the Network

1. FemTechNet ­- The Network

i. FemTechNet is an activated network of scholars, artists, and students working on, with, and at the borders of technology,  science, and feminism in a variety of fields including Science & Technology Studies (STS), Media and Visual Studies, Art, Gender, Queer, and Ethnic Studies.

ii. FemTechNet collective members collaborate on the design and creation of feminist technological innovations.

iii. FemTechNet seeks to foster digital practices and literacies among women and girls, and to encourage their writing and  sharing technocultural histories of the future.

iv. FemTechNet has working committees

 2. Pedagogical Framework – Distributed Open Collaborative Course (DOCC) ­

The DOCC is…

    • a model for multi­-situated connected courses in which participants collaborate in designing curricula around a shared theme (FemTechNet’s theme is “Feminism & Technology”).
    • an experiment in Connected Learning.
    • a practice of distributed expertise.
    • an innovative pedagogical technology.
    • a digital course structure informed by both feminist educational innovations of the past and contemporary online feminist pedagogies.
    • a commitment to dialogue, accountability, horizontally ­oriented, peer-engaged transformative learning.

Built and sustained by many faculty and students, the DOCC uses collaboratively­ designed Key Learning Projects and shared, open resources (Video Dialogues; readings; guest lectures from within the network), based on the feminist praxes of distributed expertise and methods.

The DOCC works across difference: across public and private institutions, across rank, across undergraduate and graduate courses, across national/state/economic borders, across professional status and knowledge bases.

The DOCC is a feminist alternative to The MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) model of connected learning. Whereas a MOOC uses digital technologies to increase the teacher-­to-­student ratio (1 teacher to many students) and to concentrate expertise in one “star” teacher, the DOCC model resists this trend and operates through a network that uses digital technologies to constellate our pedagogies, to circulate distributed expertise, and to increase teaching and learning resources: many teachers and students working together to build and sustain an educational environment.

3. The Course –

Collaborations in Feminism & Technology (2016-17)

Collaborations in Feminism & Technology (2015­-16)

Collaborations in Feminism & Technology (2014­-15)

Dialogues in Feminism & Technology (2013-­14)

Collaborations in Feminism and Technology will model collaboration as a feminist technology through a series of connected, open learning events that will allow participants to explore DOCC resources in conversation with other FemTechNet learners.

FemTechNet is run through a series of committees. For more information on committees, please see our committees page.