Section Five

Opportunities for Learning

Overview

This section presents examples that show how new learning technologies can offer a range of opportunities for women's learning. These examples focus on ways in which women in the educational sector, both formal and technical, and in the non formal sphere, have accepted the challenges of new technologies and developed ways of using them to meet their needs.

We have tried to select examples that build on principles from adult learning and feminist pedagogy. Many of the examples show that holistic approaches to learning can be compatible With new technologies: they include women teaching women or supporting women's learning, adult basic education and aboriginal education. The emphasis on technical and social support for the individual learner, the importance of interactivity and feedback, and the significance of relating new learning to one's own life and experience are principles that inform these approaches.

Carol Gilligan has spoken of women's fear of "being too far out on the edge", but for some of our respondents, this is where they want to be. Like the female pioneers in the trades and technologies, the women who wander with comfort and ease in cyberspace not only exist in growing numbers but offer their hands to those less confident and even fearful. As Dale Spender, a leading authority on women's issues in Australia, said in a recent address to Winvet, Australia's Women's network for technical and vocational education and training:

In Spender's view, there should be less emphasis on the technology and more emphasis on women's culture.

No one will argue that the new technologies have been primarily colonized by men; yet women are making their mark in software development, in technical writing, and as communications specialists, designers and innovators. The new technologies are grounded in communications; and without content, really do go nowhere. To some, the computer in combination with the Internet embodies a potential and potent force towards "democratization" of learning and knowledge. As one of our respondents put it, 'The new technologies can give a woman, if she doesn't have a fear of using it, access to an incredible amount of resources and associated support for anything she wants to do."

The information presented here is also meant to provide examples of "good practice" or to illustrate the potential range of uses for technology. We provide a picture based on information collected at a particular point in time. We invite you to add to the examples.

Some criteria for good examples

The examples listed here demonstrate just a few cases in which new learning technologies have been used in situations that support holistic and women-friendly approaches to learning. Examples that demonstrate how new learning technologies enhance opportunities for women's learning have some or all of the following characteristics:

• The technology improves the learning experience, compared to what was previously available.
  
  
• The technology allows for learning processes or outcomes that could not be accomplished in other ways, in terns of accommodating learners previously unable to participate, and/or in terms of providing access to learning experiences previously unavailable.
  
  
• The improvement of the learning experience is related to the learning itself, such as an enriched experience, greater depth of learning, broader scope of learning, increased opportunities for cooperative and collaborative learning,
  
  
• The improvement of the learning experience relates to factors relevant to women's learning (for example, appropriateness of content or process, interaction, connectivity, inclusion of life experience)
  
  
• The improvement of the learning opportunity relates to practical factors for learners, such as increased access, lower cost, more compatibility with learners' other commitments, for example, to work or family.