Saq9: Social Justice Issues

Social Justice Issue
1. Choose one of the social justice issues in computing discussed above and find out what extent it is an issue in the Philippines.

According to further study of The American Association of American Women's (AAUW) Gender Gaps: Where Schools Still Fail Our Children, http://www/aauw.org •Girls are significantly more likely than boys to enroll in clerical and data-entry classes, the 1990s version of typing. Boys are more likely to enroll in advanced computer science and graphics courses.
•School software programs often reinforce gender bias and stereotypical gender roles.
•Girls consistently rate themselves significantly lower than boys on computer ability, and boys exhibit higher self-confidence and a more positive attitude about computers than do girls.
•Girls use computers less often outside of school. Boys enter the classroom with more prior experience with computers and other technology than girls.
Actually, I just observed that there are no gender gaps here in the Philippines in computing. Since the Philippines is a democratic country, males and females have a freedom to choose their courses. But although males and females enrolled in computer courses, most successful in computing is the male. Upon my observation most computer café are occupied by male. They spend lots of time for playing, researching and exploration; do some sort of programming and many more. The male is always advance in computing rather than female. Although I observed that now days there are many females who enrolled in this course like Computer Science, Programming, Computer Engineering, Computer Secretarial, Computer Management and the like but they are not as good as male. Most successful programmers, analyst and others are occupied by male, mainly because they are exposed earlier in the computer world, plus they always explore new things in the internet and they usually don’t do household chores. Yes, there are many females who enrolled in computing like in Quezon Province or even in the Philippines but almost male are hired related to what they’ve studied. Computer related courses are very in demand in the Philippines because almost company are using computers even the smaller one. But then, even there are many enrolled and graduated from this course most females are hired not related in their course. They are hired for clerical works, office staff and others. Like me I graduated 4 years in Computer Science but my field of work is not related, I’m in the management field. I just ask myself why I graduated from this course, or why did I took up BSCS and yet I will not work as a programmer, system analyst and the like? Maybe I choose the wrong path. Well that’s my perception. Anyway having knowledge in computing helps me a lot to do my reports and others.

Computer education culture discourages girls, survey says

From Staff Reports (Citation and clippings from the internet)
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The methods used to teach computer programming classes are turning off girls at both the high school and college level, a new report says. As a result, it says, women make up just 20 per cent of the high-tech workforce. The report comes from the American Association of University Women Educational Foundation.
Entitled, Tech-Savvy: Educating Girls in the New Computer Age, it suggests information technology courses need to change in order engage the participation of more girls. The AAUW believes violent video games and programming classes that focus too narrowly on hardware and the mechanics of information technology are leading girls to turn away from pursuing careers in computers. The report suggests teachers need to incorporate technology concepts into more diverse subject areas -- like music, history, or the sciences -- in order to spark girls' interest. The report was authored by the AAUW Educational Foundation Commission on Technology, Gender, and Teacher Education. It includes results from an online survey of 900 teachers, focus group research involving more than 70 girls, and reviews of existing research.
At the high school level, the report indicates only 17% of computer science "Advanced Placement" test takers are girls. At the college level, women receive less than 28% of computer science bachelor degrees, and just 9% of engineering-related bachelor's degrees. The report concludes girls find computer programming classes "tedious and dull" and games "boring, redundant, and violent." The report suggests girls could step in and fill the information technology job shortage if the educational establishment makes computer programming courses more interesting to girls. And it stresses that girls' ability to simply use computers to send e-mail or surf the web is no substitute for comprehensive computer study. "When it comes to today's computer culture, the bottom line is that while more girls are on the train, they aren't the ones driving," said Pamela Haag, the Foundation's director of research.
"To get girls "under the hood" of technology, they need to see that it gets them where they want to go. And for a large part of the population, that process must start in the classroom.

Conclusion

There are many who enrolled in STI, AMA Computer College, Informatics, Enverga University, Sacred Heart College, ABE, and other computer institution that are females here in Quezon Province. But as I can see, most graduate females are not having a job related to what their bachelor is. Yes, they use their skills in computing because most company needs employees who have knowledge in computer using Microsoft Word and Excel or know how to operate the computer or the basic principles of the computer. But most females are bored in computer programming, having difficulty to analyze how the programs will run is a very tedious work. I’m talking as a whole. And in fact nowadays computer world and programs is changing very fast. Computer graduates must know the latest programs every time so that they will be advance, although we need specialization. Girls as a whole are fun of chatting in the internet, although there are some girls interested in programming field and exploration. I do believe Pamela Haag, "When it comes to today's computer culture, the bottom line is that while more girls are on the train, they aren't the ones driving.” Most males are fun of exploring the internet rather than females. Not only in the Philippines but in every country, most of the girls are interested in music, communication like having a job in a call center, managing companies, do clerical works and others but only some are interested in computing field.

What about access to the Internet for those with physical disabilities?

Having physical disabilities is not a big deal to access the internet, although it’s difficult to access the internet with physical disabilities. I don’t think it is a gap between the normal people. Here in Lucena City, we have 2 schools in public for those disable person or special child. They are trained to use or access the computer although they need assistance from their teacher, so they will understand. If I’m not mistaken the Philippines are taking care of the disable person well, they put schools that will teach disable person so that they will be in the computer age. And as far as I know no computer café put signage that disable people can’t be entertained. Disable or not have the same rights.

Are people unable to access the net?

Some Filipinos mostly in provinces, does not access the internet or even use the computer as a means of communication. Maybe because they don’t want to be knowledgeable about it, meaning there are too many things to do rather than use the computer. Some can’t access because their province has no electricity or they are in the middle of the mountain or a sea, and so they need to go down to the mountain and go to a city wherein they can access the computer world. Some don’t know how to access, even they don’t know how to read and write or even understand English language for communication. Some Filipinos are not open-minded and some does not have money to access or even bought computers just for it. Not all can access because not all can afford to buy computers or enrolled to computer subjects and the like. Does the government of the Philippines give projects and trainings to those people in the provinces to teach them how to access the computer world? I just think there is none. Almost 30% of the Filipino people are unaware in the computer world or not aware what is the used of computer. They are not updated.

Unicode could be a great help to those who have knowledge in computer but it can’t be a help to those person who don’t know and understand the computer world. But Unicode is an advantage for us in a way that many people (the whole people of the world) will clearly understand what is in that particular web because Unicode provides a unique number for every character, no matter what the platform, no matter what the program, no matter what the language. Fundamentally, computers just deal with numbers. They store letters and other characters by assigning a number for each one. Before Unicode was invented, there were hundreds of different encoding systems for assigning these numbers. No single encoding could contain enough characters: for example, the European Union alone requires several different encodings to cover all its languages. Even for a single language like English no single encoding was adequate for all the letters, punctuation, and technical symbols in common use. These encoding systems also conflict with one another. That is, two encodings can use the same number for two different characters, or use different numbers for the same character. Any given computer (especially servers) needs to support many different encodings; yet whenever data is passed between different encodings or platforms, that data always runs the risk of corruption. Unicode provides a unique number for every character, no matter what the platform, no matter what the program, no matter what the language.. The emergence of the Unicode Standard, and the availability of tools supporting it, are among the most significant recent global software technology trends.Incorporating Unicode into client-server or multi-tiered applications and websites offers significant cost savings over the use of legacy character sets. Unicode enables a single software product or a single website to be targeted across multiple platforms, languages and countries without re-engineering. It allows data to be transported through many different systems without corruption. http://www.unicode.org

2. Is denial of access in computing a social justice issue? Discuss your answer.

As I’ve said earlier in the course site it depends upon the situation, or it depends upon the users’ belief. In telecommunication, the term access denial (system blocking) has the following meanings:
•Access failure caused by the issuing of a system blocking signal by a communications system that does not have a call-originator camp-on feature.
•Access failure caused by exceeding the maximum access time and nominal system access time fraction during an access attempt.

Access failure: In a communications system, an unsuccessful access that results in termination of an access attempt in any manner other than initiation of user information transfer between the intended source and destination (sink) within the specified maximum access time. Access is also denied if the users attempt to modify or remove something in the web without authorization, Circumventing logon or other security measures, using information systems for any illegal or unauthorized purpose, Sending any fraudulent electronic communication, Violating any software license or copyright without the written authorization of the software owner, using electronic communications to violate the property rights of authors and copyright owners, using electronic communications to harass or threaten others, forging, fraudulently altering or falsifying, to spam or flame, use electronic communications to hoard, damage, launching a computer worm, computer virus, or other rogue program and others.

Access in computing is a privilege not a right. If ever one’s access is denied then we must respect it, because we can’t blame the owner of a particular web for doing this or that because there are many hackers who are snooping around and get information which is illegal. Also, we have our own belief. What we believe or others believe must be respected. Yes, there are web for females only. “That’s pure girls talk”. That’s the way they believe and we must respect it. If you want to access this web and your male, you can’t access the web of course. We must respect the owners of it. Denial of access in computing could be a social justice issue or it could not be a social justice issues. My stand is I’m in the middle.