We call the latter “education,” and it’s mostly done by underpaid, undervalued women.
Debbie Chachra, “Why I Am Not a Maker,” The Atlantic, January 23, 2015.
Why did this particular passage grab your attention and What elements of your past experiences, current interests, or future plans did it kindle?
This particular passage grabbed my attention because education has played a pivotal role in my life in the past, and in the present, and will continue to do so in the future. As such, I value educators. Their impact on me has been so great that I decided a few years ago that I wanted to become an educator as well.
But throughout my life, it has become clear that educators have been dealt the lesser of hands in a societal and professional sense. They are underpaid and underappreciated. Coming from Oklahoma, a state where K-12 teachers have some of the worst wages in the nation, I have especially come to realize that the situation is utterly unfair. In the aftermath of the teacher strikes that had gone on within the state, I can
The connection that there is blatant mistreatment of educators and the fact that educators are disproportionately women does not go unnoticed (as noted in the quote). With predominantly male policymakers and an overwhelming male presence in the culture of technology, while hope is necessary for any movement, pessimism cannot be blamed.
Under the large umbrella of Digital (Arts &) Humanities, which areas of inquiry, methods or techniques are you most eager to pursue this term and why?
I am most excited to pursue novel techniques of communicating knowledge as well as building upon techniques for which I already have a foundation. In regards to novel techniques, I learn more about how to use 3D modeling as a way of making knowledge more accessible. As for building upon techniques I already have a foundation in, I want to take my web development skills to the next level in order to better communicate knowledge. I’ve made websites as a tool and brochure websites for advertising a brand before, but have never quite created software with the primary intention of communicating knowledge. There will be interesting things to learn especially in regards to designing the user interface for knowledge communication.
These are things I’m interested in pursuing further because I value the power of communication. Especially coming from a CS background, I understand that there is already a wealth of data in the world (“Big Data”). The problem is how we can effectively use this data to tell stories.
