What Do Secondary Science and Mathematics Teachers Know About Engineering? - Ron Choi ENG 574

Robinson, Michael and C. Maddux. "What Do Secondary Science and Mathematics Teachers Know About Engineering?" The Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, 19, no. 5, 1999: 394-402.

In this peer reviewed journal article, the authors report on a study conducted around an engineering-based capstone course for secondary math and science teachers.  The course trained teachers in engineering principles, practice, design, and problem-solving skills, and gave them the practice and skills required to add engineering-style problems to their existing math and science classes.   The study sought to measure the teachers’ changes in attitudes towards engineering after taking the course.  It also measured the changes in students’ attitudes towards engineering, after taking a 3-week unit on engineering principles and design, planned by a teacher who had just completed the capstone course.

The study results showed that for both the teachers and the students, attitudes towards engineering became more favourable after the engineering specific training.  The most compelling part of the article was a comparison of one secondary student’s pretest and posttest comments.

“Pretest—“I really don’t know what they do so I can’t say my impression.”

Posttest—“Well, engineers do a lot of good things for the world and take pride in what they do. If we didn’t have engineers then this world would be very crappy . . . but with them in the world we’re OK. I wouldn’t want to be one but it’s good we have them in the world.”” (400)

I liked reading this article because it approached the issue of perceptions of engineers in a different way than other articles and studies I’ve read up to now.  This course took a more of a top-down approach, where educating the educators produced a positive changes in the students’ attitudes.  This article was written 12 years ago, and I am curious to know if this type of course it still offered to teachers, or if it has since disappeared.

Engineering in children's fiction - not a good story? - Ron Choi ENG 574

Holbrook, Allyson, L. Panozza, and E. Prieto. "Engineering in children's fiction - not a good story?" International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 7, no. 4, 2009: 723-740.

In this peer reviewed journal article, the authors describe a textual analysis junior fiction books, looking for depictions of scientists and engineers.  Their goal was to determine not only the frequency of science and engineering portrayed, but also the form in which is occurred.  They coded 4,800 children’s books from two large public libraries, and found that only 71 referenced science and engineering themes.  When the stories were more humorous (almost half the occurrences), the use of scientific stereotypes, e.g. nerdy, eccentric was more prevalent.  74% of the protagonists were male, and specific activities, such as building, making and working with machines were depicted as male focused. 

The authors commented that information on the content of children’s books is not easy to obtain, and recommended a more exhaustive strategy to improve the study in the future.  They also mentioned that analyzing titles available in a public library does not accurately represent the entire population of children’s literature.  However, they also point out that even if there are more books with engineering and science depiction available, library collections are guided by various selection criteria, including consumer interest, which would indicate at the very least that these types of books are not popular.  Overall, their results would seem to confirm their initial assumption that engineering is largely an invisible occupation.

The authors also admit that although the general depiction of engineers and scientists is generally gender biased and stereotypical, that there is no insight into how deeply these projected stereotypes are actually absorbed by their young readers.

The results of this study were a little surprising for me.  I thought that they would be more frequent depictions of scientists and engineers in children’s literature.  But in retrospect, I’m probably more attuned to looking for and seeing such occurrences, given my own engineering background.  However, I am not at all surprised by the prevalence of the male, nerdy stereotypes, particularly in the humorous stories.  I consider that to be an accepted practice.  The issue is that at this young age, readers are not being presented with many alternative ideas and images of engineers and scientists.

This article is an extension of one of the ideas brought up by an earlier reading – whether or not a more diverse engineering student body would result in engineers with better communication skills.  If more children are presented with a positive image of engineering as a career and therefore more students choose to study engineering, will the communication skills of all engineers improve?  Or perhaps does that study and affinity group of engineering somehow impede the development of one’s communication skills?

Holy Grail of Targeting is Fuel for Privacy Battle

Learmonth, Michael. "Holy Grail of Targeting is Fuel for Privacy Battle." Advertising Age 81, no. 12 (March 2010): 1-21.

This article discusses the newest trend in marketing whereby marketers are taking off-line information from individuals and merging it with their online information to more specifically target them. Aperture, a division of Datran Media, is able to obtain information on individuals from such companies as Experian and Nielsen and combine that information with Datran’s e-mail database of individuals. Although the personally identifiable information is removed, the information that remains paints a very detailed and accurate profile of an individual, allowing marketers to target to specific interests and attributes.

The Federal Trade Commission is having hearings about how much information should be allowed to be used for targeting, yet all of this seems to be up in the air because it is already happening and people are willingly volunteering more information online.

This article is mainly an informative news piece about the latest in marketing trends from an advertising journal. It explains the subject matter in a broad brush manner, so it would be beneficial to get more detailed and specific information on this subject with research to support it.

Although it isn’t a research article, it is somewhat helpful to my research topic, as it is important to know what is possible relative to practices involving online privacy and what kinds of privacy concerns exist right now.

Privacy is the Problem

Ku, Raymond Shih Ray. “Privacy is the Problem.” Widener Law Journal 19, no. 3(2010): 873-891.

This article discusses how the government and the Supreme Court of the Unites States loosely interpret privacy through the Constitution, specifically the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution. The article takes the perspective that “privacy is the problem” – as illustrated in ways that the United States government attempts to convince the American public how necessary various types of surveillance are to protect our national security, enabling them to position privacy concerns as less salient issues.

The author, Ku, starts the article by citing two recent and relevant examples of the government infringing on individual’s privacy: a school recording student’s behavior through their laptop cameras, even at home in their own bedrooms; increasing government surveillance of telephone and electronic communications. Ku emphasizes that the government is increasing levels of surveillance on Americans in every manner under the guise of protecting national security; to make this possible, the Supreme Court hides behind various interpretations of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution.

The Supreme Court uses the Constitution to limit privacy of individuals by loosely and semantically defining it from the perspective of how the framers of the constitution originally defined it; furthermore, they use the original language to differentiate invasions of privacy using new technology advances in contrast to the original definition, which involved invasions of privacy relative to that time period (such as rummaging through drawers, trespassing on
property, and the like). This allows the court to determine that invasions of privacy made possible by newer technological advancements do not fall within the realm of the Constitution, effectively allowing these types of privacy invasions to continue, unchecked, and deteriorate citizens’ rights of privacy.

Ku describes this in the following quote from the article:

“Ironically, privacy is also the problem for those interested in protecting privacy. Rather than treating privacy as an underlying interest protected by the Fourth Amendment, the Supreme Court of the United States currently uses it as a limiting principle, narrowing the scope and circumstances in which the Amendment applies. For most of the twentieth century, the right of privacy protected by the Amendment was only implicated when the search conducted by the government invaded privacy in a manner equivalent to the types of searches that troubled the Framers of the Constitution." (Ku 2010)

Ku goes on in the article to summarize various cases dating back to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that illustrate the true intent of the Fourth Amendment, which Ku argues is to limit governmental power and authority. The cases are mainly centered around government conducted searches of citizens. He further provides evidence that the government, through rhetoric and semantic language, has made itself the main arbiter and decision maker of what is
appropriate regarding its’ own actions related to the privacy of American citizens.

Ku concludes by stating, “the only legitimate authority for determining the reasonableness of any exercise of governmental power is the people themselves through the Constitution or through their legislative representatives by statute” (Ku 2010). He affirms that the practices mentioned earlier in the article, such as the case of the school spying on students via their laptop webcams is completely contrary to the principles guiding the Fourth Amendment, revealing
his irony intended in the statement, “privacy is the problem”.

This article was an excellent analysis, using legal cases, statutes, and the most sacred of principles governing our country – the Constitution, describing how government has increasingly overstepped its’ boundaries relative to privacy rights of American citizens by interpreting the principles guiding the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution to serve its’ own ends (mainly to increase it’s power). Ku uses historical documents and legal decisions to offer
additional proof to support his argument.

This source is different than the other sources I used because it is not a typical research report, broken up into sections described methodology and other research terminology employed within it. Ku, however, did apply valid research; using textual analysis, he looked at a chronology of cases in history related to the Fourth Amendment of the constitution as proof of the actual intent of the Fourth Amendment in contrast to how those cases and the Fourth Amendment are actually being interpreted by the Supreme Court today.

Although this article did not discuss the internet and the World Wide Web explicitly, the subject matter relates to the overall topic of privacy concerns of individuals relative to my research topic. It specifically mentions increasing government surveillance of electronic communications of individuals, which provides additional evidence that individuals’ right to privacy on-line is decreasing without their knowledge of it.

Privacy and the Quantum Internet

Lloyd, Seth. "Privacy and the Quantum Internet." Scientific American 301, no. 4 (October 2009): 80-84.

This article discusses a new technology, which, in the future, could offer people true privacy while surfing the net. Currently, search engines such as Google can track individuals’ internet searches, and they do so as part of their business model to individually target advertising. Even when users’ searches are intended to be anonymous, there are ways that search engines can track the user’s behavior with identification numbers that reveal their on-line searches and behavior. The author, Seth Lloyd, introduces a new technology that promises a private version of the internet called the Quantum internet in this article.

This quote from the article explains how the technology works:

"The ability of quantum physics to supply complete privacy stems from a simple fact: systems in the quantum realm (which includes anything from elementary particles to molecules) can exist in multiple states. At any particular time, an atom can be in several different places; a particle of light, or photon, can be polarized both vertically and horizontally; an electron's magnetic moment can point up and down, and so on. As a consequence, whereas classical (as opposed to quantum) data bits register either the value 0 or the value 1, quantum bits can register 0 and 1 at the same time. Also, whenever a quantum bit takes on the values 0 and 1 simultaneously, you cannot make an exact copy of that quantum bit, and any attempt to do so will change the state of the bit. This rule, known as the no-cloning theorem, also applies to strings of quantum bits, which, for example, can represent words or sentences. As a consequence, someone eavesdropping on a quantum channel--typically an optical fiber carrying photons in multiple polarization states--will not be able to "listen" to the communication without disturbing it, thus revealing the intrusion." (Lloyd, 2009)

There are many challenges presented that face the developers of this technology, but they estimate a version of this type of network could potentially become available within five to ten years. Google has expressed some interest in it if they can modify their business model to accommodate this type of technology, allowing users to do private searches. Perhaps users seeking privacy may have to pay for their internet searches in contrast to the free version of the internet which is not private.

In conclusion, the technology has already been created and tested in a laboratory setting, so this could become a reality in the future – the technology has the potential to revolutionize the internet.

This is an interesting article geared towards engineers and programmers, yet written in language simple enough for the average techie to understand. There really hasn’t been any user testing done on this technology yet, as it is so new and still in the development phase. The article is written from the perspective of introducing and describing this new technology with its’ obstacles to overcome and potential future benefits to realize.

The article is somewhat relative to my research topic in two areas: the article offers some validation to the idea that the reason the internet is not private is because of the current business model it is built on, which specifically relies on the knowledge of peoples’ internet searches and behavior while using the internet/world wide web; it also offers evidence that technology could be developed that offers users privacy while they’re on-line, if developers and companies decide that investing in and developing this type of technology is worthwhile for them.

Computers and Technical Communication in the 21st Century

Carliner, Saul. “Computers and Technical Communication in the 21^st Century.” In Digital Literacy for Technical Communication, edited by Rachel Spilka, 21-50. New York: Routledge, 2010.

In this article, Carliner describes how digital technology affects technical communicators, especially how technology has changed the job titles and roles of technical communicators in organizations. The author also includes a history of technology and how it has changed, starting in the 1970s.

My interest in this reading is the history of technology, especially the author’s discussion of the coming-of-age of the Internet. His discussion will be useful when I address some of the obstacles to early efforts to make public libraries points of access to the Internet. As part of the background information on my topic, I will be looking at how libraries dealt with those obstacles and which ones remain.

In addition, the section of Carliner’s article dealing with the Internet, within the larger context of the history of technology, contains useful information and interesting quotations.

The Role of Public Libraries in Providing Access to the Internet.

Henderson, Carol C. and Frederick D. King. “The Role of Public Libraries in Providing Access to the Internet.” In Public Access to the Internet, edited by Brian Kahin and James Keller, 154-171. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1995.

This article, written in 1995, urged the use of public libraries as access points to the Internet at a point early in the Internet’s development. As such, it’s right on point for the project I’m working on and provides an interesting starting point for my discussion.

The authors did not gather original data, but rather made arguments and offered suggestions based on research data and public documents available at the time they were writing. Much of the data cited is 20 or more years old, but the article itself contains strong arguments in support of public libraries as access points, as well as a discussion of some of the obstacles to that access (e.g., cost). I expect to find that those same arguments still apply. I also expect to find answers to how libraries addressed the obstacles that existed in 1995, as well as information about current obstacles.

I recognized some of the names the authors cited (e.g., McClure), and believe those sources to be among the leaders in the push to make public libraries access points to the Internet.

Using alumni networking to teach technical communication - Ron Choi ENG 574

Sharp, Julie E. "Using alumni networking to teach technical communication." American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition. Salt Lake City: American Society for Engineering Education, 2004. 1-8.

In this conference paper, Sharp, a teacher of technical communication courses for engineering students at Vanderbilt University, reports on a pilot mentoring project with a technical communication course.  Working in small groups, each student was required to survey two engineering alumnae regarding the types of communication they used in the workplace, the percentage of time spent in communication, and their perceived importance of communication skills in their work.  The students were also given the opportunity to review and analyze real workplace documents.  Students reported their results individually, and as a group, with an opportunity to re-write the report based on instructor feedback.  The students’ results were generally as expected – technical communication is a significant part of technical and managerial engineering positions, and can affect job success.  These results surprised many of the students.  At the end of the mentoring project, students were asked to rate the project, and the results showed that they found the project to be helpful in learning about technical communication and its significance.

I really liked the concept of this project, because it not only helped teach engineering students how to communicate by looking at real-world examples and writing their own reports, but also to illustrate the importance and prevalence of technical communication within the engineering workplace.  There was also an added side benefit of networking and mentoring, as some students maintained contact with their alumni participants.  If this had been done as a research study instead of as a pilot project, I would have preferred to see a more in depth assessment of the improvement in the technical communication skills of the students, compared to those who had not taken the course with the mentoring project.  The student feedback tells us that they liked the project, and that they thought it was useful and enlightening, but that does not actually mean that they became better communicators for it, or focused any more of their energy into improving their communication skills.

WEB LOG - Readers Pick the Best and Worst Tech Movies - Readers say engineers are not often the central character in science/engineering movies and that's just plain wrong - Ron Choi ENG 574

Murray, Charles J. "WEB LOG - Readers Pick the Best and Worst Tech Movies - Readers say engineers are not often the central character in science/engineering movies and that's just plain wrong." Design News Vol. 63, no. 5, 2008: 10.

In this short editorial article, Murray presents the results of a reader survey regarding the best and worst science and engineering movies of all time.  Movies such as “2001: A Space Odyssey, “ “Frequency,” and ”Real Genius,” amongst others were cited as some of the best technical films. On the other hand, the films “Armageddon” and “The Day After Tomorrow” were considered to be two of the worst. 

Most readers also complained about the lack of engineering representation in central roles, with movies such as “The China Syndrome” and “No Highway in the Sky” as a couple of notable exceptions.

This article, a simple editorial in an engineering trade magazine, is not particularly valuable as a source for my research project.  However, it does highlight a couple of issues that relate to my research question.  According to the survey respondents, not only are engineers not particularly well represented movies, but the technology itself is generally inaccurate as well.  Now, I do think that most people understand that much of the technology shown in movies isn’t actually real, but it may not be as obvious as to what technology is real, and what is Hollywood magic.  This does not help give the public an accurate view of engineers and what they do.

Perceptions of engineering from female secondary college students in regional Victoria - Ron Choi ENG 574

Darby, Linda, S. Hall, K. Dowling, B. Kentish. "Perceptions of engineering from female secondary college students in regional Victoria." 14th Annual AAEE Conference. Melbourne: Australasian Association for Engineering Education (AAEE), 2003. 507-516.

In this conference article, the authors present preliminary findings from surveys and focus groups which revealed female secondary students’ (aged 14-15) perceptions of engineering.  The purpose of the qualitative study was to reveal barriers to entry for female students, and ultimately provide insight into how to overcome them.   The study was conducted as a series of small, 2-3 person focus groups in the Victoria area.  Participants were chosen based on a six-level sampling strategy, to select those who were inclined towards careers in maths and science, and for whom engineering could easily be a career choice.  As part of the focus group, the participants were asked to draw a picture depicting an engineer doing what engineers do.

The results suggested that these female students had a lack of knowledge of engineers and engineering jobs and activities, stemming from a lack of visible engineering role models and limited education on engineering as a career.  This resulted in an inability for the participants to connect their own interests with being an engineer.  It also created a reliance on society’s image of engineering to form their opinions, and engineering was perceived to be a male dominated industry, and therefore unattractive to the women.  These factors ultimately result in a low interest in the perceived image of engineers. 

I found this article to have phenomenological validity, as it rung true regarding what conventional wisdom would tell us about engineering and female perceptions towards engineers.  This article does not focus on my original research topic, relating to communication skills, but it did spark and idea/question in my mind, as to whether or not the lack of diversity in engineering is a cause or effect of the deficiencies in engineers’ communication skills.  If engineering programs in North America had more equal percentages of men and women in them, and if they had a broader ethnic landscape, would the social and communication skills of the students be improved?