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

Tue Aug 4 09:11:25 EST 2009

Many thanks for the interesting observations and suggestions.

I am thinking of designing a Year 9 elective where the students design and build a website to support their end-of-year formal.

It could have functions such as:
- voting for a theme for the party
- voting for songs for the DJ
- a dress register so no-one arrives in the same dress as someone else (quelle horreur!)
- links to the payment site on the school website
- information about date, times, location, expectations, supervision
- links to safe partying sites
- post pictures and video of the event
- blogs (including an evaluation of the website by students)

Although I am a bloke, it would seem to me that this would most likely be attractive to girls - it's got music, fashion and social networking.  What do you think?

Are there any suggestions of other features that could be built into the website?

Can anyone see any pitfalls or things to look out for?  (I'm particularly concerned that the site could become a tool for bullying.)
 Regards,
Clive Oldland
Montmorency SC 

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Today's Topics:

  1. FW: [Yr7-10it] How to interest girls in ICT electives at
      middle-secondary level? (Costello, Rob R)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Sun, 2 Aug 2009 21:42:52 +1000
From: "Costello, Rob R" <Costello.Rob.R at edumail.vic.gov.au>
Subject: FW: [Yr7-10it] How to interest girls in ICT electives at
    middle-secondary level?
To: <yr7-10it at edulists.com.au>
Message-ID:
    <6A4A0167D4405A488BF51D9E2F4612E9027D91B1 at EDUSM03.education.vic.gov.au>

Content-Type: text/plain;    charset="iso-8859-1"

Subject: [IAEP] Two girls, ages 8 and 4 win programming contest in Singapore 

http://straitstimes.decenturl.com/singwin

http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_405695.html

this was emailed to another list, via Alan Kay. 

I didn't know who Alan Kay was a few years ago, and I now wonder how I thought was so ignorant of the educational history of IT  (in an era of laptops, do we know the greater vision of the dynabook?) 

Re this whole specialist subject, versus integrated subject, I think there is no justification for the former if it just teaches 'applications' - all those functions need to be in context ...learn powerpoint when you need it, etc ...

the integration of ICT into math and science is a deeper question that potentially justifies specialist access, and some programming time

computers can do anything - so we should help students build the simulation - takes a genius like Papert or Kay to give us tools that are open enough that this is possible, and powerful enough to be meaningful... 

cheers

rob 

-----Original Message-----
From: yr7-10it-bounces at edulists.com.au [mailto:yr7-10it-bounces at edulists.com.au] On Behalf Of Claire Adams
Sent: Saturday, 1 August 2009 9:07 PM
To: Year 7 - 10 Information Technology Teachers' Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Yr7-10it] How to interest girls in ICT electives at middle-secondary level?

Hi,
I make a real effort to talk about women in IT to the junior IT
classes (compulsory in years 8 & 9 at my school).
I've played wii games with the students (then studied them of course).
I think it also helps that I'm a chick too.

Our main problem is the other subjects that get offered on the same
line as IT.  The girls would rather do Art, or Home-Ec, or PE, or Ag
than IT.  They see IT as a 'theory' subject, not as a 'doing' or
'practical' subject so they think it's hard.

We keep working on it though.  We've started offering a Digital
Imaging (read: photoshop) course to our year 10s (it has been only
offered at year 9 for a number of years) which is very popular.  But
doesn't really lead to IT in  years 11 and 12.

Have a great weekend!

Claire Adams
Cummins Area School
South Australia.

On Sat, Aug 1, 2009 at 5:03 PM, ken price<kenjprice at gmail.com> wrote:
> http://hannahmontana.sourceforge.net/Site/Home.html
>
> Hannah Montana Linux is a linux Operating system based on Kubuntu with
> Hannah Montana Themes
> You may laugh but install it on one computer and watch the student response.
> Seriously.
>
> Then tell them you can give them a copy to take home, for free. Might want
> to warn them not to reformat the parents' computer in the process though.
>
> ken
> TASITE
> On Sat, Aug 1, 2009 at 2:07 PM, Clive Oldland <clive_oldland at yahoo.com.au>
> wrote:
>>
>> Hi All,
>>
>> Has any one got any strategies that have worked to turn around the gender
>> imbalance in selecting ICT electives in middle years?
>>
>> I would be particularly interested in knowing how you pitched your
>> elective to make it attractive to girls.
>>
>> Also, is ICT compulsory in years 7 & 8 at your school?  Do you believe
>> that contributed to better participation from girls in higher years?
>>
>> (I have been a subscriber since May, but his is my first post.  Many
>> thanks for the interesting conversations I have observed this year.)
>>
>> Regards,
>> Clive Oldland
>> Montmorency SC
>> ________________________________
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>> http://www.edulists.com.au - FAQ, resources, subscribe, unsubscribe
>> Year 7 - 10 IT Mailing List kindly supported by
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>> and
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>> Association Inc
>
>
> --
> Dr Ken Price MACS ACCE Professional Associate.
> President, TASITE
> _______________________________________________
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> Year 7 - 10 IT Mailing List kindly supported by
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