For my first linking assignment, I decided to focus on Chris’s ‘What’s In My Bag’ post. I chose to focus on Chris’s post because he varied from me in a few ways. Firstly, Chris is, male-presenting so I thought it would be intriguing to see if there are any differences between myself (someone who identifies as female) and Chris and what we would carry in our work bags. Chris also works in a post-secondary institution which I was intrigued by as I work in an elementary school. Chris’s job relies heavily on technology and supporting students with the use of it. Although my job does require aspects of technology, I am not dependant on it.

I noticed that Chris and I both take more than one form of hydration with us as well as keys for work. Where Chris and I differ is the amount of technology we carry to and from work. Chris mentioned in his post that he works in a hybrid environment, which means that sometimes he works from home and sometimes he travels to a physical space to work. For myself, all the technology that I need to take with me to home and work is my laptop. The other forms of technology (example: Apple TV, projector, portable speaker, iPads, wireless presenter, etc.) are items I can keep in my classroom and do not need to lug back and forth. Chris carries things like I do, a laptop, but additionally he carries, a wireless mouse, a flash drive, portable power pack, and wireless headphones because he needs to be prepared in his working environment.

Reading Chris’s post and learning about his working environment was helpful for me because it helped me to see that I do appreciate having a separation of my work environment and my home environment and not having to take a lot of items back and forth. Although, Chris may enjoy a hybrid working environment, for myself, the separation of these two spaces if helpful for me.