Why Use a Website to Share Our Ideas
As a group we talked about many of the different technologies we could use to communicate with our classmates. Some of the ideas that we talked about were; Powtoon, YouTube, Prezi and Powerpoint. Then one of the group members suggested that we use a website because it would allow our readers to explore the information at their own pace and we could set it up so only the pages we were focusing on in our discussion forums would be accessible (5.6, 5.10). This would allow us to control the content being sent out to the class and at the end we would open all the information for our final discussion questions.
I had never created a website before so I was a little intimidated by my lack of knowledge and how proficient some of the other group members seemed to be at creating websites. As it was a group assignment we all worked together in a Google Document (3.1), adding in our links and resources along with our information to ensure we were answering all the questions laid out by the assignment.
Once we had all of our information, along with picture evidence and proper citations, we set up our Forum to include the introduction page link and the link to some of the more general information. This was to communicate with the class in a way that would give them time to read and respond to our forum questions(4.4).
We were given three weeks to present our project so every day we would post a new forum thread, a new question and the link that the reader would need to answer the question. We received positive feedback from our classmates about how easy it was to follow our presentation and how much they enjoyed the slow access.(4.8)
Research
As a group we separated the workload so we could focus our research on specific topics. This allowed us to go more in depth into the topic that we were researching and provide multiple sources that were read for quality, applicability and relevance to our assigned area (5.3). I was tasked with finding information about technology access and how limited or flourishing it was. We then created a Google Sheet where we could compile all the websites and article links in one area to make our time referencing easier (5.7). Once the sheet we started we added a column that specified what we were going to use that information for in our presentation (5.4).
We considered the many different avenues of searching for articles, Google Scholar, Athabasca University Library, prior knowledge from other classes and our text books from class. At first we scanned through websites and articles looking for keywords and concepts that related back to Eritrea and the Mobile Technology access they had available to them as a country (5.4). Then we would evaluate the information as a group to see what parts were relevant to the discussions we wanted to have with the class. Next we matched up any theories we had learned about in our courses with our research. We used our website as a vehicle to tie the theories we matched into our understanding about how Distance Education was lacking in third world countries. As well, we looked at how Open Education Resources (OER) would be able to help the people, specifically women, to learn in Eritrea (5.2).
Assignment Part 1
My group was tasked with discovering the educational need for women in third world countries and we had to focus on a specific area, like Africa, my group focused on Eritrea. Even though the research we did was focused on Eritrea, I continued to see connections between what my students were describing and what the women in Eritrea were experiencing. I found myself wanting to research more into the areas of Pakistan and India. One of the main similarities I found was the lack of access to wireless towers and the cost of data plans is one of the main reasons women are unable to access distance education (6.4). Women in Eritrea are allowed to pursue distance education as long as their families are wealthy enough. The wealthy families would send their daughters to school because it was seen as a sign of power and wealth to have educated daughters who could support their families. The women in the lower income families would also elevate their family’s status if there were able to access distance education, however, the cost and time were too high for many. The women in the lower income families were expected to work on the farms, care for the house and the children before working on schooling.
Research and Working Together, All the Resources We Found and Evaluated
Final Thoughts
To the right you will see a picture showcasing the classes responses to our questions and forum postings. The larger words show what was most dominant in the conversations followed by smaller and they became less used. What I learned from these conversations was that education, access and the education platform/educator were the most influential on the classes understanding of our presentation and research.
The conclusion I drew from my research and course information was that; women all over the world suffer from being uneducated due to male suppression and/or lack of resources and cost associated with accessing technology and wireless/wired internet connections (5.6). The greater community in the world needs to stand up for these women and help them to have access to technologies that can help them to grow and be better able to support themselves, as well as, their families (5.8). I feel very blessed to be born in a country where education is free and I am supported by my peers and family to attend school and to have a career that will ultimately better myself and family as I grow and learn.
Gender In Equality
Assignment Part 2
I wanted to focus my research on the ways that the women in Eritrea and India/Pakistan were similar and different in the availability of technology and education resources (5.1). I started my research with some of the websites my group had found during our project and from there was able to find keywords that guided my research to information that was relevant to my part of the paper. Key words that stood out for me were; cell tower placements, rural areas, and data coverage zones (1.5). I found that many of the areas outside the cities were hard pressed to have access to data and mostly were not able to access the internet on a daily basis (5.3).
I found myself wondering what I could do as an educator to help my students to access their materials while they were away. Some ways I thought about, based on the research from this paper, were to have documents in a Google drive that could be downloaded onto their devices and viewed off line at their own pace (2.7). My part of the paper moved to focus on this and slowly I was able to tie in information from other classes, as well as, the forum posts to my conclusion.
