This document discusses how technology can help bridge the gender gap in education by addressing differences in how boys and girls learn. It provides an overview of typical differences, such as boys being more competitive and risk-taking while girls focus more on relationships. A survey found that while boys and girls differ in gaming, they are similar in technology comfort and use. The document advocates using technology to teach 21st century skills like communication, collaboration, creativity and critical thinking, which are not gender-specific. It provides examples of strategies that use technology to teach these skills in gender-appropriate ways.
1. Boys and Girls in the
21st Century
Bridging the Gender Gap with Technology
Dr. Dave Kommer, Ashland University
Michelle Koussa, Independence Middle School
Ohio
http://amlegendertech.pbworks.com
2. Agenda
Participant Questionnaire
Brief Overview: Gender Learning
Differences
Survey Results
Video
Implications for 21st Century Skills
Examples of Gender Appropriate
Strategies
3. e-Clicker Questionnaire
If you have a device that gets on the
Internet…
◦ Smartphone
◦ Tablet
◦ Computer
Please go the the following URL and
sign in.
4. Quick Factoids
Men, women and chimpanzees!
Size doesn’t matter
But who’s counting?
Women have more connections than
men.
Women have more to say.
Side by side
5. Boys
Have trouble discovering their best way to learn.
Competitive
Active
Risk-takers
Physical
Use non-verbal communication
Spatial
Math and Science
Are more confident than they should be, or less.
Lack emotional language
Influenced by the media
6. Girls
Generally like to please the teacher
Cooperative
Relationships
Use communication
Not risk-takers
Less physical
Linguistic
Language Arts and Social Studies
Deal better with emotions
View selves through the perceptions of others
Hear better
Better able to read emotions of others
Influenced by media
7. Survey Results
differences among boys and girls.
What we found is that with the
exception of gaming, boys and girls
are pretty similar in terms of
technology comfort and use.
Technology bridges the genders when
using P21 Skills as a framework
16. Implications for 21st Century
Four C’s
◦ Communication
◦ Collaboration
◦ Creativity
◦ Critical thinking
These lend themselves well to
technology
They are not gender specific
Teachers can use technology and the
4Cs to get students to richer results.
17. How kids use technology
Creating Collaborating
• Homework • ????
• Create blogs, videos,
websites
Communicating Critical Thinking
• Facebook • Video games
• Twitter
• Email
• Texting
• Watching video
19. P21 Strategies: Creating
Students research, write a script and
produce a video on content topics
Students design webpages
Digital scrapbook or slideshow
Facebook profile for character and
engage in a Facebook conversation.
Write a song about content, record it
and create a podcast.
20. P21 Strategies: Collaborating
Use Google docs to collectively write a
constitution
Skype with another class to compare
and contrast local issues or problems
Students work in teams to complete
instructions in a webquest
Collaborate to collect survey data and
analyze results
Write a collaborative essay with email
pals
21. P21 Strategies: Critical
Thinking
Evaluate a website
Use the Internet to research a political
or social issue and determine a class
position
Compare/Contrast a book and movie
Analyze business trends or stock and
make predictions
Create graphical representations of
data using graphing calculators and
spreadsheets.
22. P21 Strategies:
Communicating
Conduct interviews and create digital
gallery of images and audio files
Keep a class journal on daily learning
on a Blog
Join a listserv to stay informed about
an issue
Create a digital bookshelf about class
readings
Write an editorial or review for local
newspaper
23. Next Steps
Visit the P21 Website and download
the Toolkit.
Toolkit has a wealth of resources to
move your classroom toward each of
the FourCs.
Include students in your technology
decisions-making.
For the past 8 years or so, I have researched the differences in how boys and girls learn. Along the way I got wind of how boys and girls approached computer use. It made sense to me that boys preferred gaming while girls were into Facebook. As we did our research for this presentation, it wasn’t quite so simple. While those two differences did emerge, other differences didn’t. So what was going on? Using the UbD Backward Design approach we expected to find vastly different computer use experiences between boys and girls. As our research progressed, we weren’t finding that, it became clear to us that technology is a bridge between the genders.Through research and a survey we discovered when it comes to technology it is more about how you use it than what you are using. They make like gaming, but the types of games are different.
Men and women are genetically about 1-2% different—or about the same difference as humans are from chimpanzees!The male brain is a bit larger than the female brain and this difference is not a result merely of having larger heads.Some studies show men have more brain cells, while others suggest women have about the same number, though they are arranged differently.One study shows women have more connections between the neurons than men.Women may have more cells in the part of the brain that is devoted to language.The corpus callosum, or neurons that connect the two halves of the brain are different in women than men.
A Y chromosome does not guarantee a male learner. The absence of one, does not guarantee a female learner.Risk taking helps explain their fascination with gaming, as does their spatial talents.What are some of images boys receive in the media?
Girls are all about relationships, both positive and negative. FaceBook is perfect for them.What are some of images girls receive in the media?
It is interesting that when we created the chart in Excel, it automatically used pink for the girls and blue for the boys. How did it know?
We gave the students a list of technology applications and asked them to respond by telling us how much time they spent per week. We arranged that data in this fashion.This chart definitely shows that boys are into gaming. They spend the most time using games during the week. They also show a bit more time spend watching videos and web surfing. What was surprising was the parity among boys and girls when using text, chat and email. With our n=60, these charts often show wide differences that only represent one or two students. These students were from a upper middle class community and 100% of the students have access to a home computer. We also could not measure any ethic differences.
While the previous data showed Boys preferred gaming to social networks and gaming, this one shows that they prefer verbal communication, especially face-to-face, to typing. No surprise here.
This one surprised a little and perhaps the respondents didn’t really understand what was being asked. However, the data seems to indicate that overwhelmingly, young people are readers of information, not producers of it. They do not create websites, blogs, etc.
Well, not too surprisingly, boys are out in front of learning how to do new technology. The most interesting thing here is that they often do it through reading magazines and reading online. Boys do read, but not Twilight! There are instructional implications here we will discuss a little later on.The data also show that both genders stay informed.
Girls perceive that technology is used in class more than boys, though both see it used every week. Perhaps girls think it is used more often because they don’t “like” it as much? We have no evidence that is the case. Maybe they just have a better or worse sense of time spent.Refer back to initial eClicker survey. Do the results correlate?
Overwhelmingly both genders think they get just about enough technology in their classes.Relate also to initial participant survey.It is interesting that although the perception of how much it is used is different that both genders feel it is enough. It is important to know your kids and what they have access to. My kids use tech so much outside of school sometimes they don’t want to use it all the time at school. Research shows that typically teachers feel they are using it a lot more than the kids would perceive them to.
Well, they either are sure they know how to determine if the information is right, or they have no idea! I wonder how many of the ones who are sure is right actually should have responded that they pretty much accept anything?Refer back to participant survey…Is there a difference here.Are the students really media literate?Are we using media to teach “at them” or equipping them with the skills to use it on their own?Are we teaching them to evaluate?“Literacy is no longer considered just the ability to read and write, but rather now encompasses the ability to be able to communicate through various mediums. Literacy can be defined as being able to master blogging, chatting, skyping, social networking, texting and tweeting.”From Lavender Krupp, are you iliterate.Becoming smarter about new sources of information. In an age of overflowing information and proliferating media, kids need to rapidly process what's coming at them and distinguish between what's reliable and what isn't. "It's important that students know how to manage it, interpret it, validate it, and how to act on it," says Dell executive Karen Bruett, who serves on the board of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, a group of corporate and education leaders focused on upgrading American education. (Time Magazine)
Blogs: Girls actually like to add blog comments; boys like creating the blog and will add comments. So the technology helps both.Another example: Both use Facebook, but girls might use it to share feelings, while boys use it share or get information. So, how can we use a form they both enjoy and equip them equally well for the future?Teachers can use these as guides when planning lessons. By focusing on all the FourCs throughout a week or unit learners can use strengths and strengthen weaknesses throughout the process.This gets to the point that we need to be very purposeful in how we use technology. If we are using it merely to present information, learners are developing the critical media skills they need for the 21st century.There's a dark little joke exchanged by educators with a dissident streak: Rip Van Winkle awakens in the 21st century after a hundred-year snooze and is, of course, utterly bewildered by what he sees. Men and women dash about, talking to small metal devices pinned to their ears. Young people sit at home on sofas, moving miniature athletes around on electronic screens. Older folk defy death and disability with metronomes in their chests and with hips made of metal and plastic. Airports, hospitals, shopping malls--every place Rip goes just baffles him. But when he finally walks into a schoolroom, the old man knows exactly where he is. "This is a school," he declares. "We used to have these back in 1906. Only now the blackboards are green.” (Time Magazine)
When we looked at the types of activities students do in classes, it made sense to sort them into the Four Cs categories. We were able to do this with most of them. What we learned from that is that they get to do a bunch of communicating, but not much else in the other categories. This leads us into ways we can incorporate more effective technology use into the curriculum.
We looked at the various ways that boys and girls might use technology. Then we organized those activities around the Four C’s of the P21 skills.What we found:Girls might slightly more creative, but we are only talking about a couple of responses here.Boys do more critical thinking, but this is mostly represented by their use of gaming.They are pretty even when it comes to communication, which was a bit of a surprise to us.We defined Collaboration as working together to achieve a goal or create a product. None of our examples really fit this.
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