Alina Pham

I did not exactly know what I was going to learn when I signed up for this class. Reading the syllabus made me worry whether I had the ability to finish this course and learn the many new skills. What I learn that I didnt expect to learn was: how to set up a blog, how to potentially make your computer talk to you, how to teach a technology which includes how to set up the procedure through wordpress, and also how to financially save for a personal goal. I honestly think that I met the course objectives, I definitly learned more than if I had not taken this class at all. Since I am majoring in Public Health, there will be times where I will have to research and use the skills that I learned, whether it be my research skills, or understanding technology. I will also be able to be more comfortable in controlling my technology. If I am to teach people the different things about Public Health, I can also put feminist pedagogy into perspective, showing people the different ways of learning rather than be authoritative. I think this course somewhat exemplifies feminist pedagogy. The course is definitly structured, but it is not fully authoritative. It is democratic in a sense that students are able to express, and the professor is responsive and be able to give feedback.

I can also access this list on the left horizontal side of the screen, but the list would not stay up while I took a screen shot. The RSS is simple and helps keep websites and articles in categories. In the future when I am researching, the bookmark bar can help me go back to websites later while I continue to surf the web. If I want to revisit a website, I dont need to go and search for it again, I can just look it up in my bookmarks.

At first I had no idea what I wanted to teach, I was stuck for quite awhile. I was thinking about my financial status and was hoping I could teach new students how to pay their bills online, but then I realized how personalize it is which would make it somewhat difficult to teach. I also thought about the GPS and how I first started using it a couple of years ago. It was difficult to learn at first, and there are still many functions to the GPS to learn about, but I thought it would be interesting to teach. It also gave me the opportunity to explore more of the functions of the GPS. The tools I intend to use for this project is the GPS itself, and also my cellphone which will be taking all the pictures.

Technical issues to research:

1. how to use it

2. how to restart the device

3. how to charge the device

I have windows software and tried to enable narrator through that. I think that there may be something corrupted with my narrator or how my computer was set up because when the narrator spoke aloud, it sounded like she was repeating her words twice. It wasnt very clear despite my adjustments to sound and volume. Mainly I used my windows system and was able to fix the setting in speech, and the setting in narrator.

Through my process, I went into control panel first, got into speech settings and was able to make adjustments there. I also tried to change my narrator settings by going into start and narrator settings, but somehow my narrator sounded strange. Honestly the narrator did not help retain material rather than silent reading. For example, there was only one option for voice and it was Ana and she sounded corrupted. Although my experience was not that fulfilling I prefer to read things silently because I enjoy a silent environment when I read or when I study.

I am not sure how helpful any of the tools were. For example I used Microsoft Excel to complete all my spreadsheet data, but that seemed fairly simple. If there were any other tools I knew of that made things easier, than perhaps I would have used those instead. I had to surf the web to find information of how much things costed but there were many websites that were helpful; it seems that many people have had experiences dealing with financial costs when going to Japan.

My biggest dreams:

1. Live on a mountain or next to a running river/waterfall.

2. Hike across Europe

3. Travel to Japan for a month

I would love to be able to have, or do all of these. I think one of my biggest dreams that I would enjoy at the moment would be to travel to Japan for a month and be able to experience a different culure and be able to eat all the different types of food there. I am a server at an authentic Japanese restaurant and have sinced been hooked on their culture. I have never done much traveling and hope that Japan can be my next big trip.

When I looked to see how much a ticket was from Portland to Tokyo and back, I saw that the ticket would cost a little over a thousand dollars. When I researched ways to save money, I saw that I can be able to save money by setting a time frame. For example, I can tell myself that I would like to visit Japan within two years, which means that I need to save enough money within those two years. Each week or each month, I can set aside money. Also, I would need to write down all my expenses to see where my money goes and where I need to stop spending money. Little things such as biking to destinations, cooking at home, and avoiding impulse buying, can really help in saving money.

I am greatly happy that the culture site project has finally been completed. Many of the obstacles such as applying the many resources to written work was critical and excruciating, but it feels great to be done with the project. Many of the challenges that I have experienced was actually finding the “Kitchen Sink,” button, probably because I am not aware of technology vocabulary. Another challenge was making the text format fit into WordPress. Writing in Notepad was more difficult than I expected. Personally, it may have been easier for me to write the project in Microsoft Word. Towards the end, I wanted to add a videoclip of Cynthia Breazeal from TED.com, but it was more difficult than I thought. If people are interested, it is under the link to my culture site and is titled, “Cynthia Breazeal: The Rise of Personal Robots.” Uploading pictures was quite simple in comparison.

I have not finished my project for this week. I see that although I have found many sources for my Culture Site project, many of them did not have the particular information I was seeking, in which I had to spend more time researching whether it was about Cynthia Breazeal’s culture, or her biography. Many of the information that were easy to stumble upon was her own technology, the Kismet. Many technology engineers are quite fascinated with her work.

I am continually working on the project where hopefully my draft will be finished by Wednesday, Week 6.

Today I went to the library at the Oregon State campus. Luckily, I was able to reach Jane Nichols in person, who was kindly enough to show me how she would find information about Cynthia Breazeal herself. Nichols was able to help me by showing that I can find all Cynthia Breazeal’s published work by just typing in her name on Google Scholar. I can also find information by going onto OSU’s website, clicking under “undergraduate,” and then clicking under “Tutorial and Guide.” Under Tutorial and Guide, I can click “Course Guide,” where I can then find my course which is Womens Studies: Gender and Technology 320. Once I have reached the Gender and Technology website, I can find tips and strategies on my project. This webpage helps narrow down research. I can find information by just typing in ”engineering,” or “computer science.” However, despite how Nichols was very helpful, I wanted to find information specifically on Cynthia Breazeal, not necessary information on gender and technology itself. I also wanted more biography information on Cynthia Breazeal, which I was not able to find even with help.

Nichols also showed that I can find information about Cynthia Breazeal by just searching on Google. Google publishes information on Cynthia Breazeal on TED.com and the MIT Media Lab website, where Cynthia Breazeal works for. Nichols was very helpful, however, many of the sites and sources under OSU’s library, I already knew. Nichols was able to help clear information up. She gave her own advice which was very helpful.

Tags: culture site

Cynthia Breazeal was born in November 15, 1967 and was orginially from Albuquerque, New Mexico. She is currently living today where she is an associate Professor of Media Arts and Science at MIT and is working on making robots more realistic and human. She is also the director and founder of Personal Robots Group at MIT’s media lab. As a big fan of Star Wars growing up, she is now making realities of movies and fantasies of robots becoming part of human life, where they can help humans with personal and household care. Her most recent design is Kismet. There have also been many other inventions coming from her lab, where robots can help people lose weight or adjust a person’s posture.

I have been searching for a female technologist that was both interesting and inspiring and Cynthia Breazeal was among the many. Although she is from the United States like myself, her culture differs dramatically. Breazeal spend her childhood in Silicon Valley, a technology-rich area. Both her parents were well educated, where her father was a mathematician and her mother a computer scientist. Growing up, Breazeal surrounded herself with technology whether it be from her town or her parents. Another inspiration for Cynthia Breazeal to start building robots was her love for Star Wars and R2-D2.

Since she is a modern inventor and currently living, there could be a possibility that I could interview her. Many of the questions I would ask would be: Do you take gender considerations when you bring new workers on board? Are there many women in your profession and is gender gap a problem with your profession? In your opinion do you see any obstacles in both boys and girls education in technology? What are you working on today and what do you hope to accomplish in the near future? Also, do you see any barriers or impossibilities of human robots?