Why Women Don't Write for Wikipedia, etc.

Last week's assignment on the Digital Divide focused on exploring alternative search engines by entering the same search term in each.  One student, using the search term  digital divide gender  at the social bookmarking site Delicious.com uncovered a Jan. 31, 2011 New York Times article "Wikipedia Ponders Its Gender-Skewed Contributions."  The article reported that less than 15% of the contributors to Wikipedia are women and explored possible explanations.  The author interviewed Jane Margolis (who has done wonderful work on institutional sexism and racism in computer science classes) who opined that women are less willing to assert their opinions in public. 

Little mention was made of WHY women might be less willing to assert their opinions in public.  The cartoonist Gabby fills in some of these blanks.  In the excerpt below from Gabby's much longer cartoon, we see the all-too-common reaction women experience when they do assert their opinions in a male dominated blogosphere.

See also the post "I’m a woman, and I’ve edited Wikipedia" on the Geek Feminism blog of 2/11/11 and the many comments by women who formerly contributed to Wikipedia but left in response to what they perceived as an unwelcoming environment.

A full size wall poster of Gabby's entire cartoon (6.75″ wide by 43″ long on rich matte cardstock) can be ordered here.  Gabby's comic books (written under the name Ken Dahl) can be purchased from Microcosm Publishing.

Using Cartoons/Graphics to Convey Info

I've always been struck with some of the creative uses of graphics to convey information. I was particularly impressed by the way Global Kids at Holy Meatballs used graphics to present qualitative research data. The teens had conducted an open-ended survey of other youth about how they use and relate to digital media. Instead of a text only summary of replies, the Global Kids prepared a much more interesting results report by using illustrative graphics to accompany each survey answer. Kept me reading in a way that text-only reports might not have.

I assigned my students to experiment with similar graphical approaches when summarizing an article about the obstacles facing inner-city teens trying to navigate the online financial aid application process. (See “Low-Income Urban High School Students’ Use of the Internet to Access Financial Aid" by Kristan Venegas)

I suggested the students might try using PowerPoint in a graphically intensive manner (not the traditional bullet points) or they might try making a "comic book" using the ready made cartoon elements at Toondoo.com.



Above is the first panel of one student's cartoon rendition. Check out the complete cartoon/comic book on our class wiki.

Digital Diversity - Whose Contributions are Recognized?

As part of our unit on the Digital Divide, we are also exploring Digital Diversity. How are women using the Web? What are communities of color contributing to the Web? To what extent are the contributions of women, of people of color, and of other marginalized groups recognized?

We are starting by studying the slide show below and will be exploring the web to assess its accuracy and to see if there are more examples that should be added.

Digital Divide

This week we will be studying the Digital Divide. In the past, the digital divide has been viewed mostly as a matter of access to computers and/or the Internet. Today, however, many argue that physical access is not sufficient; we must focus on the "gap between those who benefit from digital technology and those who do not." [DigitalDivide.org] In the U.S, almost everyone has access to a computer - if not at home or workplace, then in a public library. But many are not in a position to benefit from this access:

• Information may not be presented in a way that is easily understood by those with limited formal education - text written at college level, too much text and not enough audio & visual material.
• The Internet affords access to vast stores of information, but if people don't know how to use search engines, they are unlikely to benefit from the information.
• Every school may have a computer lab, but are the students encouraged to create content for the web or are they limited to spelling and arithmetic drills?

The slide show below addresses some of these issues. Our class will be trying to update the statistics and find additional examples so we can improve the slide show.

Digital Divide

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