This project combines hands-on practice and training indepartmental workshops with participation in group discussion througha departmental computer discussion list in order to empower womenfaculty, staff, and graduate students by teaching them new and moreadvanced skills and by helping them feel confident in a technologicalenvironment.
The project focuses on a year-long series of workshops, tobe repeated annually if successful, which will help participantslearn how to use electronic mail and other software, how to completebasic desktop publishing projects, how to use specialized computerequipment such as a scanner, and how to search the "informationsuperhighway" for teaching and research resources. These workshopswill be given once a month, repeated during the month if required bytime constraints or limited computer resources. Further, ifnecessary, some workshops could be taught on two different levels,one for beginning users and one for those with more advancedskills.
These workshops will be continued by on-line discussion ofthe technologies and of related issues in gender and computing on thedepartmental discussion list. Instructional readings anddocumentation will be posted to the list, questions and issues willthen be discussed by list participants, and a supporting community ofcomputer users will be formed. Specific readings and discussionquestions will be posted, and all participants will be asked torespond. As participants gain confidence, they will begin leadingdiscussions themselves.
During Fall Semester, the grant will providecourse-released time to be used in the development of workshops andsupporting documentation for both Fall and Spring Semesters. TheDepartment of English will provide the necessary technical supportstaff and equipment for the project. If successful during the1994-1995 Academic Year, during the 1995-1996 Academic Year, theproject could continue offering workshops and using the discussionlist, but could add mentoring of new faculty, staff, and graduatestudents.
This project targets those who have been excluded from theprocesses by which faculty, staff, and students are empowered toexploit computer technologies. Due mainly to social and culturalfactors, the majority in this group are women. Structurally andinstitutionally, the Department has made strides toward giving womenaccess to computer technology. Thirty-one women, comprising 29% ofthe faculty, have a computer while only 26 men, 24% of the faculty, have a computer. Women have had fair consideration on classassignments to teach in the computer-networked classroom--SpringSemester 1994 fourteen of the teaching slots (60%) have beenscheduled for women faculty while nine (40%) have been scheduled formale faculty members. The Department's selection of participants forthe Instructional Development Institute to be offered Summer 1994,which gives participants a powerful computer and an office connection to the internet, includes (at this date) thirteen women and six men.Currently, 51% of the women on the faculty have computers, and bythe end of the summer, the number of women with a computer will riseto approximately two-thirds. Women are, then, being given access tocomputer equipment in the Department of English.
Despite their access to computers, women in the departmentare challenged by troubling socially-conditioned attitudes andbehaviors about women and computing. Women constitute the majority ofthe Department of English, composing 40% of the professoriate, 68% ofthe instructorate, and 89% of the support staff in the department ofEnglish--for a total of 59% of the department's employees. Justslightly over half of the women faculty and all of the women on thesupport staff have computers; however, these women are the leastconfident of the members of the department about their abilities touse a computer. Of those who responded to a recent department 29% ofthe women reported their confidence below average while only 9% ofthe men responded their confidence was below average. In other words,a woman is more likely to have a computer in the department than aman but less likely to feel she knows how to use that computer.
Anecdotal evidence echoes this low self-confidence and theresulting behaviors and attitudes which build a departmentalperception that women are less able to use computers. At one trainingworkshop I attended, for example, the two male faculty memberssitting in front of me complained, "This thing's not working" and"What's wrong with the program? It won t work." The two women sittingbehind me, however, complained, "I can't do this" and "I don't knowwhat's wrong. I can't get this thing to work." Due perhaps as much tosocietal factors as anything else, the men in the workshop blamed themachine while the women blamed themselves.
This project seeks to end such self-deprecating behavior bygiving women the skills and training they need to feel more confidentat the computer keyboard while allowing them to enter theconversation about computer technology on a controlled discussionlist. The workshops will be taught in a computer classroom and willgive participants hands-on training in how to use the software andhardware as well as provide them with written documentation andself-paced tutorials which will allow them to leave the workshop withresources to help them continue practicing their skills.
Through the electronic discussion list, women will be lessconstrained by gendered patterns of conversation between and amongmen and women. Electronic discussion using computers allows women tospeak more often, to speak without interruption, and to speak moreforcefully than oral discussion traditionally allows. Thus, thediscussion list will be an integral component of the project for itwill allow the gender-free potential of electronic communications tobuild the confidence of the women on the list. In addition. byincluding both men and women on this list. the project will allowwomen to build their confidence in a public arena, where all theircolleagues, male and female, can hear their strong voices and theirtechnical expertise.
I have attached supporting letters, from faculty and staff,which attest to the need for training in computer technologies andthe special difficulties women face in trying to gain computer skillsin this department.
In order to evaluate whether this program increases theconfidence and capabilities of women participants and the perceptionsabout women and computing in the Department of English, the projectwill begin and end each term with an attitudinal and informationalsurvey which will record participants' self-assessment of confidence, computer skills, and feelings about resources in the department. Bycomparing entry and exit data, this evaluation should provideevidence about changes in participants' attitudes and behaviorsconcerning computers.
In addition, the frequency of participation, level ofinvolvement, and the rhetorical strategies used on the computerdiscussion list can provide an additional measure of the changes inthe participants' behaviors. In other words, by looking at how oftenwomen participate on the discussion list, at the content of theircomments, and at the syntactic and linguistic features of theirdiscussion, and by comparing those figures to the traditionalpatterns of women in conversation, the evaluation will allowconclusions about the ability of the project to help women develop amore powerful and more assertive voice, reflecting their increasedconfidence and abilities.
As noted above in the Description, if this program provessuccessful, it will be extended indefinitely with the addition of amentoring system to allow women to continue building empowerment andconfidence in computer technologies. After the initial development ofthe workshops and after work to create a mentoring system for thesecond year, the continuation of the project should require only theediting and revision of existing documentation, to update thematerial in order to keep pace with changes in computing software andhardware.
Once set as a departmental program, and especially aftertraining in mentoring takes place the second year, the originalparticipants can begin teaching workshops, writing new instructionsand documentation, and revising existing documentation--empoweringwomen to become leaders of the changes and influences which computingtechnologies have in the Department of English. Perhaps also with thegrowing number of women feeling confident about their abilities withcomputers this project could be extended to include undergraduatestudents as well.
Furthermore, the continuation of these workshops ought toinclude the application of these ideas to training elsewhere.Specifically, the outcomes of these workshops could be used toincrease the effectiveness of computer and technology trainingcampus-wide. The university is working to improve faculty access andtraining through such projects as the Instructional DevelopmentInstitute. The ability of these departmental workshops to raise theconfidence and abilities of women might identify important wayscampus-wide initiatives could refocus their energies and resources inorder to increase their effectiveness. Such an extension of thecomponents of these Departmental workshops could lead to wide-spreadchanges in the behaviors and attitudes about women and technology onthe Virginia Tech campus--changes which would affect not only thosewho are involved in the workshops, but which should lead to changesin the behaviors and attitudes in the classroom as well.
| Second Summer 1994 | Preliminary preparation and gathering of materials Initial software testing and practice of more advanced techniques Write entry attitudinal and informational survey |
| Fall Semester 1994 | Administer entry survey for all participants Begin series of year-long workshops on computer skills Subscribe all participants to departmental discussion list Write documentation sheets, information sheets, self-paced tutorials for Fall Workshops Prepare information for continued workshops in the Spring (documentation, information sheets, tutorials, workshop plans) Monitor discussion list, send more advanced training information to all participants using the discussion list for dissemination, introduce discussion topics focusing on empowerment and authority in computer-mediated instruction. Write and administer exit attitudinal and informational survey |
| Spring Semester 1995 | Administer entry survey for all participants Continue workshop series, using materials prepared Fall Semester Continue monitoring and facilitating discussion list Administer exit attitudinal and informational survey |
| First Summer 1995 | Analyze program outcomes Prepare final report |