Hi everyone! My name is Julia Jaschke. I am a teacher in BC with the Okanagan Skaha School District. I am going into my sixth year of teaching and, coincidently, my sixth course of the UBC MET program.
For the "What's in your bag?" exercise, I decided to pull everything out of the bag I take to work. There's a lot less in there than I thought there would be, but I'm guessing that's because I've only been back to school for four days now. I'm thinking about doing this exercise again in a couple of months just to see what I'll have collected over the next few weeks. I'm sure there will be a lot more paper, pens, receipts, and garbage than there currently is. I'm hoping I won't find anymore chapstick though because apparently I already had five in there!
Here is the official list of what I found:
A well-worn lunch bag (empty)
A smaller bag that held (unknown to me) 5 different chapsticks
My wallet
Hand sanitizer
Keys (personal set and school set)
A whistle
A piece of paper with list of contractors I've been trying to get a hold of
An invoice for repairing a snow tire
Post-It notes
2 pencils (one broken) and 2 pens
The 5 different chapsticks
My computer
(My phone - it would be in my bag, but I used it to take this picture)
Unfortunately, I didn't find anything too surprising in my bag. However, there are some things in there that are telling about my life and about me.
Number 3: My wallet (the little coin purse with the owl on it) is the fourth of its kind. My group of friends (including me) love to travel and one of the "go to" gifts that comes back is a coin purse. It's perfectly small size helps me to keep my cards at a minimum, it fits perfectly in my back pocket when I don't want to carry a purse, and it reminds me of some of the important people in my life.
Number 7: I have had that same list of contractors for about 9 weeks now! My husband and I recently moved (in March) to the Okanagan and purchased a home that needs some renovations; that list is my continuous effort to try to get a hold of them.
Number 10: This one was a little surprising - why do I have a broken mechanical pencil in there? I know that I like to have back ups, but a broken pencil is not a back up! Maybe it's the illusion of having a back up. Perhaps that broken pencil truly is enlightening when it comes to my thinking process and personality.
Text Technologies
The most obvious form of text technologies in my bag is my computer. The second most obvious (if I wasn't using it at the time) would be my phone. The third would be the notepad, pens and pencils (all be it one of them is broken). There is also one hand-written piece of text and a printed piece of text. I think that the balance between the more traditional (pencil, paper, written) text technologies and modern text technologies (computer, phone) is a reflection my upbringing in the growth and influence of technology. I'm in the bridging generation when it comes to technology in the classroom and at home. In elementary school we had floppy disks and moved our way through to CD-ROM. I was in high school when we got our first computer, our first printer, and internet connection; memories of dial-up, Napster, and ICQ. Although this may be a reason for hand writing lists (even though I know there are several apps that I could be using), it could also be just because of my personal preference. I like having a hard copy and enjoy that moment when you get to physically cross something off a piece of paper.
I really enjoyed this experience. It reminds me of an activity I did with my students where I showed them what was in my wallet. I did this to help them work on their inferencing, as well as for them to get to know me - I think I will be doing this again with my class on Monday. If you have any questions about something in my bag, or any insights - please feel free to reach out and let me know :)
The "What's In Your Bag" assignment is inspired by:
Brown, E. (2018). Ellie Brown Photography and Artworks Ellie Brown Photography and Artworks. Retrieved July 12, 2019, from Ellie Brown Photography and Artworks website:http://www.elliebrown.com/
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