Danah Boyd’s interview

I love the interview.  Danah seems like a very informed and compassionate person.  She is right about the facebook and myspace.  she even mentioned what we have discussed about educating students how to use the technology, not to ban them from it.  I don’t understand why she was talking about it over drinks though?  That was a little confusing to me.   Anyways, great interview and great information.  

Silicone Ceiling

First off, had I read the article about the silicone ceiling prior to becoming a teacher, I might not be a teacher.  They make in one year what a teacher makes in two and a half.My interest in computers came years before I knew that technology would be the way of the future.  I played a typing game on a beta machine ( I think that was what it was called) in the fourth grade.  So I went home and told my mom I wanted a computer.  My mom bought me and my sister an appleIIe computer.  Who remembers those??  It was based in DOS, I think, and had the 31/2 inch floppy disk.  I played on that computer for years and didn’t get another one till I was married.  My mom got rid of it approximately 2 years ago.  Still worked!But the point was that I was introduced to using the computer in a fun manor in the fourth grade.  I feel that the way to break that silicone ceiling is to introduce girls to computers at a younger age.  Another good way would be to make sure that they are also introduced to games that are of interest to females.  I, being female, don’t like all the racing, fighting, and stealing of cars type games that are out their for boys.  I also am too old to like to play the Hannah Montana and Barbie type games.  So, what are my options as a girl, or for the high school girls.  What games are made for high school girls?  I don’t know of any off hand.  We as teachers can also help by making sure that we encourage the females to think about a career in information technology.  This is the one thing I wasn’t sure of how to accomplish.  I don’t know much about the opportunities out their for technology and some of the jobs aren’t even available yet.  So how to do entice a student to go into a job that doesn’t exists yet? Another thing I am worried about is if we focus on all male or all female schools, who is going to teach the teachers how to gear their years of teaching to only one gender.  I don’t know if a female should teach in an all male school.  I don’t know if I would know how to teach differently when given all males.  I have a class right now that is almost all males , I don’t do anything different for that class.  I think that I should be, but what??  So we need to work on PD that shows us how to work with the different genders and how to encourage females with computers.  More information on the opportunities available, the schooling needed, and the jobs available will help me to discuss with my students what you can do with an IT degree.