Hello everyone!

I’m Selina Choi and welcome to my first blog post for ETEC540.

I’ll be introducing myself via a “What’s in my bag” reveal exercise.

The above photo is me back in the summer of 2019 at the Allen Gardens Conservatory in downtown Toronto. I graduated from the University of Toronto and immediately moved to Korea to teach for a bit before coming back to Toronto. Currently, I’m a high school math, science, and geography teacher in the Toronto District School Board and I do some ESL tutoring on the side as well.

The camel coloured backpack in the picture above is one of my most frequent bags I use. I decided to show my non-work bag since I’m working from home these days and it’s basically the essentials I would carry whenever I do go out. It’s also the bag I used most often when I traveled to different countries since it’s just the perfect size and still fashionable.

At first glance I don’t think people would be able to tell that I’m a high school math and science teacher. The only giveaways that I would be is from the contents of my planner where I lesson plan and the calculator in my navy bear pouch. You would be able to see that I’m very organized because I always carry my planner with me everywhere. I write everything down since I tend to forget things if I don’t. You would be able to tell that I’m bilingual in Korean and English from my planner because I write some things down in Korean. Although I’m more comfortable with English – that’s my way of putting in effort to continue practicing my Korean writing.

As for the text that I engage with I would say I use both analog and digital texts daily. Although, it’s not pictured above, I always have my phone on me. I have an iPhone and read a lot of text on it and use it for long term planning, and communicating with others. My bullet journal planner is used for more short term planning.

If someone took a peek at my bag 15 years ago they would find that they’ve invaded the bag of an elementary student. My bag didn’t have many things but I do remember that back then I still carried around and used a planner daily. It was a planner that the school would provide to all students. It’s truly become a habit for me to carry and use a planner everywhere since then. I also had an expansive Korean stationary collection in a fancy 2-3 layered pencil case which was the envy of many of my classmates. I’m still very much a stationary collector but I do not carry all of my fancy pens with me like I did back then.

Text Technologies & Other Items: 

• Bullet Journal & pens: This is my main text technology that I engage with daily and carry around with me everywhere (along with my phone).  For those of you who may not know what bullet journaling is, it’s a type of customizable planner that can be used for many things. You can: keep track of tasks, schedule appointments/events, lesson plan, journal, do art, track your habits, and practice mindfulness. According to the etymology of the word text, the way I’m thinking of my bullet journal as a text technology is more modern in the sense that text these days is considered to be written, viewable words instead of the older definitions of it such as creation and verbal words.

• Pouch (with a bear on it): Has various things inside such as a calculator, hand sanitizer, hand cream, lip balm, mints, and pens.
  • My calculator is a scientific calculator that I use for teaching and calculating equations. It indicates that I’m involved in some form of STEM and/or that I work with numbers quite often. Numbers are considered a form of text and thus the calculator is a text technology that creates new text by computing inputted numbers for you so you don’t have to.
  • My hand sanitizer, hand cream, lip balm, breathe mints, and mask are all self-care/personal protective equipment (PPE) that I always keep in my pouch bag. Before I was forced to teach fully online I would be in the classroom teaching face-to-face with a mask on and using the hand sanitizer every 20minutes. This caused me to have really dry lips and hands. I ate breathe mints often as well since I’m a coffee drinker and I would have to wear a mask after drinking my coffee and I didn’t want to smell my own coffee breathe haha. According to the Latin period, these items are all considered text technologies because they were needed in order for me to communicate verbally with my students and colleagues.

• iPhone + Phone Charger: I use my phone often and get anxious if it dies while I’m still out, so I carry a charger too. One word I find interesting that’s used often for technology is the use of the word “died”. When you say “my phone died” everyone understands that it ran out of battery instead of a living being dying. “Died” is definitely one of those words where the meaning has changes with the growing use of technology. I would say that the phone is the most modern text technology that the majority of people own.
  • Many of us communicate our thoughts and feelings by sending texts, images, emojis, voice call, links, videos, gifs, etc. Most phones are used to access the Internet and post on social media. A lot of what we type on the internet can be permanent where there is digital history, but there is still a lot of times where you can edit or delete what was posted. There is this sense of malleability with digital text compared to written analog text.
  • Also, similar to a wallet, you can find out a lot about a person based on their phone. How they organize their apps, what apps they have, which apps they spend the most time on. The apps can reveal a persons level of literacy or what types of literacy they are competent in. For example, their phone my not be in English, they may have many language apps because they are learning a new language, they may have science literature apps, etc. Their browsing history and who they follow on social media can reveal their political views, religious views, views on global issues, and social justice issues. The background photos used for lock screens and home screens can also be very telling about the type of person you are. The phone settings and accessibility setting can also let you know about someone’s health. If they had all the texts larger than normal, you would know that they may have bad eyesight, or they may need other specific accessibility options from a disability they have. Even if we have nothing to hide on our phone, most of us would feel vulnerable revealing everything on our phone to others – at least that’s how I feel.

• Snacks: in the picture I have some chocolate that I was gifted from Christmas. I generally always keep some kind of snack on me when I go out since I have low energy. Although this is not really a text technology, it’s something archeologists may see and think that I was someone who needed mid-day snacks to keep myself going for the rest of the day.

• Bluetooth earbuds: You might find it gross that I found these earbuds on the ground. BUT when I looked it up I found that these are over $200 earbuds! I sanitized them and kept them since there was no way of finding the owner. Earbuds are a text technology. According to the etymology of the word text, it can simply be something that was created. Someone had to have created the music, lyrics, or podcasts that we listen to. And according to the Latin period, text is seen as a verbal (oral or written) construct. Thus earbuds are a text technology that relays these forms of text to our brains.

• Sunglasses: these are my 5th sunglasses (in about the span of 2 years) – I always break my sunglasses. So I don’t ever buy expensive ones. These were about $10. This isn’t considered a text technology, but I did want to note that they protect my eyes which are crucial for communicating via text technologies.

• Keys: 1 key with about 6 keychains attached. Each keychain holds some sentimental value. Many of the keychains are from my trips around the world and from when I went to anime/comic conventions. This is a text technology that I’m quite fond of since it can communicate my interests to others and can provoke a conversation.

• Wallet: A wallet can tell you a lot about someone such as where they like to shop and where they have been. My wallet is quite small and so I only mainly keep cards. I have quite a few points/loyalty cards from different stores and always keep receipts. All these things are texts that prove and communicate my past actions and purchases. Theses particular texts portray the more modern iteration of what a text is, in that it’s permanent in its written form and viewable text.