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.”

Teaching Picasa

I think teaching Picasa will be fun! But my professor asked me how I will teach it. Will I teach how to upload an image into Picasa, how to adjust the colors, crop an image, or what? There are so many things to do, I didn’t even consider it. I need to look through Picasa and decide exactly what I am going to teach. More to come…

End of Financial Analysis and Beginning of Teach Project

Well, I just finished the Financial Analysis project. It seemed like it would be fun to plan a trip to Europe, yet somehow it was torturous. Probably because I am not someone who likes planning, math, or finance. But I do like travel, so maybe someday all of that planning will really come in handy. I really didn’t like planning the budgets. The spreadsheet was difficult to work with, as was posting them on WordPress, though I managed to do it. My most helpful tools were my travel books, Lonely Planet Western Europe and Europe by Eurail 2008. I poured over them and used their prices for most of my information.

Now, a look ahead at the Teach project is required. I love art. In fact, I am an art major and plan on becoming an art teacher, so I think this project will be good for me. Lately I have been learning how to teach others in several of my life activities. I think for this project, I will teach something art related. Photoshop comes to mind. Or maybe Picasa, which is similar to Photoshop, but it is offered free from Google. It has fewer features, though. I think Picasa will be a good lesson to teach because anyone can use it because it is free and less complicated than Photoshop.

Financial Analysis Project – My Biggest Dreams

I have to list my biggest dreams for my financial analysis project. Lets see……

1. Go on a trip to Europe

2. Be an art teacher overseas

3. Own my own art gallery

4. Be a professional artist/photographer

Now I must chose one to focus on for this project. I think going on a trip to Europe would be a good thing to focus on. It would be easiest to research, and it is the goal that is in my most immediate future. Maybe it will happen soon!

Completing the Culture Site Project

My culture site is now complete. I optimized photos for the site without any problems, which was a big surprise to me! I thought I would have to email my professor with a million questions, but the instructions were thorough and it was easy. I enjoyed reading the other student’s culture sites. Some were very impressive! Now that this project is done, I have to start thinking about the Financial Analysis project. When I heard there was a financial analysis project, I thought it would be about accounting, or a lot of math. This did not excite me in the slightest. But I just looked at the financial analysis page and it looks like it could be fun! It is a project where you pretend to live out one of your dreams, and you must analyze the cost of this dream. So I guess it is about accounting and math, but it sounds sort of fun because it is about your personal dreams and ambitions in life. I will have to start thinking about what mine are!

Progress Has Been Made

I have my Culture Site up and running. Now I just have to finish it. I would say that I am about 3/4 done. I need to do some more writing, organizing, etc. I struggled with arranging my page so that the viewer could see all of the sub-pages. I realized that the theme I had wasn’t capable of doing that, so I had to switch. I don’t like this theme very much, but the only other one I could chose from was bright pink with hearts and butterflies. I’m just not that girly. I should finish the culture site before the end of the weekend.

Culture Site Project…?

I am still a little unclear about the culture site project, but that may be because I haven’t dived in yet. I have some adequate research, and have requested an interview, but I haven’t thrown it all together yet. This week says that we are supposed to talk with a librarian about the project, but I honestly don’t have any questions yet. I already have two online and two print sources. Like I said, I am waiting to hear from my interviewee. I may have some questions later related to technology, but I feel like I don’t need any help researching my topic, which is the reason for the required librarian chat. I will just keep consolidating information and wait for the next “Do This Week” page on Blackboard. I feel pretty confident that once I start making a page, things will come together. Hopefully I am not overestimating myself.

Reproductive Technology = Designer Babies?

This week in my Gender and Technology class we read and discussed reproductive technology. I am very interesting in this subject, and even wrote a research paper on this subject my freshman year. If I were at all scientifically inclined, I may want to pursue this topic as a career of some kind. However, I am not scientifically inclined, but rather artistically inclined. I am happy with that.

This week’s readings scared me a little. They were all about questioning if science is going too far with selecting certain traits in fetuses, bionic body parts, creating too many embryos than can be nurtured, and so on. I mainly focused on the ethical debate because it was of most interest to me. Science is so advanced now that parents can choose which traits they do or don’t want their children to have. This can come in handy with certain cancer-causing genes or other disease-causing genes, but what about appearance, or gender? Should parents be able to create their “perfect” child? I think no. I can see how this practice could easily advance into something worse, something closer to Hitler’s perfect Aryan race, or something closer to genocide than saving babies from cancer. One thing that really scares me about this is that one of the articles said (sorry, can’t seem to find it right now) that reproductive technology is a self-regulated branch of medicine, and that the only people keeping it in check are the doctors themselves. After reading the articles, I was having flashbacks to reading “Brave New World” “1984″ and “Animal Farm.”

Traditional Housework Roles

This week in my Gender and Technology class we are discussing housework, and how the roles within this subject are very divided by gender, and also how is it unequally divided. Of course, females are left with most of the household responsibilities, and men with very little (I’m talking about traditionally). Luckily for me, my household will be different. My boyfriend absolutely loves to cook, and I absolutely hate it. So when we end up living together, he will be cooking all of the meals for me! Lucky me, right? Well, I told him since he will be cooking all of my meals, that I will do all of the dishes. I think that it fair. But if the roles were reversed (and we were fulfilling our gender roles), would he do all of the dishes if I was the cook? In most houses, the women do the cooking. But do the men do all of the dishes? I have a feeling that is not the case. And there are all of those other household chores the keep in mind. Right now, whenever I go to my boyfriend’s house, I end up doing a lot of cleaning because he doesn’t. And it’s not even my house! I guess there is a signal in my brain that, as a female, I must clean up for my man. I don’t enjoy it, but I still do it. One article that my classmate shared and that I found to be very interesting was about how men are taking on more household duties. Here is the link:

http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/oct2004/nf20041018_8340_db013.htm

I have a lot to say about this subject, but all I will say now is that, though the household duties are unequally divided, at least it is getting better! I am quite thankful that I am not a 1950′s housewife expected to keep a perfect house.

Dr. Rana el Kaliouby – Really Smart Lady

I found a really interesting female inventor/scientist who has lived and worked in both Egypt and England. Dr. Rana el Kaliouby creates technologies that can sense human emotions and cognitive processes. Isn’t that crazy? She got her B.S. and M.S. from the American University in Cairo, and her Ph.D. from Cambridge University, all in the subject of Computer Science. In 2006, she recieved the Higher Education and Learning Institite’s Gold Award from the Global Women and Inventors Network. Today she works at MIT. Her credentials are very impressive, and I am eager to research futher into her career. All of my information is from:   http://web.media.mit.edu/~kaliouby/