Gender

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Assignment 4 Gender 1. Have you observed differing gender approaches in the way students use present classroom technology? To be honest, no! In my experience I have seen no difference between male and female students approach to the technology available at my school. This may be due to my location. Most of my students come from low-income families and have very little access to technology. Some may have computers at home and about the same amount will have internet access and video games. I have six students, four females and two males and while they all vary in reading levels, they all have about the same level of computer finesse. I am hoping to see more involvement with technology among my students this upcoming school year as I am finally getting a Smartboard. 2. Does the type of technology being used make a difference in gender neutrality?

The realm of technology has long been dominated by males but when it comes to the internet males and females “value different kinds of online interactions” (Herring, 1994). I think that men and women tend to use the internet as an extension to pursue their interests. Generally speaking, from my own experience, my male friends tend to be interested with gadgets and games, whereas my female friends tend to be drawn to Kobo’s, Kindles and social network sites. On a side note, perhaps I am a little off base here but when I read this question I could not stop thinking about video games. Ever since I was a child and my family got a Super Nintendo Entertainment System for Christmas I have always been intrigued in video games. Also, my mother, a rather reserved, very lady-like English woman also shares this passion. One of my first memories after first getting the SNES was being woken up by my mother to the following: (hushed whisper, no doubt to not wake my younger sister) “Lindsay! Lindsay! How do I open the door to get to Bowser?” I told her to press the up button and went back to sleep. I read an article recently entitled Women and Video Games – A Woman’s Perspective by Jennifer Amlie. The author acknowledges the general belief that women do not play video games, or if they do they are not the same type of games that men enjoy. As I stated earlier, I may be off base with this response but I could not think of anything more obvious than video games to demonstrate the lack of gender neutrality in technology.

Herring, Susan. Gender Differences in Computer–Mediated Communication: Bringing Familiar Baggage to the New Frontier. Retrieved from http://www.mith2.umd.edu/WomensStudies/Computing/Articles+ResearchPapers/genderdifferences-communication Amlie, J. (2009, November 23) Women and Video Games – A Woman’s Perspective. Retrieved from http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2404910/women_and_video_games_a_womans_p erspective.html?cat=19 3. Do females participate differently when on line? After considering this question and reading the information provided, I searched for information or studies that focused on school aged females. Authors Stefanone, Lackaff, and Rosen recently did a study of online behaviour on social networking sites in an article entitled Contingencies of Self-Worth and Social Networking Site Behaviour. The study revealed that females “tended to spend more time managing their profiles and shared photos online” (p.48) than males; furthermore, depending on the level of importance the females placed on their appearance determined the amount of photo sharing. I think the article reveals a very sad fact, that despite the age we are living in, females are still made to feel that their appearance is all that matters to the world, to the point that these insecurities are demonstrated online. Stefanone, Michael A., Lackaff, Derek., & Rosen, Devan. (2011) Contingencies of Self-Worth and Social Networking Site Behaviour. Cyberpsychology, Behaviour and Social Networking. Retrieved from http://www.communication.buffalo.edu/documents/Stefanone_cyberpsych.2011.pdf. 4. What about Strategies? Before this section I had never really given much thought about gender and technology. However, I think efforts have to be made when training pre-service teachers. I graduated from MUN in 2007 and at no point during my ‘training’ did the issue of gender ever come up. After reading through this section it has made me realize that people may have an unconscious bias when dealing with technology and gender. Pre-service teachers need to be aware of any gender bias that they may have and focus on strategies that would eliminate this from their interactions with students.

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