This class has been an incredibly difficult and rewarding experience for me. I had never even looked at a blog before, and now I feel like I want to start my own, based on my local area.

I have learned how to cite sources in photos, insert photos, choose different layouts and color schemes, change where things are at, and how they are connected to each other, and edit and re-editing.

Some of the new concepts and theories I have learned about is gender discrimination, the gender gap, how Lego is attempting, and failing, and including girls in their play themes, views of both sides of the gender gap, feminist pedagogy, how to look at technology through the lens of who is driving the development of products and why, and how different students view the world and the subjects we wrote about.

I do plan on using my blog in the future, after graduation, and using all of the techniques I learned in this class as well as things I will learn in the future!

I think it is interesting that there can be cultures that will accept technology but only to a certain degree. These are not places without water who are not using washing machines, they choose not to because they view manual labor as a woman’s responsibility. I think it is something that will be hard to overcome. The concern regarding efficiency and top loaders vs front loaders and cost/effectiveness is something that I am sure we will be hearing more about as our government issues further regulations regarding water and electricity usage.

Looking ahead, my greatest dream is to get my degree, and after that, I really don’t know. Maybe travel to Italy, Hawaii, Australia. Open a bakery, get healthy and fit. See my kids graduate from college and watch their lives unfold as they make their way into the world.

It’s been a rough couple of weeks. What I thought was going to make my back issues better seems to have exacerbated the problems. Trying to sit for very long or do anything is impeded by excruciating pain in my low back and legs and upper back. So this has not been very fun, which is disappointing.

Learning about the washing machine and it’s origins and creators has been interesting. I’m trying to organize everything in my mind to make it seem logical on paper, so to speak.

I’ve learned how to use my Word bibliography more this time around instead of relying on cutting and pasting and hand writing my sources. That seems to save me time.

The information about why the process of washing clothes developed into a machine, specifically for the purpose of eliminating the cost of several people doing the work, and the love of one man for his wife, was eye opening and yet not surprising. Streamlining work to eliminate cost is something that is not unfamiliar.

I’ll get it all up when I can sit here for more than a few minutes, or when I can drag my son into helping me.

I am excited to have the subject of washing machines. That may sound strange, but to me, while it seems like an innocuous product, I am excited to dig into the gender aspect of it. I have spent time as a volunteer with Yamhill County’s historical museum, and I am going to go back out to see if I can find some examples of early washing tools. I know they’re there, because I taught 4th graders about them. I want to get pictures to show if I can.

Thus far research has been successful and I usually just use my word program to keep my sources, but I am curious about Zotero and may try using that too. I have not had to access the librarians as of yet, but if I run out of resources I will do so. My last attempt to get a book from the OSU library was unsuccessful, so I am hesitant but will push forth if needed.

I found that loading images and embedding them was both fun and frustrating. Often time it is hard to find the actual producer of the image, and I didn’t use several I found because of that issue. When I embedded a link and used the APA method of citation, I was crossing my fingers that it was the correct credit.  Re-sizing images can be frustrating too, I wish there was a way (and there probably is, I just don’t know it yet) to use the whole page so the images can be as far over to one side or the other as possible. I am sure I will learn in time how to master this, it just takes time.

This was such a great experience overall I am very pleased with what I have learned and plan on doing some blogging in the future! I am also going to talk to the local high school about Girls Who Code to see what’s being done to encourage our young girls to get involved and learn.

Regarding Legos, I didn’t have them as a child, but my children have all had them. My younger son who is 20 holds on to his Legos dearly. He is pursuing a degree in Aerospace Engineering, so maybe Legos helped inspire that. My only complaint is that they don’t feel good when you step on one in the dark!

Looking ahead at the next few weeks, this should be another challenging project. I hope to get my desired subject- Washing Machines, and get to work!

First I logged in to Chrome using my ONID account. Then I added News from the options tab. I then removed all of the other news categories so I wouldn’t get confused, and added the list I saw under the instructions, because they made sense to me. I chose some different news sources, and clicked save. I then clicked on “Women in Technology” headline and went to the bottom of the page, and found the RSS link. I copied that, went to my dashboard, added RSS link from the widgets list, and pasted the copied link into it, and hit save.

I think this will be incredibly helpful in finding future articles to read for weekly posts. I am really excited that I was able to do this, and it gives me a resource that I can use! I can see that there are many articles talking about gender and technology issues, from claims that women aren’t flocking to technology to celebrating women in technology. This is going to be so helpful, I am really excited!

I struggled a bit to follow the instructions, but after reading them several times, I just dove in and hoped for the best. I liked being able to upload my own photo. I think I made my way around to just about every category under the dashboard, and even though not all were intentional, I know that this is one of the best ways to learn.