Gender & Technology Course Recap

Over my time in the course I have learned a lot about both gender and technology. I think my favorite weekly subject had to be the one about feminism because that’s something that I had previous interest in before learning about it in class. As a woman who believes that we have not reached equality, I was still so shocked when I learned about how much we still need to improve on but also how far we have come. As a woman who is pursuing a future in the STEM field, I’m very glad I took this class. I’ve learned little bits and pieces of background information that I’m sure I’ll be able to use in the future.

While I already knew about a lot of the techniques we learned and used a lot such as hyperlinks, spreadsheets, and APA citations, I still feel like my skills were improved through this course. Before I knew that I could figure out how to do something if I ever needed it, but now I know exactly how and could even teach someone else. I also have learned a lot more about the tools that Oregon State University has to offer me. I’ve always been shy about using the resources but I feel much more confident in asking for help at the library when I need it, using a search engine, or creating a blog.

As a woman who loves to hold intelligent discussions, I’ve learned so much in this class that I know I’ll refer to in the future. Whether I use the information for another class or an argument with a friend, I know what I have gained from this course will come in handy. I’m thankful for this class teaching me about how far women have come and how we can help everyone to keep moving forward.

Week 8 Blog

This week I was able to research the invention I am studying because of the large amounts of rain we have been having. It seems like my windshield wipers are starting to go out so I think I’m going to need some new ones soon, which would mean more learning about my invention! Also, I’m going home next weekend and my dad has a VW Beetle from the 60s so I’m going to look at those windshield wipers and see how they have changed since then.

As for the project, I still need to figure out how I want to structure the timeline factors part of my project. I think to do this I should either talk to some of my friends in the class or get in touch with M. Van Londen to get some ideas of what she wants the project to look like. I have continued gathering sources but have not done much with them. I’m trying to find sources that stick out and have very different facts because otherwise I will run out of things to say about windshield wipers.

Week 7 Blog

I started my project late on Sunday night and I was worried about M. Van Londen not being able to get back to me in time to tell me that my topic was approved. This worried me because for the last topic I did a lot of work to write about a person that had already been claimed by someone else.

I reserved the topic windshield wipers but at first when I googled it I realized all the pages were just about where to buy windshield wipers. I now know I have to be more specific so I changed my search to “windshield wipers about” and found many more sources that fit.

To create a bibliography I use the computer application Zotero. It creates a button on my browser that I can just click to save a link. Once saved I can create in text citations from the link, a bibliography citation, or compile all my links into a bibliography and generate them all at the same time.

So far I haven’t had a need to contact a librarian but I know that if it’s urgent I can go in to the library for help. If it isn’t I can text the librarian a short question to be answered.

The Librarian as a Resource

This week I tried to contact a librarian by text and in person.

When I tried to contact a librarian by text I wasn’t particularly pleased because there was no response. I followed the directions on the OSU Library – Ask a Librarian page where they said to text a number with a code and question. I texted a fairly simple question, just asking about help desk hours thinking that it would be more likely to get me a quick response than a complex question would. I still got no response.

In my MB 385 class I actually had a librarian come visit and teach us tricks for the paper we are writing. We got a lesson on finding good articles using EBSCOhost and a computer application called Zotero that can compile sources and create citations. I took advantage of this opportunity to get things done for both of my classes at the same time and had the librarian answer all my questions during the class period. She led us through installing Zotero step by step and I now have it installed on my personal computer. From EBSCOhost (the search engine I found most helpful) I was able to find a few articles she was mentioned in but none that went into complete detail about her or her inventions. The ones that were completely about Bette Nesmith Graham weren’t available to me online.

Bette Nesmith Graham

Bette Nesmith Graham, a woman who never finished high school but still went on to become one of the most famous women inventors of the 20th century. Graham is the woman behind liquid paper, better known as white-out. Back before we had the “backspace” button, we used typewriters and typing mistakes could not just be deleted and redone. From watching the window painters at her bank, she observed that instead of removing chunks of paint when they messed up, that they just put another layer of paint over top. Graham found a way to apply this strategy to her typewriting. This saved people the trouble of having to retype whole papers due to typing mistakes.

When people started to learn about Graham’s invention, they flooded her with requests to get some for themselves. Graham started producing and packaging the product from her home. She worked to perfect her mixture and then applied for and received a patent for her product. Within ten years her “liquid paper” had it’s own headquarters and production plant, selling over a million orders each year. Soon after the factory was producing over 25 million bottles of liquid paper a year and employed 200 people. In 1979 Bette Nesmith Graham sold Liquid Paper to Gilette for $47.5 million. She died the next year at 56, so unfortunately a interview with Bette Nesmith Graham would not be possible.

The Famous Women Inventors page led me to discover this amazing woman inventor.

Hedy Lamarr (No longer my topic)

Hedy Lamarr who was born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler in Vienna, Austria was a worldwide beauty icon who had a lot more to offer the world than her looks. She was an actress who went on to sign with MGM but not only was she talented, she was brilliant also. Hedy Lamarr is a pioneer in spread spectrum technology. She patented something called the “Secret Communication System,” which went on to be the beginning of military communication as well as mobile phone technology.

Hedy’s idea involved changing radio frequencies while communicating in order to stop enemy countries from being able to block signals and detect frequencies. While they patented their idea in 1942, the technology at the time made it hard for them to actually create what they had thought of and the military was not open to outside ideas. Finally, in 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis a form of their idea started appearing on ships.

Hedy and her partner George Antheil went on to win the Electric Frontier Foundation Inventor Award, the BULBIE Gnass Spirit of Achievement Bronze Award, and were inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2014.

The Famous Women Inventors page led me to discover this amazing woman who was beautiful, talented, and brilliant. Unfortunately Hedy Lamarr passed away in January of 2000 so an interview would not be possible although there seems to be interviews of her on the Science Channel and Discovery Channel.

RSS News Feed

Adding a news feed wasn’t too hard for me. I went to Google News, chose a type of news, scrolled to the bottom, clicked RSS, copied the link, and added the link to my RSS widget on my blog. The only thing that confused me about this process was finding a gender and technology news feed. When I googled “gender and technology” and scrolled to the bottom there was no “RSS” button for me to click. For this reason I just opted to leave my feed on Health News. Besides that one problem, the set up was smooth sailing for me.

Weekly Blog 2!

This week I really enjoyed answering the questions in our weekly discussion. Mine took me pretty long to write because I had a difficult time finding some of the information I needed but I didn’t mind because it was information I was interested in knowing. I really enjoyed being able to pick the question that I wanted to answer because of that.

As for blogging, I got a little discouraged while trying to follow the directions for the blog because I wasn’t sure how things were organized. I knew I was supposed to make pages but I didn’t know where those pages I made were and if I was supposed to organize them into categories or not. Although the directions provided by M. Van Londen are very specific, sometimes things just need more explanation. I’m lucky I had a friend who is also taking the class to explain it and take the time to help me although I am still slightly confused about getting the categories to show up when they don’t have content in them.

Brittany Tse

First Blog Post

Welcome to my blog!

So far I haven’t had a very hard time setting up my blog but this website is pretty daunting. There are so many possible links to click and so much in the side bar, it’s overwhelming.

Setting up an email signature was a little confusing at first but as soon as I found the correct links to click it was a lot more straight forward. After I had set up my signature I was still a little iffy and confused and worried if my set up work because the signature does not show up at the bottom of my emails when I send them.

I enjoy listening to my computer read text for some reasons but I also dislike it for other reasons. I like it because my eyes do not need to be glued to my computer to receive the information. I can even close my eyes if I’m tired. But I don’t like it because it is after all a computer and does not read very smoothly and pronounce everything correctly.

Thanks for reading,

Brittany Tse