This month a few of the long standing volunteers of our network are getting together to try and re-energise some elements of our community activities. Whilst much has happened over the past few years, activities like the curation of our twitter account and amplifying the posts tagged with the #femEdTech hashtag have been difficult to sustain.
Finding balance between care and curation
In these times, which for some of us are becoming post pandemic days and for others are still very much pandemic days, it is important to find sustainable ways to support the causes we care about.
No one working in education or education technology has much time, energy or bandwidth after the past two years.
I first become involved in FemEdTech because I wanted to do something to increase equality in Learning Technology. At the time, it was gender equality that I was particularly focused on. My own experience of working in the sector had highlighted how far we still had to go, particularly at a more senior level. Joining this community helped me identify practical actions I could take to make a difference and helped me increase my awareness of the structural inequalities that caused many of the issues I wanted to tackle.
When Invisible Women was published in 2019 it felt like new perspectives and dialogues were opened up. The book helped raise awareness as well as highlighting many (to me new) biases against women in every arena of life. Learning Technology needed to confront its own biases, not only gender biases, but all (inherent) ways in which it contributes to inequality and discrimination.
The past two years have heightened my perception that we need to act and my day to day work has become more focused on these issues. I am learning more about how to take anti-racism action in Learning Technology, about developing an ethical framework for professional practice and so forth. It has been heartening to see projects that set out to tackle inequality.
That said, I also feel that in some ways things have never been worse when it comes to gender inequality. Even what limited data we have points to women experiencing a greater detrimental impact from the pandemic in everything from research to housework. All around me are colleagues in crisis, struggling with burnout and juggling ever increasing care commitments with hybrid working.
For all of us, I hope that a gradual return to our online space may provide a sense of hope. A small ray of sunshine in what for many is a bleak time. For this reason, and whilst we do some admin and overhauling of our community processes, I have decided to focus on wellbeing and care during my time as a curator.
I am going to retweet, follow and help share news from across our community. And I am also going to post some moments of calm and hope, sending a little bit of care from me to you.
If you feel like saying hello.. please do. And if you don’t have capacity to engage at all, then we’ll still be here whenever you feel like returning to this space.
Posts from my previous stints as a curator
- 2021 still in pandemic times
- 2020 during the early days of lockdown
- 2019 my second time as a guest curator
- 2018 when I first volunteered
New here? You are welcome!
If you haven’t come across FemEdTech before, I encourage you to:
- check out @FemEdTech on Twitter and to follow the #FemEdTech hashtag;
- visit the FemEdTech Open Space to find our about current projects.