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Opportunities for learning
This section
examines opportunities for women's learning offered by new technologies. Among
many enthusiastic reports, we sought out those that demonstrate genuine,
sustainable improvements in accessible learning for women. Instead of
speculating about future potential, we look at actual experiences of using new
technologies to support women's learning. These have been provided directly by
individuals or from reports prepared by people involved in programs, and they
demonstrate situations in which technology makes a significant contribution to
supporting women's learning.
Direct observation and/or continuing evaluation are good ways of
determining the effectiveness of a program or approach and of how well a good
example will transplant to another situation. This section includes questions
to assess cases presented as good examples and their potential as models for
other contexts.
Tools and strategies
This section complements
each of the previous sections and can serve as a link between the paper and
subsequent discussion and activities. It presents strategies to examine
decision making about education, public policy and technical developments at a
variety of levels as they relate to technology and women's learning. This
section's compendium of basic questions about access, cost, and equality and
quality of learning can be further developed and modified to address specific
situations.
A Practical Canadian Perspective
There are many possible ways of looking at the issue of women
and technology. Our research uncovered a spectrum of viewpoints, from those
that considered technology a tool of the dominant in society to those that
regarded it one of the best outcomes of humanity's drive to change and improve.
The approach that seemed most sensible to us was to consider technology in
context, in its habitat, so to speak, of social, cultural, economic and
political life and decisions. This approach is expressed by Ursula Franklin in
The Real World of Technology, as she describes what it means to define
"technology in its various aspects within the context in which they occur":
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technology is a multi-faceted entity. It
includes activities as well as a body of knowledge, structures as well as the
act of structuring. Our language itself is poorly suited to describe the
complexity of technological interactions. The interconnectedness of many of
those processes, the fact that they are so complexly interrelated, defies our
normal push-me-pull-you, cause and consequence metaphors. How does one speak
about something that is both fish and water, means as well as end? That's why I
think it is better to examine limited settings where one puts technology in
context, because context is what matters most.4 |
Many layers of context form the backdrop for this study. The
Canadian context includes challenging weather, great distances spanned by
innovative communications, traditions of educational accessibility, respect for
diversity, and the struggle to maintain a distinct identity. This paper brings
a Canadian perspective to the issue of women and learning technologies, though
the research includes experience within and outside the country.
We hope that our exploration of technology in contexts ranging
from ABE classrooms to streambed investigations to boardroom workshops will
prompt readers to do the same and to reflect on how opportunities presented by
new learning technologies can become a reality for women.
Endnotes to Section One
- Terry Evans and Darryl Nation, Distance Education
Futures, Selected papers from the 11 th Biennial Forum of the Australian and
South Pacific External Studies Association, 1993.
- Ursula Franklin, The Real World of Technology, CBC
Massey Lectures, Anansi/CBC, Toronto, 1990, p.12.
- Josée Normand, "Education of Women in Canada,"
Canadian Social Trends, Winter 1995, p.20.
- Ursula Franklin, 1990.
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