In revisiting our first task from this course, I have been reflecting upon our public and private lives and our use of social media. So much of what we choose to put out there and what creates our digital footprints and personas is a privately curated assortment of images, thoughts, sounds and feelings. I liken this selection process to choosing one’s wardrobe. On Ellie Brown’s website, as I look back to our first task, this is the reason that she included photos of the people whose bag contents were displayed. In examining the literal baggage that people carry around with them, we are invited into some of the more private aspects of their lives.
Some people will create “ghost” accounts on social media so that they can be anonymous voyeurs of the actions and thoughts of others. Or, like me, they may be very careful in their selections of what they feel is appropriate to put out to the world. Perhaps what I DON’T post is much more indicative of my true self, and obviously more private, and may be as interesting of a journey as Camille Thoman and Ellie Brown’s BAG project was.
For this week’s task, I am looking to recontextualize, to, “…shap[e] emergent meaning” (p. 75, The New London Group), the images on my cell phone. I am hoping to create a video that shows my self-editing process and is akin to the activity of baring my private baggage, completed six weeks ago.
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My video is too large to upload here. I have posted it to YouTube.
I quite like this new app and am glad that I have added it to my digital tech tool box. I think taking a viewer on a trip through all of the apps on my phone might be like emptying my digital pockets, baring my private stuff and perhaps illustrate how much time I waste on other, less productive, tools!
Maybe an idea for another task.
The New London Group. (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. (Links to an external site.) Harvard Educational Review 66(1), 60-92.