Hello everyone, my name is Shawn and this course along with ETEC 532 are my 8th and 9th MET classes and I can just see the light at the end of the tunnel. I live and work in Vancouver. My wife and I have two young kids, a three year old daughter and a 10 month old son. We currently live in a small apartment in East Van and are looking for something bigger but the pandemic has somewhat stifled our search. I work for the Vancouver School Board as a District Resource Teacher. In my role, I support teachers with students that exhibit challenging behaviour, provide professional development for the district, and liaise with special ed. behaviour programs. This year, I was deployed to teach in one of our programs from September to a few weeks before our spring break, got back into the office, and have been working from home since.
This is my work bag and pretty much the only bag I use on a regular basis. It’s a durable Timbuk2 bag that I bought from MEC many years ago. The bag contains common office work items laid out on our bedspread and arranged with enough contrast to see everything.
Generally, the items in my bag can be categorized into four basic groups; safety, technology/communication, stationary, and miscellaneous personal items.
For safety, the items are pretty obvious for these times. I have a mask, that my wife hand-sewed, and a small bottle of Purell hand sanitizer. These are relatively new additions to my bag, as I have been primarily working from home and only seldom leave the apartment for something work related.
The tech/communication items, I have my district issued MacBook Air and a Samsung phone, both old and are on the brink of being obsolete, with charging cords. Also, I have my personal iPhone again with the charging cord. In addition, a set of earbuds, four USB drives that contain district documents, some confidential documentation, and professional development presentations. The dongle supports connection to a projector.
I’m pretty old school when it comes to taking notes. Many of the new District Resource Teachers take notes on their laptops, but I still prefer my hand-written notes, mostly because I’m a quicker at handwriting than typing and I like to have my notes beside me when I summarize my consults onto official district reports. In my bag, I have three notebooks and a pencil case with a variety of writing implements; two pens, a mechanical pencil with spare lead, and a blue highlighter.
The miscellaneous personal items include; my Vancouver School Board badge, issued in 2004, my wife tells me I look like high school student in this photo, other items are a stretchy frog (a fidget tool), a finger tentacle (I use as a talking stick with students), an old Superdry label (I use as a bookmark), and a water bottle. I found an old SFU printshop card tucked into the pencil case.
Most of the items in my bag have to do with text and text technologies. The text technologies include any of the items that produce text. Consider the laptop and the stationary items, they essentially serve the function, notes and documents can be produced digitally or manually. Interestingly, having more options of which method to utilize allows me to customize ‘what I use to do what.’ There is a wide range of what type of text you can find in my bag, work-related documents and resources, personal documents (resumes, cover letter, etc.), and school-related documents can be found on my laptop. Smaller and less ‘official’ texts can be found on my phone, i.e. text messages, emails, and news feeds, for example. I think my bag represents more of a communication centre to connect one-on-one, small groups or to large groups, depending on the information that I need to distribute. I think the literacies these items represent are pretty typical of what you would find in a work-related bag, there are a variety of modes (digital and manual) and a variety of quality (work documents and personal communications). There aren’t many personal items, I had removed the photos of my wife and kids, but there are two little acorn shells that my daughter put into my bag a few weeks ago that I haven’t taken out yet. You wouldn’t be able to tell that I have a family nor could you tell that I like to play sports. There are no items that project the narrative of husband, father and soccer player. If the tech items were taken away, this would be a pretty typical work bag 15 and even 25 years ago, given the notebooks with writing implements and a few personal effects. If an archeologist found this bag in the future, I think they would conclude that it’s a pretty typical work bag of someone from our era, considering the digital and manual text technologies.
Hi Shaun,
Another pen-and-notebook person here. You mentioned that you use your notebooks to write things down rather than your laptop or cell because you find it faster. Do you find though, that there’s also a difference in terms of your comfort level when writing something down vs. typing or transcribing/dictating it digitally?
When I write a note (vs. typing/or dictating), I find I can include shorthand notes to myself that make sense when I’m jotting things down (and I can also add arrows and extra characters to add to a note if I think I need to). When I’m texting a note to myself though, it’s more intentional (I have to actually think about what I need to type) and less fluid. Perhaps as Tyler mentions in his post, it’s because technology really became a ‘thing’ as I grew up: we went from one computer in a class (if you were lucky) to the “personal computer” as I grew up in the 80s and 90s and so it’s more natural for me to use what’s familiar (pen and paper).
I do use my cell (or laptop depending on the scenario), but I find with digital technology, my notes become more formal and if I’m creating a reminder note for myself, I usually end up writing it down anyway (and completely forget that I’ve digitized it).
Do you find any meaningful difference between the two methods (or than speed/convenience)?
Thanks!
Tamara
Hi Tamara,
Yes, I am definitely more comfortable with pen to paper, rather than digital note taking. Like you, I also grew up using pencil/pen to paper. I feel more proficient and more comfortable. And in terms of using shorthand, I didn’t even think of that but I do use a lot of shorthand, symbols and arrows to connect ideas. I do find I’m thinking about how to compose what I am writing when typing things out, it’s a different process that involves more steps for me. There is a qualitative difference, on a digital device, the quality of writing is better, but takes longer, and with pen and paper, I write a lot more (probably better ideas and more thorough connections) and speedier.
Thanks for you questions.
Shawn