaced, which prompted me to reflect on the physical labour and time once required to produce text and how easily these demands are taken for granted in contemporary writing practices. Although Ellie’s process required a significant amount of effort upfront in carving each letter, once the letters were created, they could be easily replicated through stamping. In contrast with handwriting, I had to continuously write each letter and exert the same level of effort throughout the entire task.
Furthermore, Ellie’s task relied heavily on fine motor skills and spatial awareness. While my task also drew on these skills, they were not as critical to the final product. If my handwriting were slightly messy, it would still remain readable, and if I misspelled a word, I could simply erase it or cross it out and continue. In contrast, if Ellie made an error while carving a letter, the result could become unrecognizable, requiring her to start over entirely. This contrast highlights the differing levels of precision demanded by each writing method.
In today’s digital age, written work can be produced in seconds, and Ellie’s experience emphasized the constraints imposed by older text technologies, such as limited opportunities for revision, slower pacing, and the need for precision and advanced planning before each mark was made. My manual script, on the other hand, allowed for greater fluidity, quick corrections, and a more natural connection between thought and the act of composing text, even though the effort had to be sustained for the entire duration of writing. Comparing our approaches revealed how different writing technologies privilege different literacies. Ellie’s potato printing emphasized the physical and material aspects of literacy, requiring patience, precision, and intentionality, particularly during the initial creation of the letters. My manual script prioritized efficiency, fluency, and legibility, allowing ideas to be produced quickly but requiring continuous effort throughout the process. This comparison reinforces the idea that technologies place specific demands on users and actively shape how we write, think, and communicate, influencing both the process and the meaning of written expression.
Post #5: Samuel’s Twine Task
https://blogs.ubc.ca/themusicallyinclined/task-5-twine-a-totally-classic-adventure-game/
I selected Samuel’s Twine task because I found it intriguing how he combined gaming, storytelling, and writing to demonstrate digital literacy. Through the creation of his game, Samuel showed that writing can be integrated with games to guide users, build narrative, and enhance engagement. In this sense, writing becomes an experience rather than just a static text. By using Twine, he demonstrated a form of literacy that feels forward-looking and extends beyond everyday uses of technology, even within our highly digital world. While most of us regularly engage with technologies such as mobile phones, laptops, search engines, or Artificial Intelligence, Samuel pushed these boundaries by merging narrative writing with interactive game design, illustrating how technology and literacy can work together to create a meaningful and immersive experience.
When I initially attempted this task myself, I found it quite challenging, which further emphasized the complexity of the skills involved. Creating a Twine game, or “adventure,” required both traditional writing abilities and an understanding of nonlinear structure, user choice, and computational thinking. Unlike conventional writing, where ideas follow a linear path, his Twine task demanded the anticipation of multiple reader decisions and outcomes. This experience helped me appreciate the level of planning, creativity, and technical literacy required to successfully design an interactive narrative. Samuel’s task shows how digital tools can expand what it means to be literate, privileging skills such as problem solving and multimodal literacy in ways that traditional text-based writing does not.
Post #6: Mark’s Emoji Story
https://blogs.ubc.ca/markfawdry/files/2026/02/Task-6_-An-emoji-story.pdf
Although Mark and I selected different shows and films, I noticed several similarities in how we approached describing them with emojis. When Mark first began, he struggled with translating the words from the title, and I faced the same challenge with my chosen show. There were no emojis that directly represented the words; instead, we had to select symbols that reflected the main themes. Mark noted that it was easier to represent the plot, and this was the approach I ultimately had to take as well, as it was the only way the story would make sense visually. Like Mark, I also used the plus sign to indicate relationships between characters. Neither of us attempted to translate individual syllables into emojis, as this would have been too complex and inaccurate. Instead, we focused on broader themes and the overall plot, noticing how much of the story had to be condensed in order to make it understandable for the reader.
Completing this task and comparing my process with Mark’s made it clear that both of us had to omit a significant portion of the story to translate it into a visual format. This highlighted for me that writing and visuals do not translate directly, and written descriptions cannot be fully captured through images alone. While visuals help supplement understanding of stories and concepts, they cannot replace writing. Social media, for example, is filled with images, yet we rarely gain a full understanding of a topic based solely on visual content. Similarly, I could guess the film Mark depicted, but I would not know the full story, the character development, important events, or the overall message; much of this is lost in the translation from text to visual symbols. This is not to say that visuals are ineffective; rather, writing remains essential for deep comprehension. When interpreting visuals, we rely on our own perceptions and experiences, which vary from person to person. For instance, seeing a fairy emoji might make me think of Lord of the Rings, while someone else might think of The Wizard of Oz, demonstrating that meaning in visuals is shaped by individual context and cannot fully replace the clarity and depth of written language.