[04:50] <pleia2> elky: we should find time (maybe this weekend if you have time?) to go over what patches, if any, need to be made to the wiki
[04:51] <pleia2> and do we want to do a quick call for testing before the initial patches?
[10:04] <czajkowski> Aloha
[10:05] <Pendulum> hiya czajkowski
[10:06] <czajkowski> just reading an article that got flung into my inbox and it's rather annoying
[10:06] <czajkowski> http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/spannermans-edublog/2011/03/not-enough-open-source-in-schools/
[10:17] <elky> I'm at the end of the first paragraph and I'm already disliking the tone.
[10:18] <czajkowski> elky: aye so am I
[10:18] <czajkowski> just frustrating he writes stuff liek that
[10:18] <elky> I can see what he's trying to say, but gawds it's grating my eyeballs to read it.
[10:18] <czajkowski> and yet it's been tweeted and emailed to folks in the UK as fact
[10:20] <elky> Ok, he lost me, the software isn't female unfriendly. What the beep?
[10:21] <elky> He's trying to get it, no doubt, but he's managed to miss the point by several yards.
[10:22] <Pendulum> Where he really lost me was in the part where he objected to teachers seeing computers and software as tools rather than automatically loving them
[10:22] <Pendulum> because, really?
[10:22] <elky> Yeah
[10:23] <elky> What do you mean the teachers aren't *also* software engineers?
[10:24] <Pendulum> and actually as a student, even though I liked technology, etc. gratuitous 'technology' projects drove me up the wall (I think it was something about wasting time in an English class making a webpage about where I was going to uni)
[10:24] <elky> And kvetching that older people and less qualified people are less educated in computing is...rather a privileged thing to whinge about
[10:25] <Pendulum> yes
[10:25] <elky> I like how he basically answers himself without realising with "3) Young teachers have high levels of ICT skills and research shows there is no differentiation in these skills between younger male and female teachers."
[10:25] <czajkowski> well he's an ex teacher
[10:26] <elky> REALLY?! Then maybe... just maybe! The software isn't the problem.
[10:26] <Pendulum> czajkowski: I bet a lot of his colleagues were happy to get rid of him
[10:26] <czajkowski> Pendulum: he also used to work here
[10:26] <czajkowski> as education person
[10:26] <czajkowski> :s
[10:26] <Pendulum> urgh
[10:27] <czajkowski> that article has wound me up no end today
[10:27] <Pendulum> :(
[10:27] <elky> Let me guess, his fanclub still works there?
[10:27] <czajkowski> nope
[10:27] <elky> That's one saving grace then, I suppose.
[10:27] <czajkowski> as I said itt landed on my desk this morning as I've taken over some of the work
[10:28] <elky> Ah, I didn't take that from what you said, sorry.
[10:28] <czajkowski> ah no worries
[10:28] <czajkowski> *sigh*
[10:28] <czajkowski> it's going to be a very long day, downside to 3 day week, I still have 5 days worth of work to be done
[10:29] <elky> But really, he invalidates his key argument with #3.
[10:30] <Pendulum> yeah
[10:30] <Pendulum> he doesn't really end up having a position
[10:33] <Pendulum> like to me it just seemed to be a rant about teachers not 'getting' ICT. Which, personally, I don't think is a problem because unless they're teaching ICT, it's not what they're getting paid for!
[16:31] <pleia2> oh wow, that article is horrible
[16:31] <pleia2> (and doesn't reflect reality in the schools we've worked here in the states)
[16:32] <czajkowski> by all means leave comments on the blog
[16:32] <pleia2> some of our biggest advocates are older female teachers, it has nothing to do with gender, it's about how you introduce the new tools to the teachers
[16:32]  * pleia2 will :)
[16:39] <pleia2> so it sounds like these teachers are being taught to use PhotoShop and PowerPoint and routinely assessed on these skills, and the author thinks /gender/ is the reason they don't want to use things they aren't trained on?
[16:46] <pleia2> that made me grumpy too
[16:46] <pleia2> anyway, comment posted :)
[16:49] <pleia2> I was reading about some of the history of science fiction recently and I wandered into a discussion about women starting to write more scifi in the 70s and it was amazing to read the same exact "women don't like/are not naturally skilled at $foo" nonsense that we are now encountering today WRT technology
[16:50] <pleia2> it shouldn't have surprised me that the arguments haven't changed, they've just shifted to the latest field where women are behind
[16:51] <IdleOne> The more things change the more they stay the same ?
[16:51] <pleia2> I'm bored with it, I want to live in the future now :)
[16:58] <Pendulum> pleia2: you know about James Tiptree, Jr. right?
[16:58] <pleia2> Pendulum: nope
[16:59] <Pendulum> James Tiptree, Jr. was the pen-name of Alice Bradley Sheldon in the 70s. She used a male name because she didn't think she'd get taken seriously as a female sci-fi writer
[16:59] <Pendulum> actually, the most interesting bit is that often in the 40s and 50s women were the ones writing sci-fi in the big book packaging companies
[17:00] <pleia2> oh wow
[17:00] <Pendulum> (book packaging companies are the sort of company where series are ghostwritten. Think a lot of the big series where books come out on a monthly basis)
[17:01] <pleia2> I don't actually know a whole lot about scifi history, I stumbled upon this because I was reading the book that was the first hugo winner to be written by a woman, and stumbling upon all the trouble she went through as a woman in the field was unintentional
[17:01] <pleia2> (and made me sad and angry)
[17:01] <pleia2> in fact, I didn't read the book because it was written by a woman, I didn't even know about the award, it was just next on my to read list :)
[17:02] <Pendulum> :)