Final Post: What I Have Learned
When I began this class, I wondered what in the world the subjects gender and technology had to do with each other, and how they could possibly make a class based on them. Well, now that I have gone through the class, I realize that they are not such a bizarre pair. It has been more interesting than I expected. I have learned a lot, too.
I learned:
1. How to create a blog.
2. How to plan my finances for the future.
3. How gender and technology relate to one another, especially in the workplace and in science.
4. How to embed links, although I still can’t do it without going to the tutorial page and copying and pasting the code into my post.
What did I not expect to learn? All of the above. Maybe learning how to do a blog wasn’t too surprising. But I have had to create blogs for other classes in the past, and never got the hang of it until now. This class forced me to explore the options I have with making a blog (pages and subpages, different themes that either allow or don’t allow a vertical sidebar, etc.).
Because I did almost all of the work for this class, I feel that I have achieved the course objectives. Perhaps I could have done a better job participating in the discussion board, which would have lead me to comprehend each week’s subject a little better. But I feel that, for a summer class, I have absorbed quite a bit of information.
I will probably use my new knowledge of blogging in the future. My parents live really far away (in Japan!), and my dad has a blog that many of our relatives read. I am surprised at how our family has become closer since he began this blog just because they read about and know his daily life, and they are interested because it’s a daily life in Tokyo. For me personally, I feel that his blog lets us keep in touch better than just phone calls and emails. I could feel the need for a blog if I ever live anywhere interesting (which is my goal), and if that happens, then I will use the knowledge I gained in this class. I will also use my financial analysis project for the future, because I do plan on pursuing that goal of traveling Europe. I am glad that I used my future salary to plan it, because now I know how long to save for and what to expect with budgeting, even when not traveling but just for everyday.
Finally, I think this course exemplifies feminist pedagogy because it promotes discussion about each issue we read about, and we are all able to share our opinions and experiences, which in turn teaches all of us more about feminism than just reading can. Everyone in the discussion board did a great job of respecting other viewpoints and sharing their views without being “preachy.”
