Posiciones de género dentro y fuera del partido

  While  interest-­‐driven  learning  helped  learners  sift  through  vast  amounts  of   content,  most  learners  would  have  been  lost  or  overwhelmed  if  not  encouraged  to   break  their  learning  into  manageable  chunks.  Without  a  curriculum  or  even  a  clear   path  of  study,  learners  had  to  learn  the  process  of  learning  just  as  much  as  they  had   to  learn  to  create  products  from  their  learning.  Many  open  learning  platforms  did   the  work  of  chunking  for  learners,  like  Coursera,  which  only  allowed  for  a  few   minutes  of  video  to  be  played  before  learners  had  to  answer  a  comprehension   question.  Sites  like  CodeAcademy  offered  challenges  that  were  long  enough  to  take  a   learner’s  thoughtful  consideration,  but  short  enough  that  they  did  not  get  

overwhelmed.  Also,  several  sites  offered  small  badges  or  points  for  achieving   completion  of  different  chunks  before  unlocking  the  next  chunk  of  learning.  This   process  made  it  easier  for  less  self-­‐driven  learners,  like  Mike,  who  needed  a  bit  of   direction  in  his  open  learning.    

  Mike  had  trouble  finding  a  job  during  the  recession  and  after  consulting  with   peers  he  admired,  they  hired  him  in  an  entry-­‐level  position  at  their  startup.  After   some  time  at  his  friends’  company,  Mike  realized  that  there  was  a  big  need  for   developers  and  really  wanted  to  learn  how  to  be  a  developer  so  he  could  be  “set  for   life”:    

And  so  I  got  this  job  and  I  was,  like,  “Okay,  well  there’s  a  marketable  skill.  

That  is  as  vocational  as  it  gets,  there’s  a  constant  demand  for  these  people.  

Like,  if  only  I  could  do  that  I  would  be  set  for  life.”  I  mean,  I’d  have  to  work   but,  like,  I’d  have  a  job…Well,  I  talked  to  one  of  the  developer  guys  and  I  was,   like,  “Are  there  any  classes  I  should  take  or  whatever?”  And  he  was,  like,  just,   like,  it’s  all,  like,  you  have  to  just  do  it  yourself.    

Mike  spent  time  learning  programming  on  CodeAcademy  but  got  frustrated  with   bugs  on  the  site.  Needing  more  direction  and  in  person  interaction,  Mike  found  a   Skillshare  class  that  was  being  offered  locally  with  another  open  learning  site  called   Wintrepreneur.  I  was  also  taking  the  class  as  part  of  my  participant  observation,  and   met  Mike  over  refreshments  after  the  course.  In  an  interview  a  week  later,  he  

admitted  to  being  frustrated  with  the  daunting  task  of  becoming  a  developer:  

And  I  guess  I’m  just  kind  of  frustrated.  I  don’t  know,  maybe  I  got  bored,  but   what  I’m  trying  to  do  now  is  do  what  the  guy  at  that  HTML  class  said,  which   is  just,  like,  try  to  build  that  landing  page  that  it  would  be,  like,  made  in  class   or  whatever.    

  In  an  informal  interview  with  the  founder  of  Wintrepreneur,  the  site  that   cohosted  the  Skillshare  class,  I  learned  that  their  instructors  were  encouraged  to   teach  in  a  project-­‐based  manner.  The  teacher  of  the  current  class  had  given  us  the   assignment  to  design  a  landing  page  using  the  HTML  and  CSS  skills  that  he  had   taught  in  class.  He  was  a  young,  successful  developer  in  the  local  startup  scene  and   was  volunteering  his  time  with  Wintrepreneur  as  a  way  to  give  back  to  the  startup   community.  The  teacher  had  given  us  access  to  a  completed  landing  page  as  well  as   a  blank  page  for  us  to  try  and  create  our  own,  which  he  shared  through  Dropbox.  

After  the  class,  we  would  be  able  to  continue  our  experimentation  on  the  small   chunk  of  a  coding  project  he  had  created  for  us.  In  an  interview,  Mike  told  me  he  was   going  back  to  the  assignment  to  try  and  complete  a  small  chunk  of  what  a  developer  

might  do.  He  then  went  to  his  company’s  founder,  showed  him  what  he  had  learned   to  do,  and  the  founder  gave  him  a  project  to  do  for  the  company  that  was  of  

relatively  equal  skill  level.  Mike’s  small  chunk  enabled  him  to  take  ownership  over   his  learning,  which  he  was  able  to  then  present  for  feedback  from  his  company’s   founder,  who  then  gave  him  another  chunk  to  learn.  Chunking  helped  participants   engage  in  autodidactic  communalism  by  giving  them  small  entry  points  to  learn  and   present  their  work  for  feedback  from  others.    

  Taylor  was  more  self-­‐driven  than  Mike,  but  also  knew  that  he  would  have  to   take  on  smaller  projects  as  part  of  the  learning  process  in  order  to  get  to  a  larger   goal  down  the  road.  Taylor,  a  college  student,  was  studying  economics  but  found   open  learning  after  almost  dropping  out  of  school.  He  was  concerned  with  how   much  he  was  paying  for  school,  afraid  of  the  high  debt  levels  he  would  carry  upon   graduation,  and  was  not  engaged  at  all  in  school  prior  to  starting  his  open  learning.  

We  met  at  a  different  class  like  the  one  where  I  met  Mike  and  he  was  full  of  energy   when  I  approached  him.  Taylor  told  me  about  how  he  could  not  wait  to  get  out  of   class  at  his  university,  so  he  could  ride  his  bike  into  the  city  and  take  free  classes  like   the  one  we  were  just  in.  Taylor  and  I  talked  often  throughout  the  study,  sometimes   over  Twitter  and  sometimes  over  Skype  because  he  was  so  excited  about  what  he   was  doing  that  he  just  had  to  tell  someone.  Inadvertently,  I  became  part  of  his   autodidactic  communalism,  by  being  a  person  he  could  talk  to  about  his  learning.  

The  night  of  our  interview,  we  met  at  my  coworking  office,  conducted  the  interview,   and  then  walked  over  to  another  class  in  the  city  together,  first  stopping  at  a  diner  to   grab  dinner.  Taylor  was  learning  in  all  four  of  the  categories  I  described  earlier,  but  

his  main  focus  was  programming  and  startup  development.  When  describing  the   website  he  was  building  for  his  small  business  venture,  I  asked  if  creating  the   business  was  part  of  where  he  saw  himself  in  a  few  years:  

I  think  it's,  "I  want  to  do  X,  in  order  to  do  Y,  which  will  lead  me  to  Z."  I  want  to   do  it  for  this  venture,  but  this  isn't  the  end  goal.  This  is  just  still  a  learning   process.  By  doing  this,  I'm  able  to  do  this,  which  is  going  to  enable  me  to  end   up  here.  It's  more  about  the  end  goal  where  I  want  to  be.  These  small  

projects,  I'm  not  trying  to  make  the  next  Facebook  right  now…  

Taylor  described  organizing  his  learning  by  figuring  out  small  tasks,  like  how  to   embed  paypal  onto  his  website,  before  moving  on  to  new  tasks.  For  Taylor,   chunking  small  tasks  introduced  a  coherence  to  short-­‐termism.  He  did  not  have  a   specific  end  goal  in  mind,  but  his  entrepreneurial  vagueness  was  grounded  in   small  tasks  that  achieved  small  goals,  which  could  then  build  up  to  bigger  goals.  

Chunking,  in  essence,  was  teaching  trainability.  

  Erin  used  Khan  Academy  to  help  her  chunk  the  information  she  was  learning  in   her  online  science  classes.  Erin  was  working  at  a  startup  when  we  met  at  another   class  in  the  city  on  gamification,  a  model  for  user  engagement  that  constructed  the   experience  as  a  game,  like  how  the  popular  wristband  FitBit  encourages  participants   to  reach  new  levels  for  steps  walked,  complete  with  badges  to  signify  their  

achievement.  Erin  had  a  Masters  degree  in  gender  studies  and  reported  that  after   the  recession  no  one  really  cared  about  hiring  someone  with  a  Masters  in  gender   studies.  She  started  working  at  a  startup  in  a  low  level  position  and  was  encouraged   by  the  engineers  at  the  startup  to  start  learning  programming.  Her  boss  also  

encouraged  her  and  other  employees  to  take  classes  like  the  one  where  we  met.  Erin   learned  to  code  on  python  and  learned  web  development  skills,  but  was  also  trying  

to  pass  the  necessary  science  classes  she  needed  to  enter  nursing  school.  Erin  was   enrolled  in  online  classes  at  a  traditional  university  and  she  described  her  textbook   as  completely  useless.  Instead  of  getting  discouraged,  Erin  formed  an  online  study   group  with  a  few  others  from  the  class  and  introduced  them  to  Khan  Academy  and  a   few  YouTube  channels  that  she  thought  did  a  better  job  of  explaining  the  course   content.  Erin  found  that  Khan  Academy  helped  her  to  chunk  out  the  concepts  before   going  back  to  some  of  her  required  classwork:  

So  it’s  really  helpful  to  watch  a  Khan  academy  video  because  he  goes  into   details  sometimes,  but  it’s  mostly  conceptual.  And  he  sort  of  explains  things   in  a  very  relatable  way  without  as  much  jargon.  And  so  having  those  concepts   is  really  helpful  to  then  go  back  and  learn  the  more  detailed  explanations.  So  I   guess  more  conceptual  and,  again,  maybe  it’s  also  part  of  the  stereotype  that,   like,  that  it’s  not  as  hard  as  I  thought  it  would  be  to  learn  some  of  these   things.      

Nita  was  also  using  Khan  Academy  in  a  similar  way  for  a  university  class  she  was   taking  and  notes  how  the  videos  were  short  and  easily  consumable:  

I  used  it  for  accounting,  and  that  was  good  because  there  were  videos,  and   he's  explaining  it,  and  he's  doing  it  at  the  same  time.  So  that  as,  like,  a  visual   learner,  that  was  really  helpful.  And  I  would  just,  like,  stop  the  video,  like,   write  down  what  he  did,  and,  like,  try  to,  like,  figure  it  out,  and  then,  like,  start   the  video  again  and  play  it.  And  they're  really  short,  so  it's,  like,  easily  

consumable  and  on  your  time,  so  I  really  like  that  one.  

Chunking,  even  if  for  university  coursework,  empowered  learners  into  thinking  that   they  were  capable  of  learning  anything,  as  long  as  they  could  reasonably  figure  out   the  necessary  chunks  that  built  up  to  larger  concepts.  In  a  formal  classroom,  the   class  instructor  would  hopefully  design  this  through  a  careful  curriculum,  though   participants  who  were  enrolled  in  college  coursework  at  the  time  of  the  interviews   did  not  feel  like  their  learning  was  as  well  chunked  in  formal  education.  While  again,   it  would  be  hard  to  assess  if  this  is  true  within  my  methodology,  the  comparison  

hinted  at  a  kind  of  empowerment  and  lifting  of  the  veil  of  education  per  se.  Once   experiencing  their  ability  to  chunk  their  learning,  they  could  understand  it  in   context  with  problems  and  projects.