Women - Geeks - Culture

After reading Danica's blog post Digital Divide and Social Media: Connectivity Doesn’t End the Digital Divide, Skills Do and Simon Phipps's post The New Digital Divides in Computer World UK related to it, I decided to write down my own little addition to this social perspective.

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Many of my undergrad students ask me about reading tips - how to read academic texts and how to get the most of them. I've heard and read a lot on critical reading, and have made a long list of suggestions that I often refer to when such questions come to me. This time I decided to publish them, so that more people can profit from these tips. Learning how to read strategically, helps students and scholars in general to build good habits of studying and also facilitate the writing of papers works (based on tons of readings).

I've often wondered before why hackers avoid journalists, even the ones with the most positive intentions. I wonder no more. Seriously.

When Virginia Eubanks visited Montreal a couple weeks ago, she stayed at my place. Before she left, I asked her to sing her book for me. At the end, she said: "And thanks for teaching me what hacktivism is."

If I were to sign a book for Virginia, I would say: "and thanks for teaching me what popular technology is". I'd rather explain.

Date: 

07/16/2011 (All day)

Foulab is pleased to announce our next workshop, Wearable Electronics for beginners! Come learn all about building your own wearable creations, using your own garments and ideas.

The workshop is divided into two parts, an Introduction to Sewing in the morning and an Introduction to Wearable Electronics in the afternoon.

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::Abstract::

This article is about hackerspaces and the the do-it-yourself approach to learning . Over 300 of these communities exist around the world that radically challenge the notion that technology should imprison its users. These hackerspaces promote a new form of social literacy: the idea that technology needs to be accessible, allowing its users to open, explore, modify, repair and adapt it. Foulab is a Montreal-based hackerspace that provides the necessary tools for approaching technology critically.

After almost a year of submitting the first draft, my MA thesis is already available in a PDF format (sorry, in French only). It will soon be also available as a book format -- if you want a copy, send me your address, and I will mail it to you.

Feel free to download, read, comment -- and please, if you use parts in your own works, quote it properly. To do so, I have left the original table of contents with the right page numbers. The attached PDF has 12 pages more, normally the Introduction should be page 1. If you are not sure, write to me and I will confirm.

After almost a year of submitting the first draft, my MA thesis is available in a PDF format (sorry, in French only). It will soon be also available as a book format -- if you want a copy, send me your address, and I will mail it to you.

Feel free to download, read, comment -- and please, if you use parts in your own works, quote it properly. To do so, I have left the original table of contents with the right page numbers. The attached PDF has 12 pages more, normally the Introduction should be page 1. If you are not sure, write to me and I will confirm.

Two months of my first PhD semester have passed, and I have been only reading, dealing with bureaucracy, teaching, promissing, and "planning" (not even blogging!). Now it's time to get on with real things: two papers, ready for publication, as well as one litterature review. All in all 60-70 pages. How much is left? Well.. hrm... no more than a month.

We are restarting the Free Software Workshops, aka APL -- Ateliers populaires du libre -- each last Sunday of the month. Software installations, development, upgrade, discussions around free software - all will take place this Sunday.

This month, we will devote the workshop on informal discussion regarding the future of the workshops - the rebuilding of a new website, moving the mailing-list, plans and ideas for presentations and training.