Hello, my name is Philip Barrington. Currently, this is my sixth course her in the MET program. I am an English and Physical Education teacher at Riverside Secondary in Port Coquitlam, Canada. This semester, I am teaching two English Studies 12 courses and one Physical Education 10 class. I live in Coquitlam with my wife Kimiko, and our two children, Amara and Eisen.
For this exercise, I selected my work bag that sits in our mudroom all year round. Since the school year has just started, I will be taking this leather bag to work five days a week until June 2020. This bag carries the necessities that I need at work: highlighters, pencils, pens, water bottle, computer, power cord, USB, and a copy of Slaughterhouse Five.
The bag also contains some random items like a photo copy of my mother’s will and a duotang from a Professional Development workshop I attended last year.
Text Technologies
My computer and power cord is a pillar of my own use of teaching with technology. Ten years ago, I taught with my own personal computer. This Dell Computer is a touch screen computer that is given to all teachers in our school. I was given this computer two years ago. With this computer, I am able to share my lessons and activities with my students on my teacher blog. This computer provides me the ability to share information or media with my students instantaneously in this digital world. In the past twelve years, when I once used PowerPoint exclusively as my main mode of technology, now I am integrating embedded videos as a natural part of my teaching.
This illustrates the changing world of teaching. Now, almost every high school teacher uses a computer in some form daily. The computer has become more valuable because of its ability to share information and provide instant media to your classes in a way that was not available to students as soon as 10 years ago.
The USB provides me with the opportunity to save files without storing all of that information on my computer hard drive. This USB contains my files from the years that I have taught English as an Additional Language in the summer. The USB allows me to share and transfer information with my peers in a quick and easy way. The way we can now store and access information without relying on binders and endless paper examples of worksheets or activities.
While highlighters, pencils and pens are symbols of texts that I still rely on daily in my practice. These tools provide me an opportunity to take notes or highlight information that I encountered when I am reading or analyzing documents for work or for my courses. These tools have been around for many years, but I know that I still rely on these tools especially when I cannot rely on technology in a crunch. At times, I still enjoy marking a paper with a pen.
The book is a remind of the old way we use texts. For me, I still prefer to hold and read a book rather than using an e-reader. To me, I prefer the feel of the pages on my fingers and I have a hard time reading on a e-reader for long periods of time. Despite e-reader’s popularity, books are still the easiest way for people to gather and share information in an informative and creative way. Will books be a relic during my time, I am not sure but for now, I still hold on to this text that for centuries has been the earliest and easiest way that we as humans communicate with each other.
The water bottle is a Swell bottle and it is a metal bottle to encourage reusable habits. Every day, I use my bottle daily. It is my way of reminding myself that I need to drink water during the day.
By completing this activity, it has highlighted that despite my reliance on technology, I still hold on to more conventional ways of sharing text. The bag illustrates how I straddle the technological age with more conventional ways of disseminating information. For me, I still hang on to books, pens and paper as a way to share and read information. This reminded me that familiarity at times prevents me from completing embracing technology. While I embrace technology and use it daily to enhance the way I teach to my English classes, I still know that I dabble with multi ways to share and gather my texts. For me, texts is a way to share information with others and my bag illustrates the different ways that I try to use texts in my daily life.