My name is Olivia Marin and I am a French Immersion
High School Science teacher. I have chosen to show you the contents of my school bag, it comes with me to and from school everyday!
I have a mixture of digital and analogue technology in my bag. The heaviest and largest item is my school computer, a MacBook Air that I have with me almost 24/7. It is the computer I use for my school work and UBC course work as well as any personal computer needs. I have always used Macs and have had a Macbook since 2006, it is my favourite digital technology, I much prefer it over my iPhone or iPad.
I also have a calculator, the same one since my Grade 11 pre-calculus course and my lab goggles, which I purchased in first year university for Chemisty labs. I teach Math and Science and I use these items almost daily, they are practical but I also realize that I am a little nostalgic and attached to these particular items for their history.
I have my wallet and my school ID card which is also the FOB for the school and the photocopiers. The cards I carry are almost all digital, and I keep them in my wallet which has a RFID blocker. I also have my car keys and an extra mask for mobility.
On the analogue side there is a set of Science cards, a French Ressource I just found and have been meaning to discover further for potential use in my classroom. I have several pens, a stamp, some white out and a little notebook. This is my current notebook that I will use this semester for my two ETEC courses 540 and 565D. I like to write things out by hand as I find it helps me to remember things better than typing ever does. In these note books I will take notes from readings or write down ideas I might have throughout the day. I will also usually write short papers and responses by hand before typing them. I find my writing is clearer when I have to think about it long enough to write it out.
Finally there is a tumbler of coffee and some bubble gum, two of my staples. The coffee in the morning before classes start and bubble gum in the afternoon as a pick me up.
I think my bag while I was a student in university would have looked quite similar. The calculator, laptop and googles would have been in there, along with a note book and some pens. I probably would have had a tumbler and likely some bubble gum. I would likely not have had a mask but other than that I think all of these items would have been in my backpack 15 years ago. The laptop is of course a new version and it has a lot more information stored on it than I would have had in first or second year university. My colleagues who are a little older than me have cupboards full of binders of their course materials, I have all of that information locked in my laptop and saved to a digital drive through my school district.
I have evidence in my bag of both analogue and digital literacy and French literacy, in the cards and probably 80% of the information on my laptop. I also have numeracy evident, in the calculator, and maybe science literacy as symbolized by the goggles.
I think my bag is an accurate representation of who I am as a teacher. I am comfortable in a digital world but I still hold the nostalgia of the analogue.
Ying Gu
January 16, 2021 — 16:10
Hi Olivia!
I also used my calculator from high school for a very long time, until I finally misplaced it one day. It was a sad day. I suppose archeologists can trace what period we live in based on how fancy our calculators are! Pretty soon, all calculators will have big screens, won’t they? Every single student in my science classes use graphing calculators. Gone is the era of the scientific calculator.
marwa kotb
January 17, 2021 — 22:57
Hello Olivia & Ying. A fantastic exercise to get to know so much about someone just via the contents of their bag. I was also attached to my scientific calculator, especially in college time. It wasn’t needed later as all the required operations can be literally done from my laptop screen and apps. This year, I purchased a TI 84 calculator for my Grade 9 daughter. Still, I also noticed that she relies much on the online calculator to complete her assignments, making me wonder if this technology could be headed to extinction?
CARLOTRENTADUE
January 18, 2021 — 10:50
Hi all,
Fascinating discussion on the calculator, it’s function, and whether or not it will continue to survive in our increasingly digital world. Like many of the posts I’ve read, it seems as if many people are multi-literate in an almost innumerable amount of ways (ie- physical, numerical, linguistic, digital, analogue literacies etc.). It’s funny, most of my students use their phones as calculators among hundreds of other functions. Ying seemed to allude to this idea when stating that all calculators will have big screens some days – I think we are, in a way, already there. Many of the physical literacies portrayed in this image can/ have been transcribed into the digital realm and are available in digital versions ( pen has become the keyboard, whiteout has become the backspace/ delete button etc.) Something I wrote about was the mask as the defining feature of our time. If an archaeologist were to look back at this bag, and compare it with a bag from 15 years prior, I think the most outstanding feature would be the mask and the implications it brings with it.
DeirdreDagar
January 18, 2021 — 12:44
I think I’m most impressed by the longevity of the items in your life. Not just that they in themselves have had a long life, but that you’ve kept them for a long time. I think that tells us something about you too! Maybe that you take good care of your things, or that you don’t subscribe to a “newer is better” mentality. I on the other hand frequently find myself saying “and this is why we can’t have nice things” because of how quickly I break or damage items.