Evaluation

There are two major ways we can evaluate the success of our project. First, is by how well we have satisfied what we have set out to accomplish by creating this blog and skill sharing our technological talents amongst each other. Second, is the practical assessment of how many people have been exposed to the messages we have been putting on the internet. How many hits does our blog have? How many followers do we have? How many comments and surveys have been sent to us?

In regards to the first method of evaluation, we set out with the following main goals:

* To produce knowledge and disrupt limiting 'girl' stereotypes that we had learned about.

* To learn from each other through skill-sharing our technological talents that enable us to communicate publicly, as self-identified girls.

* To subvert our culture's master narrative that girls and technology don't mix by learning new technological skills ourselves, without outside help.

* To support and encourage other girls to seek out technological skills so they too can speak publicly and produce their own knowledge.

* To encourage each other of our capabilities to learn various technologies, and that we can use technology as a political tool to get our voices, our stories, our ideas, our narratives, our knowledge heard.

Overall, we were successful in satisfying the majority of our goals. Through the posts on our blog, we presented our viewers with visual and written representations of popular girl stereotypes found in media and we countered these depictions with thoughtful analysis drawing from an array of feminist girlhoods theorists. Although we initially intended for Nat to skill-share her ability to create movies and edit film clips on iMovie to produce a short film to post on our blog, time did not allow us to do this. However, Erin was able to share with us all the skills to create, edit, and publish, a blog on the internet and this is how girlpowerliterally came to be. We helped to subvert the pervasive idea that girls do not belong in technology by posting interviews we conducted of successful and active "tech-girls". We also offered up critical analysis as to why and how girls access to technology have been limited in our society through commercial and hegemonic powers. We did this while identifying as girls, and speaking to a broader community of girls. We intended our blog to be a resource for empowering girls and helping them to gain confidence by dispelling the myth of our inherent inabilties when it comes to technology and contextualizing ourselves in a patriarchal, neoliberal consumer culture.

The shortcomings of this is that girls without access to the internet, due to circumstance or the lack of resources would be excluded from participating in our blog, so there is a class bias to our blog. However, we have learned that girls access to internet all around the world is increasing, so we hope that our messages can reach a broad range of girls. Another shortcoming has to do with language, in two senses. Firstly, our blog is in english, so only girls who can read in english will have access to our postings, though most computer programs will offer a 'translate' button at the top of the screen. Secondly, some of the language used in our analyses might be inaccessible to girls who have not been trained in women's studies or sociology discourses. Also, we did not get to be involved in teaching other girls outside of our group how to blog or engage in technology. However, we have had one request from a classmate for us to teach her, and we have also provided a how-to guide for certain aspects of blogging. What we, as girlpower 3.0, accomplished most effectively through this project was supporting each other to produce public messages via the internet and reassuring each other that we were capable and what we had to say was and is important.

So, the final question is, what would we change about our project, if we could have done something differently what would it have been? Since we had the disappointment of having to change ideas last minute, we wish we could have more time with the above goals in mind. We would have liked to have Nat teach our group how to film and edit film and possibly set up an event to engage girls in the skills we learned such as teaching other girls to teach themselves how to blog. The bright side of having our blog as a vehicle to engage girls was that we did not choose our audience, rather the chose us. Having the girls engage us is exciting because we are reaching a broader, more diverse group of girls, who chose to engage our project through excercising their own agency. They are free to engage with us on their own time, in their own ways. The project really takes on a life of its own. We are putting our messages out there, free for the taking, and as it turns out, over 70o people have taken...

We are absolutely amazed at how Girl Power 3.0 has taken off. We've reached over 700 people in ten countries around the world, and we've only been up and running publicly for two weeks. This is the true wonder and excitement of having a blog, every day people are accessing our content and sharing it amongst each other. We even got our first 'follower' yesterday, which means that she gets a message whenever we update a new post! Upon linking our blog to our facebooks two days ago, over 100 people accessed it this way, as we found out through the 'stats' tab available to blog administrators. The image below shows how many views we've had from different countries and what browsers and operating systems they have used to look us up.

Overall we have found the true success of this project manifested in our personal lives. All three of us can attest to having developed a new found confidence, inspiration and desire to engage the world of technology. Nat has new inspiration to pursue music production and DJing, Whitney wants to begin a blog about birth for her doula clients and Erin has rekindled her desire to be educated in graphic design. This project has now become a daily part of our lives, it extends beyond this course and has opened our eyes to the part we can play to encourage other girls to engage technology by empowering ourselves. By disseminating our knowledge and experiences in public spaces from our private spheres, we are blurring categories, and creating community in uncharted ways. We are excited to part of a phenomenon of debinarizing the public/private dichotomy that has so often functioned to silence girls voice. We have gained the confidence and the skills to continue applying our new skills in novel ways and sharing with other girls whenever we have the opportunity. Only the cyber gods know what may come of this...

Viva Girl Power 3.0!!!