Race, Gender, Identity, Stereotypes, and Other Issues of Interest Online

The fascinating thing for me in the last several readings has been our need to define ourselves and each other and to think about not only how these definitions are often troubled by real world experiences (even as we stick with them despite this) but also how the mediation of online spaces have called these even more to the forefront. As Jacob pointed out in his blog, and forgive me for paraphrasing here, there is no comfortable space to discuss race but we do it anyway, often to hurt feelings or anger. I would argue that this is largely because issues of race are so fundamental to this country's history, feelings will likely be strong on the subject well beyond the spans of our lives.

Gender is another fascinating topic for me to consider. As the parent of both a son and daughter, I like to imagine that my children will have access to the same opportunities when it comes to their educations and lives in general. Furthermore, I make a conscientious effort not to treat them differently due to their genders but I find myself acting one way around my daughter that I recognize as different than how I acted around my son at the same age. Is this what we talk about when we talk about unconsciously transmitting gender roles and the like?

Digital Immigrant

Even though I grew up with varying degrees of technology (video games, some access to computers, etc), the internet was not a widely available technology until almost my senior year of high school. In addition, though we took a computer class in high school, it was one semester long and the computers were built circa 1980. We only had basic as a programming language and half the focus of the class was on typing speed. While I feel comfortable with technology, I possess a lot of the traits discussed by Prensky. Just the other day I printed a paper to edit it. I do look more and more online before checking books, but I still have a strong attachment to the printed page. For whatever reason, I don't like the idea of ereaders, partly because of my attachment to the feel and smell of books. Also, I think there is a lot about technology that I hold in awe, sort of like an immigrant coming to a radically different place.

I do think, though, that the dichotomy between native and immigrant here draws too neat of distinctions. I'm much more comfortable with most technology than my parents are, but presumably much less so than my children will be. It's not new to them. I think there needs to be a third option.

New Blog

I spent about 5 minutes setting this up. A little bit more time and it may actually look halfway decent. The point is today we just want to get them going and do a little writing on them. I encourage you to play with them more later.