As an English teacher in a 1:1 digital school, I am constantly typing on my laptop all day. This is further heighten by the fact that a majority of my students email their written assignments to me rather than hand them in by paper. However, I do enjoy writing from time to time. Hence, when it came to this assignment, I did not find it difficult at all. When I was younger, I use to enjoy writing my own stories. I did not keep any of those sheets, but it is that experience that have further my story telling abilities. To me, when I write, I find it a liberating experience to express an experience that I want to share with others.

When I described the event that recently happened to me, it was a story that I wanted to share. I find that whenever I have a story to share, it often is easy to write it rather than type it. I find that writing has a way of heightening one’s creativity. It was fun trying to stretch my brain in finding words to best describe the event or experience that I wanted to share. Writing has a way of creating the framework that I want to share with my audience. This experience took me back to my days when I wrote stories for my school newspaper. It was one experience where I really had the opportunity to experience my ideas. However, I use to writ my articles by hand and have it proofread by my mom before I typed it out.

Because I grew up in an age when schools where still reliant on students hand writing their assignments, so it was common to write out your drafts before you typed your good copy. I find that I was more conscious of my spelling because I would try to use words that I knew and if I did not know the word, then I would check a dictionary. Now, I am less conscious of my spelling and more prone to making mistakes or having awkward phrases in my sentences because I am over reliant on the spell checker to catch my mistakes. I also find that I skirt over my sentences and make assumptions of words that I think are in my sentences but are not in the sentences.

To me, whenever, I made a mistake when writing by hand, I would prefer to cross it out. This allows me to show what I am thinking at that moment. It also helps me organize my thoughts and provide me with the opportunity to think about what I am writing. I find that I am too reliant on my computer to fix my errors and I find that at times I limit my vocabulary when I am typing on the computer. I find that I stick with the words that I am comfortable with and I do not challenge my writing style when I am typing. This is true because I am writing in a more expository or informative way. The computer has a way of limiting the risk of writing. If I was writing in more creative forms, I would be more willing to take more risks in my writing.

Voice to Text

Having a 3 year old daughter, we read a lot of bed time stories. To capture her attention, I try to be more animated with my story telling. Whether I am reading a story to my daughter or reading a short story to my English class, I make a conscience effort to bring the characters to life. When the characters are talking, I use the words on the page as an opportunity to add some emotion or feeling to the story. Orally, I want my daughter or my students to picture the emotion that the characters might be feeling as I read the words on the page to them. I also try to vary my voice tones at times because your tone has a way of adding personality to a character. It also helps to create a visual image of the character as well.

With oral storytelling, the goal of the reader is to draw the listener into the story. When telling my short tale, I found myself trying to convince the listener that they should listen to the entire story. In order to do this, I have to add emotion and try to present this as  causal conversation while reading the story. This will enhance the story not only for the listener but for the reader as well. With text reading, I have to use my imagination more and rely on my senses and prior language knowledge to understand the meaning and key phrases in the short recording.

It was interesting listening to the recording of the reading. I found that even before I began reading, I started to picture the audience that I was reading to in this situation. Since, I am always reading to my toddler, I tried to read in a lively manner and over exaggerate certain words. The line, “call up immediately” I find that I emphasized the word to stress how important it was for me to get into the room. I also found that I emphasized “coughing,” because I wanted the listener to know that there was some immediate concern between my wife and I. This would not necessarily be conveyed in the text because individuals reading this story would automatically question why running up to the run was an urgent matter. With out the context of why taking care of a newborn is challenging, the story will not have the same impact on those who do not have kids.  By emphasizing “immediately” and “coughing,” I wanted the reader to remember these specific words. Since these are adverbs, these words are key in helping the reading understand the emotion that I am trying to convey in the story. I also found that once I got into the tale, it was much easier for me to share the parts of the tale that I wanted to share.

I was also intrigued by my voice in the recording. I found that even though I have repeating this tale numerous times, I still stumbled over certain words. I felt that after hearing the recording, I was a bit unsure how I wanted to tell the tale. The spontaneous nature of coming up with the story at that moment forced me to making an interesting decision as to how I wanted to tell the tale and how much information that I wanted to share. I find that the recording might have muted how much I wanted to say. In my head, I pictured myself sharing the tale in the style of Stuart McLean, who is one of my favorite writers and storytellers of all time. His easy going style to find humor in every day situations was my inspiration for sharing this tale with others.

I think if I had a second reading, I would have tried to really think about how much detail that I wanted to give in this situation. I would have also been able to read in a smoother fashion. I would have time to really thing about the words I would emphasis and which sentences to highlight to ensure that the listeners could visualize the story. I would also focus on stopping at the appropriate times while reading. I notice that when I read at times, I rush my words and stumble at certain points. With a second reading, I would be able to pause at the appropriate spots in the story.

This activity made me realize how important voice is in influencing text. Text has a way of recording information that can be passed on for generations. However, voice has a way of bringing those words to life. Voice can trigger the knowledge one has and enhance how the listener or reader interrupts the story and enhance the way we understand the meaning behind the text.

For our next task, we were asked to watch Lera Borditsky’s SAR lecture from May 2017. We were asked to make annotations as we listened to the lecture.

Here is the link: https://applications.arts.ubc.ca/secure/educ/index.php

It was an enlightening lecture.

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.

My name is Philip Barrington. I am currently an English and Physical Education teacher at Riverside Secondary School in Port Coquitlam, British Columbia. I am married to my beuatiful wife, Kimiko. We live in Coquitlam with our three year old Amara and our newborn son, Eisen who was born this summer.