My name is Mike Forsyth.

I live and teach in North Vancouver, British Columbia on the traditional and unceded lands of the traditional, and unceded territory of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səl̕ilwətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples.

I teach High School Social Studies including Physical Geography, a true passion, and serve as one the school’s Teacher-Librarians. I am also the AP (Advanced Placement) Coordinator for the school and sponsor the school’s long running Japan Exchange program which we revived in April after a three-year pandemic hiatus. When not at school or working on my MET program I enjoy exploring the backroads whenever I can and am an avid photographer.

For this task I have chosen my work/laptop bag, it serves as a mobile desk or office for me as I work and teach in multiple spaces throughout the school on a daily basis. This was an interesting task as I haven’t previously taken the time to consider what is in the bag, and what value I place on these items, as it has evolved organically over the last few years, adding items as needed and replacing items as they wear out.

Not pictured, though often carried with the bag are my daybook and travel mug for my morning tea.

What’s in my bag:

Some of the items in my bag are used daily, while others like the bottle of Motrin, ChapStick, chough drops, and cold & sinus medication are there for as-needed instances.

1. Laptop: used for teaching, planning, preparing lesson materials and connecting with colleagues in and out of the building, to submit attendance and record data on student learning. Also used for MET course work and discussions.
2. Two note pads: These represent the duality of my identity as a teacher and student. The blue covered note pad serves my need to jot notes, plan things out and serves for general note taking relating to my role as a teacher and teacher-librarian. The black spiral bound notebook is used for my MET courses allowing me to keep the notes and thoughts for these courses separate from those of my role in the school. I often carry a hard copy of required readings in this spiral bound book to reduce the time I am spending on screens throughout the day.
3. Pens, pencil and highlighter are self-explanatory in their use for planning, taking attendance and assessing student work, as are the extra graphite for the pencil and eraser for editing work. I believe I am comfortable, confident and literate with computers, but find I plan and edit better on paper than I do on a computer screen.
4. USB ‘stick’ (storage device): This is my repository of lessons, activities and resources for my various courses, things I find more helpful to have stored on a physical drive rather than the cloud in the event of a network outage.
5. Eyeglass wipes and water bottle: help to prevent eyestrain, headaches and a sore throat.
6. Headphones allow me tune out distractions and preview resource videos without distracting those around me. I tend to favour corded earbuds as I don’t have to remember to charge them and they are more obvious to others, so that they don’t think I am ignoring them if they come up to me while I am listening to something.
7. Comb: to retain some semblance of professional appearance after scratching my head trying to decipher what students have written, or to understand questions posed by students and colleagues alike.

Text Technologies:

There is a mix of digital and analog text technologies in my bag. By far the breadth of material favours the digital as I carry the contents of multiple filing cabinets on the laptop and USB stick, not to mention the near limitless information accessible on the internet. With the analog represented by the notepad and book, writing implements and the student work I am often shuttling around with me.

I have intentionally not moved away from the analog for some note taking and reviewing/editing as I find that I am able to concentrate more fully on the task at hand if it isn’t as easy to get off task as another browser tab or program window. I also enjoy the tactile nature of writing, editing, reading and even doodling. Though I do find myself moving more digital for some tasks. I think the ability to be literate in both the digital and analog worlds to be a critical skill that we are losing, the number of colleagues and students that I see nearly paralysed when the network is down, or they have forgotten their phone or laptop charger can be troubling at times.

Narrative:

As I mentioned earlier I hadn’t put much thought into what narrative my bag has to say about me , but I like to think that the narrative of my bag and its contents corresponds to the image I have of myself as someone who is fluent in both the digital and analog worlds. I have embraced the affordances of digital technologies but don’t feel the need to have the latest and greatest, the wear and tear on the bag reflect this. I also don’t feel the need to abandon the efficient analog ways of doing things in favour of digital methods that aren’t any more efficient. I believe that my bag and its contents show me to be grounded, organized and prepared for multiple contingencies the former boy scout and northern kid in me shining through. There isn’t much in my work bag or its contents that is truly private, the laptop for instance is one provided by the school district and is therefore subject to monitoring and review. However, the laptop does reflect me in several ways as the stickers affixed to the case bring reminders of go-karting through the streets of Tokyo and the other sites I have led students through Japan and features my photography as the desktop backgrounds.

It is interesting to think back to the state of this very bag fifteen years ago, it was one of my first purchases as a TTOC (substitute teacher). Until six years ago it did not contain a laptop as I wanted to separate my work and personal computing, I would use the desktop computers in my classroom, or in the classrooms I was covering as TTOC. Otherwise, the contents of the bag have not changed much, a larger capacity USB storage device and extra note pad being the only real differences. The ID badge was used a lot more when I was in and out of different school sites and was less known to students and staff.

I am not sure how to think that someone else, let alone someone many years in the future would view the contents of my bag. There is a great deal of culture associated to the meaning of words and objects as evidenced by our recent exploration of the change in meaning of the words text and technology.

Trying to embrace the spirit of the assignment, I think that a future archeologist might view my bag, and its contents, as representative of a period of transition. The presence of both analog and digital text technologies could be interpreted to represent a period where digital texts and technologies were growing in importance but had not yet fully replaced analog texts and technologies. The fact that the analog within my bag is often blank or empty (I tend to file my notes, etc. into the appropriate binder, folder, or recycle them regularly) may add confusion as the volume of digital information, if it could be accessed, far outweighs the analog. It is also possible however, based on the values of the future culture, that archeologists may come to the opposite conclusion that we were beginning the transition from digital to analog again evidenced by the disparity in text volume between digital and analog.