[Yr7-10it] How to interest girls in ICT electives at middle-secondary level?

[ken price]

This is a topic that warrants lots of discussion.

The role modelling at leadership levels is exceptionally important. It seems
to be more of an issue in schools than in other workplaces. I used to work
with a project manager who had come to education from another area, and we'd
often end up in school public events where a Principal (male or female, it
didn't matter) would get up in front of an audience and precede a PowerPoint
presentation with "I'm not very good with this computer stuff, i don't use
it very much". Sends an interesting(!) message to students and staff, and my
co-worker was simply horrified that a school leader would do that.
Having students meet the wide range of people who work in ICT-related fields
is very valuable, as it gets them aware that the field is way beyond the
stereotype. This helps give an inclusive vision for all students (not just
girls, but any students outsidfe of the stereotype computing profile)

As part of a Churchill Fellowship a few years back I visited a number of
schools in the US. One in particular sticks in my mind. The computing class
i visited was last lesson of the day, and was all males except one female.
At 5pm the same teacher had an adult class in the same subject, so I stayed
to observe that one.  It was all females - young women who had attended that
school a few years prior but were now in the workplace. I spoke with some
and asked about their school history. None had studied computing in school,
and they were quite angry about it. They said that they hadn't realised how
important it was, or even WHAT it was, until they had begun work. They saw
that ICT was essential to their advancement in their jobs, and enrolled in
these evening classes to do what they could have done at school.  Two felt
so strongly about the matter than they had come back to the school during
the day to talk to the students. They did not blame the school, they blamed
the lack of information about careers in ICT and the importance of ICT in
other careers. This is one thing we need to fix. Somehow....

Kids get much of their career  and futures ideas from parents, peers and the
media. The popular media don't help much here - kids can tell you exciting
they believe it must be to work on mutilated bodies at crime scenes (even
though the reaility is nothing like the tv show) , but they have no idea
what an iCT career involves. And neither do some of their teachers except
those who are teaching in the ICT area (plus a few others). A while back we
did some research with students asking them  to name some local ICT
companies (even here in Tasmania there are 250 or so dedicated IT companies
producing everything from aquaculture software to multimedia content to
eHealth solutions to java libraries). The most common answer? "Harvey
Norman". A retailer that sells domestic goods. That's not the most worrying
bit. When confronted with this data, quite a few non-ICT teachers here and
in other states couldn't see a problem. Wonder if this would be the case
with other teachers in the schools of list members? While teachers of ICT
can articulate reasons why ICT is important, what about the other teachers
who influence these students?  Are they aware of how ICT might be of
importance to the child who shows interest in poliics, music, ancient
civilisations,voluntary aid work, medical practice, farming, parenthood,
fashion design....?

Some of the research undertaken by Women in IT groups nationally and
internationally gives a few more clues that might assist. Work that has a
clear social purpose with collaboration is more likely to attract females
than power-related tasks that attract a specific subset of males.

The next level is - are we trying to increase girls' participation in the
ICT electives already on offer because we believe they are important, or are
we trying to design ICT electives that are more attractive to girls? If the
latter, some of the game-based work which looks at nontraditional uee of
games has some merit. The development of animations and content for mobile
phones is often successful in attracting a more diverse group of students,
as do tasks that involve designing materials for younger children.
Activities that involve customisation and personalisation also suceed. At
the risk of stereotyping, the programs that let you test makeup and
hairstyles on your own photo, those that let you try out colour schemes on
the model of your room or house, and the landscape design tools tend to be
of more interest to young women than young men (in general). Creating and
editing a Wikipedia page for some local feature is a real task that students
can undertake which can involve some serious IT skills if done thoroughly,
and creates something of value to others. Or perhaps using Google Earth and
Sketchup to create a significant online model of some unique local feature,
that can be used by others.

The Hannah Montana thing was more than tongue-in-cheek, though I agree it
does look trivial and patronising. However any marketing person involved in
marketing to males and females knows how quite superficial characteristics
make a huge difference. Spend a half-hour at a MYER or JB etc store and
watch male and female customers looking at iPods, phones, digital cameras
and the Toshiba laptops that do indeed come in a range of colours including
pink. Marketing research is high-stakes and perhaps we could make better use
of this information (though of course we need to be critical in its
application to education).

A few people have alluded to the stuctural problems we face - the
timetabling, the blocked sites, etc. These indeed add to the difficuly, but
maybe there are workarounds Locally hosted tools with social networking
components perhaps (local blogs for students to document their learning,
with the social networking confined to the school community) might be of
use. Hard to know though if the effort is best spent on workarounds or on
getting the barriers removed,

The issue of integration is major. Ideally, ideep integration of ICT into
every other curriculum area would be a tremendous solution. However, there
is a real risk that the integration iwill only include a very shallow level
of IT, and this level plateaus (that is, the level of ICT use in say
English doesn't change much from the start of high school to the end). Ideas
on how to change that in a typical school would be very valuable.

Cheers
ken


On Sun, Aug 2, 2009 at 12:31 AM, Margaret Lawson <
margaret.lawson at konstantkaos.net> wrote:

> Claire ... I was going to ask the question of positive female role models
> in our schools, thanks for mentioning it!
>
> But to others who are following this thread .... How many female leaders in
> our schools "play dumb" when it comes to using technology in front of kids
> at assemblies (apologies if I am being harsh, but being a teacher for god
> knows how many years I have seen many examples) ... if you have no female IT
> teachers in your school then there are opportunities...
>
> Years ago, when I worked at MLC, we had a program where if you did 3/4 IT
> in Year 11 and you were a competent student, you apply to be an IT support
> person (paid) the following year in the younger classes. I felt that this
> program did a lot for the confidence of the girls studying IT. Mind you, MLC
> is a female rich environment ... so I often wondered how this would work in
> a co-ed environment. The costing of a program such as this was minimal given
> the benefit that it gave both the older students acting as a mentor and the
> younger students ability to see a female in a confident technology position.
> In the past, I have tried to run computer clubs in schools, but they have
> always ended up turning into "boys clubs"... which of course has the
> negative effect of what I was trying to achieve. Most of the girls that I
> teach in my non-IT subject, love blogs, social networking and interaction -
>  most of which is banned in most schools.
>
> I am not sure that the solution is a Hannah Montana skin on an operating
> system .... why don't we all give them pink keyboards?
>
> We need to look at the disservice we are doing both genders by not having
> compulsory IT at Years 7 and 8. Integrated ICT programs sound fabulous on
> paper, but the reality is that unless a) your school is doing an adequate
> amount of ICT PD of teachers and b) curriculum leaders are is keeping an eye
> on what actually happening, then chances are the kids will be getting a
> second rate IT education (as opposed to an ICT education).  How can girls
> and boys alike decide on an IT curriculum elective at Year 9 (and then onto
> Year 12) without a proper understanding of what it is like to get their
> teeth into a IT project where they are completely engrossed in solving
> problems rather than the odd powerpoint or multimedia assignment. There is a
> role for ICT integration, but it is a very different IT experience to
> working on an extended project.
>
> Most of you will know that the attitudes that Year 7's form in their first
> year in high school, are often taken with them through to the end of their
> education in Year 12. Diary maintenance, discipline, study habits are all
> positively formed in this formative year. At the end of Year 7, most
> students have chosen the road they want to travel down in secondary school
> in regards to these areas. I believe that this is the same for technology.
> Positive experiences in Year 7 with IT matter.
>
> The question should be how do we ensure the survival of IT while still
> supporting the inclusion of ICT in schools. I believe there is room for both
> in a school, but the answer is not to dismiss a separate IT subject as not
> needed or unworthy because others subjects use the tools. (I know that the
> following argument is flawed and some people are going to get stuck into me
> ...but ... ) It would be like saying that we don't need English as a subject
> because the students use English in every other subject ...
>
> Thank-you for the opportunity to add to this discussion ... I can feel a
> blog entry coming on!
>
> :)
>
> Margaret Lawson
> Part time St. Michael's Grammar School, St. Kilda
> Part time Konstant Kaos Designs: http://alittlebitofkaos.blogspot.com/
>
>
>
>
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