Comments on: Stepping Up to the Buffet

By: Michael Russo

Michael Russo — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 12:24:24 +0000

Sylvia,

Thanks for taking the issue and addressing it head-on. I think the gender inequity issue reaches every part of technology, not just ed-tech. In May eWeek released its Top 100 Most Influential people in IT, and the percentage of women was very small (7) – I posted about it when it appeared because it was so striking (http://www.pointatopointb.org/?p=176).

I don’t know what the answer is, but it is a question we need to keep on the front burners to make sure it gets addressed.

Michael

By: RMRose

RMRose — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 11:34:18 +0000

Sylvia:

ISTE dropped the Minority Leadership event, for unknown reasons, but this year got pushed to to the Digital Equity Summit.

from http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20070620006312&newsLang=en

“A National Consideration of Digital Equity” anchors the agenda for ISTE’s 2007 Digital Equity Summit, to be held June 23 in Atlanta. This year’s summit is being sponsored by Intel Education and Pearson Education, and will convene community, state, and national leaders to discuss digital equity issues and challenges. The report and details about the 2007 Summit are available at http://www.iste.org/digitalequity

ray

By: Sylvia Martinez

Sylvia Martinez — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 06:45:40 +0000

Tim,
I’m concerned about a lot of people I see keynoting ed tech conferences. If we counted up all the comedians (comedy with a byte!), corporate officers, or people selling books that aren’t about education, who would be left? There are lots of inequalities in the invitation process. Keep pointing them out. Hey, not crazy about the language, but I’m also tired of everyone tip toeing around pretending nothing’s wrong.

Mrs. Durff,
We may have beaten the buffet metaphor to death, but the subject is hardly done. By bringing this to the surface, if only for the two-day attention span of a blog, all we can hope that is someone, sometime, thinks about it the next time they have a choice in choosing a speaker or organizing a committee..

Wes,
ISTE held minority leadership events at NECC in the past, and since I don’t know what happened to that effort, I can’t comment on it. I found this announcement of a website but it’s not live anymore. I couldn’t find it on the ISTE website using their search engine. http://www.iste.org/Template.cfm?Section=Google_Search_Test&CONTENTID=898&TEMPLATE=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm

I think it’s a bit naive to think that the blogosphere has fewer equity issues. That’s only one side of the coin. Anonymity allows the kind of speech we wouldn’t use in a face to face conversation. And while some new voices might emerge, the nature of the blogosphere also allows people to “stick to their own kind” even more effectively, neatly assisted by technology.

By: Wesley Fryer

Wesley Fryer — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 05:46:15 +0000

As I’ve written, these are good conversations to have, and Sylvia is pointing here and elsewhere to good articles and other ideas that we should consider.

Tim, I think you used this word on a comment on my blog too… Please avoid using terms like “whities.” I don’t think use of any sort of pejorative term, even if it is to legitimately criticize obvious bias toward white males, is constructive.

We have gender equity issues in the real world and we have them in the blogosphere, but I think the equity issues are less of a factor in the blogosphere. I’ve thought Ning might be good because it personalizes web 2.0 conversations, but I’ve rethought that because it puts a face on blogs where before, there might have just been ideas and words…..

Why doesn’t someone push ISTE to have a strand to address this at NECC in 2008?

By: mrsdurff

mrsdurff — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 02:30:24 +0000

You are right that leaders don’t wait around, they just go crashing through that glass ceiling and take the reins. If everyone is so distracted by the inequities, then what else is there to do? I think we have killed the subject and it is now a moot point…

By: Miguel Guhlin

Miguel Guhlin — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 04:51:01 +0000

At the risk of making people laugh…
http://www.mguhlin.net/archives/2007/06/entry_3284.htm

Take care,
Miguel Guhlin
Around the Corner-MGuhlin.net
http://mguhlin.net

By: Tim Holt

Tim Holt — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 04:32:40 +0000

Sylvia,
Thank you for posting my blog entry on your site.
I think that the problem for me is that leadership in all of these realms, even down to the leadership of organizations (which does not keep women away for the reasons you listed above) are still white male dominant.

Keynotes? Hmm.. lots of white folks out there, even for keynotes from organizations that could pay for ANYONE to keynote. TCEA invites Ms. Freedom Writer. ISTE invites Mr., White Guy. I dont discount their importance, but really…they could invite ANYONE in the universe and they always pick whities.

NECC 2006: Nicolas Negroponte: Rich white guy saving thepoor black kids.
TCEA 2007: Erin Greuel or whatever…white woman saving the poor black kids.
ISTE 2007: Andrew Ziollooiili: Rich white guy out to save the poor black kids…

I see a trend…