Identify action steps

Keep in touch

Find ways to link with others who are concerned about these issues, to provide information and support. Form alliances, develop connections among cross sections of groups; those interested in education, learning, training, those interested in learning technologies, advocates for users and decision makers. Exchanging information among disparate groups can itself be a form of education. Various movements, such as the women's movement or the peace movement, have accommodated diverse perspectives and values, as long as there was a sufficiently important common value to which everyone subscribed. If there is a common value among people concerned about the use of technologies for learning, there could be the basis for a wide network of concerned people.

Convey concerns to decision makers

Although we may sometimes feel that letters to political representatives are a very pedestrian means of conveying concern, the fact remains that this is a channel of communication that connects us directly with the political forum for decision making and one we need to use and keep open if we want to maintain healthy accountability. Even though there are now electronic means of communication by e-mail, experience so far indicates that a written letter appears to have a better success rate in obtaining a response. As well, there are occasions when exposing decisions in well-timed presentations to the media is a useful strategy - a fairly recent example is the protest of the cable companies so-called "negative option billing" that resulted in a reversal of private sector policy and a change in public sector regulation.

Support the positive initiatives

It is useful for decision makers at all levels to know that a particular program is working well. Sometimes, positive initiatives do not get the support they deserve until there is a danger they will be cut, and a good project can be vulnerable unless there are strong indicators that it is valued by those whom it was intended to serve. Letters of appreciation, informal feedback and active participation in meetings to discuss projects can all be used to indicate support.

Keep on asking questions

Some of the questions listed at the end of each section in this paper can serve as "starters" for further explorations of issues related to new learning technologies and women. You are invited to continue exploring the issues and to add questions of your own.

Endnotes for section Six

65. John Ralston Saul, The Unconscious Civilization, CBC Massey Lectures, Anansi, 1995, p 186
    
    
66. Kim Goldberg, The Barefoot Channel: Community Television as a Tool for Social Change, New Star, Vancouver, 1990
    
    
67. John Stevenson, The Silencing of a Democratic Medium: Early Public Policy on Radio and the Regulation of the Internet, paper presented at INET 1996.
    
    
68. Michelle Martin, Hello Central? Gender, Technology and Culture in the Formation of Telephone Systems, McGill-Queens, 1991
    
    
69. Dale Spender, The Internet as a Networking Tool for Women, keynote address to the International Meeting of the Women's Network for Vocational Education and Training In the Asia Pacific, July, 1996.
    
    
70. Two examples of books that offer guides to popular research are Rick Arnold, Deborah Brandt, Bev Burke, A New Weave: Popular Education in Canada and Central America, CUSO/OISE, 1985 and GATT-Fly, Ah-Hah, A New Approach to Popular Education, Between the Lines, 1983
    
    
71. Menzies, op, cit, p. 138,139
    
    
72. Lewis Carroll, Alice In Wonderland, Collins, p. 209
    
    
73. Mark Surman, Wired Words: Utopia, Revolution and the History of Electronic Highways, paper presented at INET 1996.