Women in the eLearning Field: Was Your Father a Programmer? by Mark Lassoff : Learning Solutions Magazine
Issues of gender discrimination in the e-learning field (and tech as a whole)
The Human Factor: How Gender Differences Matter in Software Training by Mary Arnold : Learning Solutions Magazine
If your software training includes time to explore or "tinker," men and women will have different rates of success. A strategic approach may be better than going through individual features. This research focused on adding new features with an audience who was already familiar with the software; I'm not sure the same training technique would work with beginners with an application.
Tinkering with the spreadsheets
seems to be a reasonable approach to working with a new problem, in line with
generating and testing alternative strategies to find a solution. In other words, learning. Women who tinkered with the spreadsheets
seemed to be doing just that, and, for them, tinkering predicted more effective
problem solving. Counter-intuitively,
though, when men tinkered with the spreadsheet, they were <i>less</i> effective in correcting the errors. The opposite results seem attributable to the
fact that women paused before trying something else, long enough to process the
information.
In the final experiment,
researchers provided a different kind of tutorial — one that emphasized a
strategic, rather than a feature-by-feature approach to the problem.
Women who participated in this
condition were almost as likely to use the new features as the men in the same
study, and were able to solve more problems more quickly than women who didn’t
use the new features. Men in this
condition were not significantly helped or hindered, which means that it’s
possible to prevent a bias against women without introducing a bias against men.
Role Models in Educational Technology on Ada Lovelace Day | Janet Clarey
Extensive list of women in educational technology, including many bloggers. A number of new names for me here.
ZaidLearn: 27 Inspiring Women Edubloggers
Zaid Ali Alsagoff responds to the discussion about his previous edublogger list being male-dominated (22-3) with a list of women edubloggers. Also check the comments, especially Janet Clarey's explanation of why this discussion matters (with 10 full APA citations--gotta love it).
Online Tutoring e-Book 6 - Culture and Ethics - Facilitating Online Learning
Although this is written specifically for online tutors, much of the information and advice applies to online facilitators as well. The authors examine cultural differences in the online learning environment, including how diversity affects language, written text, images, metaphors, communication style, and online presence. Appendix B is a chart comparing different linguistic groups and cultures.
<p><font face="VERDANA">Some of the key questions revolve around how culture is, or is not, experienced online:
</font></p><p></p><ul>
<font face="VERDANA"><li>Is it easier to work across cultures free from visuals cues, which tap into our prejudices?
</li><li>Is it harder without visual cues so that we miss sensitive cultural cues?
</li><li>Just how do we maximise the diversity and respect for cultures while tutoring online?
</li></font></ul>
Web-based Learning Design: Planning for Diversity
2002 summary of research on how diversity affects online learning, focusing especially on Hispanics. Includes differences in communication due to culture, including differences between different Hispanic populations (i.e., Mexico isn't the same as Guatemala). Also notes that Hispanics are often on the wrong side of the digital divide and may have less prior experience with technology, therefore exhibiting fewer characteristics of the net generation.
JALN: Does one size fit all? Exploring Asynchronous learning in a multicultural environment
Small-scale study of cultural differences in an asynchronous learning environment, focusing on high and low context cultures. Includes a comparison of student perceptions of online learning based on their cultural background. High and low context learners both saw advantages to online learning, but their reasons differ.
Because computer mediated communications is language (specifically, written
word) dependant, it is subject to the constraints of low/high context
cultural patterns <a href="#morse46">[46]</a>. As indicated earlier, the
role of language is to carry meaning, and interpretation is an integral
part of culture. Language is one means of establishing context among participants
of a particular culture group. In low context cultures, language must
be specific and well defined, to provide the contextual definition in
which to interpret the communication. On the other hand, in a high context
culture language may be vague, lacking the specificity of the low context
culture, as the environment within which communication takes place clarifies
the specific meaning of language <a href="#morse36">[36,</a> <a href="#morse41">41]</a>.
Thus language plays a key role in the communication process. A key issue
determining the success of computer mediated communication is the encoding/decoding
by which that communication is done. Given that computer-mediated communication
is a textual (electronic) rather than a visual (face-to-face) medium,
meaning must be carried by the language itself rather than relying on
the environmental context as the means of communication and/or interpretation.
Given this relationship, because the language of communication is English,
low context communication is presumed, thus perhaps disadvantaging those
whose cultural background relies on high context communication.
Interestingly,
low context participants concentrate on the participation environment,
while high context participants concentrate on their individual work/effort
and/or skills in the discussion.
Noticeably
however, the responses indicate that cultural background directly influences
the priority of perceived benefits received and challenges posed from
the same asynchronous communication network. The perceptions are based
on learning patterns which are developed as part of a participants’
ethnic/cultural development, and are potentially challenged by participation
in an asynchronous communication network, which of itself is implicitly
culturally based. Further, high context participants in an asynchronously
delivered seminar, while assured of higher quality participation through
an offline ability to infer meaning through low context communications,
are at least initially more likely to be disadvantaged by technology differences
as well as the communications norms implicit in their cultural background.
An Inclusive Approach to Online Learning Environments: Models and Resources (PDF)
22-page article on designing for diversity in online learning. Examines how cultural differences can affect learning and shares culturally inclusive instructional design models. Table 1 on page 6 compares high-context and low-context learning (such as how formal student-teacher relationships are).
Designing for Diversity Within Online Learning Environments
The author argues that constructivist learning environments where multiple perspectives are respected and there is no single "right "answer" are better for encouraging diversity. The ideas for instructional design for diversity are more theory-based than practice-based, but this has some interesting concepts.
"The major advantage of this learning model is that one of its key design goals is to encourage students to bring multiple perspectives to questions/cases/problems/issues and projects as part of their learning. This approach to learning views diversity as a strength to be exploited rather than a problem to be solved."
Getting Results
Free online professional development course for community college instructors from WGBH & the League of Innovation. You can follow a linear path or skip around to the parts you want. Content includes diversity, active learning, technology, and assessment.
Top News - Panelists: Online learning can help minority students
Advantages for online learning at the K-12 level to help disadvantaged students. In spite of the title, this is about more than just racial issues.
In fact, Jackson said, out of all the high schools in Illinois that implement online learning, a predominantly Hispanic high school has the highest online learning pass rate. This school has managed to recover dropouts and has encouraged parents raising children and/or working full-time to enroll as well.
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">“Online learning isn’t just some remedial course we’re giving to minority or disadvantaged kids,” said Rose. “It’s a high-quality education that’s helping to meet individual student needs.”</div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"> </div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Jackson argued that sometimes online courses are even more rigorous than traditional courses, because they are more interactive, require technology literacy, and provide a host of online resources for a student to take advantage of.</div>
Recap: Women in the edublogosphere 2007 | Janet Clarey
Janet Clarey's extensive list of women edubloggers, with descriptions of why she enjoys reading them. When Janet started blogging last year, she felt there was a lack of female voices, so she started looking for and linking to great blogs written by women.
Virtual Training, Real Teaching: The Promise of Distance Learning for Educators-to-Be | Edutopia
absolutely intercultural!