FemTechNet is a network of international scholars and artists activated by Alexandra Juhasz and Anne Balsamo to design, implement, and teach the first DOCC (Distributed Online Collaborative Course), a feminist rethinking of the MOOC. The course, Feminist Dialogues on Technology, will be offered in fifteen classrooms, at least one in every continent, in the Fall of 2013. This project uses technology to enable interdisciplinary and international conversation while privileging situated diversity and networked agency. Building the course on a shared set of recorded dialogues with the world’s preeminent thinkers and artists who consider technology through a feminist lens, the rest of the course will be built, and customized for the network’s local classrooms and communities, by network members who submit and evaluate Boundary Objects that Learn—the course’s basic pedagogic instruments. FemTechNet invites interested scholars and artists to join this project and help build this course. In this seminar, Alexandra Juhasz and Anne Balsamo discuss how this innovative project got started, explore the model of distributed online collaborative courses, and lead a discussion of how FemTechNet or similar courses might fit within the liberal arts curriculum. Speakers Alexandra Juhasz, Professor of Media Studies, Pitzer College, and Anne Balsamo, Dean of the School of Media Studies, New School for Public Engagement (New York).

1. FemTechNet
The First DOCC,* a Feminist MOOC
Alexandra Juhasz, Professor of Media
Studies, Pitzer College
Anne Balsamo, Dean of the School of
Media Studies, New School for Public
Engagement (New York).
NITLE Seminar, October 4, 2012
* DOCC: Distributed Online Collaborative Course

2. National Institute for
Technology in Liberal Education
Online Seminar
Speakers:
Alexandra Juhasz
Professor of Media Studies
Pitzer College, Los Angeles
And
Anne Balsamo
Dean of the School of Media Studies
New School for Public Engagement, New York
Event Hashtag: #FemTechNet

3. FemTechNet
A global network of scholars and artists who work
at the intersections of feminism, science and technology
Key Objectives
•To develop innovative uses for digital technologies that serve
important cultural and social needs
•To involve women and girls in discussions about the history of
feminist engagement with technology
•To demonstrate feminist contribution to technological innovation
•To contribute to the digital archive of the history of technology

4. Initial Commitments
Key Challenges
•Cultural ignorance of the general history of technology and science
•Wide-spread ignorance of the historical relationship between women
and technological innovation
•Lack of understanding about the contribution of feminist theory to
technocultural innovation
•Authoritative structure of institutionalized MOOCs
•Persistent difficult in engaging women and girls in STEM fields & projects

5. Initial Commitments
Key Opportunities
•Extensive global network of feminist experts in science and technology
•Deep history of innovative feminist engagement with technology
•Cross-disciplinary dispersion of feminist expertise
•Feminist design thinking
•History of innovative pedagogical practice among feminist teachers
•New digital technology infrastructures

6. DOCC: An Alternative MOOC
Distributed Online Collaborative Course
Key Objectives
•Recognize and engage expertise DISTRIBUTED throughout a network
•Understand Learning as a MIXED-MODE and BLENDED experience
•Design using COLLABORATIVE peer-to-peer process
•Collaboratively create the HISTORICAL cultural archive
•Collaboratively EXPERIMENT in use of online pedagogies

7. Feminist Learning Design
2013 DOCC: Dialogues in Feminism and Technology
Approaches the creation of a MOOC
from the perspective of feminist STS and media arts
Ten Week Course: September – November, 2013
Ten – Twelve VIDEO DIALOGUES
Shared Learning Materials: BOTLs
Collaborative Learning Activity: STORMING WIKIPEDIA
Differential Participation: NODAL classes

8. Feminist Learning Design
VIDEO DIALOGUES
Archive
Body
Difference
Discipline
Ethics
Labor
Machine
Place
Race
Sexualities
Systems
Transformation

9. Feminist Design Thinking
Boundary Objects That Learn: BOTLs
Approaches the creation of LEARNING OBJECTS
from the perspective of feminist STS
Learning Objects as BOUNDARY objects:
“abstract or concrete frameworks that are adaptable to different
viewpoints yet robust enough to maintain a provisional identity over time
and across different worlds”
Learning Objects that LEARN:.
learning materials that are transformed through use when
participants annotate materials based on experience and context
Harding: Standpoint Theory
Haraway: Refraction Theory and Subjugated Histories
Star & Greisemer: Boundary Objects and Translation

10. Feminist Design Thinking
Differential Participation: NODAL CLASSES
NODAL CLASSES: > Fifteen “embodied” courses
Independent Studies
Self-Directed Learners
Drop-In Learners
Ad-hoc Instructors
Peer-to-Peer Discussion

11. DOCC: 1st Iteration Schedule
Dialogues in Feminism & Technology
Fall 2012: Networking, Fundraising, Wikipedia analysis
Spring 2013: Beta Courses
Spring 2013: Prepare Video Dialogues
Summer 2013: Material Preparation, Instructors’ Workshop
Sept – Nov 2013: DOCC Launch

12. DOCC: Opportunities
How You can Participate
Join the listserv: fembotcollective.org
(join from pull-down list “register”)
Teach a NODAL course
Help architect the technological infrastructure
Contribute BOTLs
Fundraise
Publicize the effort
Extend the network

13. Thank You
Discussion
Anne Balsamo: BalsamoA@newschool.edu
Alex Juhasz: Alexandra_Juhasz@pitzer.edu
Background and MORE information:
http://fembotcollective.org/
http://fembotcollective.org/femtechnet/femtechnet-useful-
documents/femtechnet-faqs/
http://dmlcentral.net/blog/liz-losh/learning-failure-feminist-
dialogues-technology-part-i
http://dmlcentral.net/blog/liz-losh/learning-failure-feminist-
dialogues-technology-part-ii