GLS10 / Let’s Prototype: Women at the Intersection of Learning, Games, & Design

The tenth annual Games, Learning and Society Conference, held this past June in Madison, WI, featured a panel on women in gaming.  Moderated by games-journalist-turned-grad-student Amanda Ochsner, the panel featured some heavy hitters: Elisabeth Gee, Deborah Fields, Yasmin Kafai, Colleen Macklin, and Mary-Margaret Walker.

The discussion was mainly focused on how to get girls interested in both game design and computer science (but not necessarily both).  Following is a summary of some of my notes from the panel.

Image modified from original via Wikimedia 

How can educators create better mentoring opportunities for young women?

The first answer was a great one: be visible, and be outspoken.  Show why this is such an exciting time to be in games.

The experience of some panellists is that no matter how they set up workshops featuring game programming, it's always the boys who sign up.  We need to talk to teachers and actively talk to girls, personally inviting them to come.  Perhaps girls-only groups are needed (that's what I've been doing in my own outreach!).

One panellist pointed out that she was able to attract girls by featuring stories, music, and animations rather than games and programming directly.  The students don't even realize they are programming at first.  In another panellist's workshop, attendees would work on e-textiles; in this case, marketing must be done very carefully as both boys and girls hold onto stereotypes they aren't even aware of ("no sewing, circuitry or programming required").

Another challenge is that many still hold onto stereotypes about what it means to be a gamer; supposedly, only uncool gamers take game design classes.  At ASU, they are trying to infuse game design into journalism.  Foregrounding the subject matter that games are about seems to be a successful way to attract more women.

How can we approach teaching game design in ways that support a diversity of ideas and process?

In a sense, the discussion surrounding this question presented a solution to the previous one.

One of the most interesting ideas was that all art is technical - there are always technologies to learn that you use to be creative.  Hence, making games, and all the technology behind that (including programming) could be considered an arts subject.  The technical element is simply something you need to learn in order to effectively express yourself.

How might we engage young girls in game design, programming, and technology at earlier ages?

Something to remember: "We can't do it all, and we can't do it all in programs." Nonetheless, it is not difficult to find really good tools to help design programs to engage girls.  We can engage kids in actively designing and making things, and in making connections to things they care about.

One greater issue is the poor quality of many games designed for girls.  According to panellists, there is nothing in these games to get girls interested in computing and other technical pursuits.  The games have a low level of complexity.

We are often trying to get girls interested in game design and computing at the same time.  Perhaps, panellists pointed out, we should sometimes keep these types of outreach separate.  Learning about technology, for example, doesn't always have to be done through game design.  There are many other great opportunities like e-textiles.  At the same time, we don't always have to be trying to get girls interested in programming and computer science when we teach them game design.

Remember that each kid is already designer ("I designed my first games during recess").  That's a start.  Now let's talk about how games are actually made.  In the 1980's, you typed game code from a magazine to be able to play.  Everyone understood how programming worked because we had to.  Can we make programming not such a special thing?

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For more, see my conference notes on this session.

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Mini-Course 2014: Survey Results

After a one-year hiatus, I ran my all-girls mini-course on computer science and games again this past May.  Along with a picture of my lovely class, I wanted to share this year's pre- and post- survey results.  Note that while I compare some numbers to past courses, I did not post data from 2012 and there was not course in 2013, so neither year is mentioned.

 

Pre-Course Survey Results

Before we begin with our first class, I ask the girls to fill in a survey to try to capture their attitudes toward computer science.  Naturally, I hope to see a general improvement in these attitudes by the end of the course.  Here are some of the more interesting results.

"I am confident that I understand what the field of computer science is."

• Strongly agree: 1
• Agree:5
• Netural/don't know: 11
• Disagree: 2

There was less confidence about what the field is than in some previous years (e.g. 2010, where 50%  agreed to this statement in the pre-course survey).

"I would consider computer science as a good career for women in general."

• Strongly agree: 5
• Agree: 14

 Despite the lower confidence, there was not a single neutral response for the first time.

"I would consider computer science as a good career for me."

• Strongly agree: 5
• Agree: 5
• Neutral/don't know: 9

This is the highest number of any type of 'agree,' let alone 'strongly agree.'  Could it possibly mean that the widespread efforts to get young people (especially girls) into computer science are actually starting to work? I hope so!

Post-Course Survey Results

I ask many of the same questions after the course, as well as some new ones.  Here are the most interesting responses.

"Are you glad the course was just for girls?"

• Yes: 8
• No: 1
• I'm happy as long as I'm not the only girl: 10

We did our surveys before we got together with the other (mostly male) class to share our games and eat pizza.  It would be interesting to see if their responses would change after that event.

"I enjoyed learning about what computer science is really all about."

•  Strongly agree: 12
• Agree: 6
• Neutral/don't know: 1

This is a great result, even considering how many came to the course open to the idea that computer science might be interesting.

"I would consider computer science a good career for me."

•  Strongly agree: 8
• Agree: 6
• Neutral/don't know: 5

This is the best year-to-year result for this question that I've seen.  Even though 2011 was a good improvement over 2010, this is better still.  It is also wonderful to see so many responses move up (neutral to agree, etc).

"I am more likely to try computer science in high school or university after taking this course, or this course has confirmed my desire to do so."

• Strongly agree: 8
• Agree: 10
• Neutral/don't know: 1

Fantastic.  I only hope that their next experience with CS is a good one.  (I hate that I have to worry about that!)

Summary


This year's course was not changed drastically from previous years.  We spent some more time in the lab, and had more guests talk to them.  I also skipped the section on women in the industry.  Although one person said she wished I had covered that topic in her survey comments, I have to wonder if skipping it contributed to this year's success.  (I previously wrote a bit about messaging in these sorts of workshops and courses.)  Either way, I am thrilled, and can't help but think that maybe these sorts of programs are finally going to make a difference soon at the post-secondary level.

As usual, you can read more about the course here, or take a look at the materials as presented to the girls.

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Python and Pi Helped Make Go Code Girl 2014 A Great Success

On the last two Saturdays of March, a group of high school girls came to both Carleton University and the University of Ottawa to learn about computer science and try their hand at coding.  This was our second annual Go Code Girl event, and thanks to Python's turtle module and the Raspberry Pi, it was even better than last year's!

Last year, we based our one-day workshop on Processing (postmortem here).  When my colleague from Ottawa U, Nathalie Vallières, suggested we try using the Raspberry Pi for our two-day workshop this year, I was both excited and scared.  Excited because I'd always wanted to try out the Pi, but scared because any time you introduce hardware, things can (and will) go wrong.

Biting the bullet, our School of Computer Science ordered some Pis to go with the set that Ottawa U already had. We decided to teach Python using the turtle module on the first day of the workshop at Ottawa U since Python seems to be the most popular language for the Pi.  We would then focus on the Pis themselves on the second day of the workshop at Carleton. In the end, both days ended up going very well.

On the first day, after introducing what computer science was all about, we started drawing with our new turtle friend.  Students typed in a minimal program in IDLE and ran it to see the magic happen.  From there, we introduced basic programming concepts one by one, leaving time in between to try some challenges or just experiment.  First came repetition, then variables, and finally booleans and if statements.

On day 2, we had the girls set up the Pis in the computer lab we normally run tutorials in (having a projector in there was really nice).  The monitors there had HDMI inputs; perfect for the Pis.  The keyboards and mice were easy to "steal" for the Pis as well.  The only problem we ran into was the power outlets mounted on the desks: sometimes, the Pis didn't seem to like the level of power coming from them.  So some girls just plugged the USB cable powering the device directly into the monitor.  Smart.

We started with a lesson on using the command line.  I was worried this would be dull for them, but starting with a pictorial representation of how they could feel like "movie-style hackers" with the command line probably helped.  They loved doing things manually at the prompt and seeing the results in the GUI file browser! I was shocked but thrilled.

After playing with the command line, I walked them through a few of the steps needed to make a text adventure game.  To be honest, I wish we had more time for that.  But they seemed to enjoy it anyway.  Once again, we encouraged them to play and experiment, so if they wanted to play with Scratch or look around on the Pi instead, that was ok too.

All in all, I'm very happy with the formula we came up with this year.  If you'd like to see the slides and other resources I posted for the girls, check them out on my website.  If you've ever done a workshop similar to this, I'd love to hear about it in the comments.

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Planning for Go Code Girl 2014: Python and Pis

Last year's Go Code Girl was a great success.  This year, we wanted to build on that as well as try something a bit different.  Keeping the same overall format, we're hosting two days of coding fun: the first at University of Ottawa and the second at Carleton University.

Instead of teaching the girls Processing again, we'll use the turtle module to draw fun pictures in Python, LOGO-style! Then, on day two, we're going to see what we can do with the Raspberry Pi.

I'm a big believer in teaching programming to beginners in a visual way.  Not only is it more exciting than printing text out onto a console, but it can help understand commands in a more concrete context.  In can even allow for an embodied understanding of concepts, for example by imagining yourself as the turtle moving around the screen, leaving a pen trail behind you.

It's no surprise that I'd favour using something visual to introduce Python.  But as you may know, I tend to favour Processing over Python as a first language.  Why use Python? Partly to get more first-hand experience in teaching it as a first language, and partly because it seems to be the language of choice for the Raspberry Pi.

I know that in the three hours we have on the second day, we won't be able to do that much with the Pis.  I want to try to give the girls enough knowledge and confidence to continue exploring on their own, should they wish to purchase a Pi of their own.  Thus, it's important that they know a bit of Python.

As an added bonus, I can experiment with the turtle approach for teaching programming to my arts and social science students next year.  I imagine it would be a big improvement over how I did it last fall.

I'll report back on how things went and provide a link to the workshop materials when it's all over.

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Are Stereotypes Keeping Women Away From Science?

I received a link to the following infographic in honour of this week's Computer Science Education Week.  It's about women in STEM in general, but has some interesting stats, so I figured I'd share it here.  Enjoy!

NJIT Online Master of Science in Computer Science

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Why One PhD Student in Psychology Learned Python

I posted a few testimonials about why arts and social science needs code last week.  I have a new one from a PhD student in psychology here at Carleton, and since it's such a good one I made a new post for it.

Chunyun Ma, PhD Candidate in Psychology, Carleton University

Why do I want to learn python?

There is the thrill of learning something new. There is also the practical part. I will focus on the latter today.

I study math cognition. What is that? You may ask. Simply put, I spend most of time studying how people process numbers and quantities. Several months ago, I become interested at how people do arithmetic. Not to bore you with the details, I needed to design an experiment in which participants would be doing mental addition and multiplication—all one-digit problems such as “2+3” or “3*5”. These problems would show up on a computer screen at a pre-determined interval for participants to solve. Everything seemed straightforward and easy except for one: I had more than 300 arithmetic problems to be included in the experiment. With the software I had at that time, each problem needs to be set up manually by point-and-click for it to show up properly on the screen.

Hours of point-and-click eventually led me to think: “there must be a smarter way of doing this”. Sure enough, Python entered my horizon at that time and proved to be much more efficient. With python, like with many other programming languages, I can write the code for presenting one arithmetic problem and recycle it for the rest of the problems. What’s better, I can stipulate in the code what output should be generated and in what format.

The advantage of Python over other programming languages is that it is relatively easy to learn. For psychology folks, knowing python also has an added bonus—being part of a vibrant community consisting of python users from all over the world who are knowledgeable of both python and experimental design. For example, Pygame and PsychoPy are two excellent tools for designing experiments, both of which are products through collective effort from the community.

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GoldieBlox, Rube Goldberg, & Beastie Boys "Princess Machine"

This video is so beyond awesome that it deserves its own blog post.  I may or may not have shed a few tears watching it.  Keep on kicking butt, GoldieBlox. We need you.

(Edit: I've replaced the original video with an update after it was removed due to controversy surrounding the use of the Beastie Boys' song.)

Read more about this video and project here.

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Why are we still geeks? Correcting media images of Computer Science / GHC13

Maria Klawe (Harvey Mudd College, far left), Brenda Laurel (Purple Moon, far right), and Kim Surkan (MIT) gave an insightful panel about the images of geeks in the media.  In some ways, I didn't learn much new, but I liked hearing about their personal experiences and getting new language to talk about the problem with.

 

For this post, I'd like to share some of my (mostly raw) notes from the session.

Maria's Part

• no progress made in changing the image of professionals in the media
• is a believer of failure
• "people listen to you more" when you have gray hair
• remembers a time when there were very few female doctors and lawyers
• in the 70's shows depicted both male and female doctors and laywers (though not in the same show), and this caused flood of women into these professions.
• more recently: forensic crime shows caused influx of women studying the field, even though job opportunities for forensic science and CS are at opposite ends of the spectrum
• it's not just about tech women (problem with portrayal of all women, and of tech guys as well)
• in the mid-90's, she was seated at dinner beside NBC exec responsible for Sat night movie series; said we needed shows about scientists and engineers; he said nobody knew any engineers in real life so wouldn't relate!
• tried to write a pilot episode but saw halfway through it was going nowhere (too unrealistic)
• someone wrote a pilot for a show called Rush about Silicon Valley start-up trying to win the DARPA challenge; she sent it out to 20 people with connections in the media; everyone loved it; but it went nowhere!
• optimistic but doesn't know what else to personally try

Brenda's Part

• looking at the GHC poster from last year: not geeks, wearing nail polish; white woman in the middle giving advice to the black woman, asian woman starting into space (did a photoshop to fix this)
• Numbers proves it's possible
• we are responsible for our own representations ("I like the way we look!") 
• "put out our own self-representations"
• "deny power to the spectacle"
• "do good work and get noticed for it"
• check out http://femtechnet.tumblr.com and Wikipedia storming

Kim's Part

• media consumption is growing (2010: average 7 hours and 38 minutes) 
• stereotypes of women being bad at math, as STEM fields being boring and unfulfilling
• it's hard to notice what's not there, but when it isn't, you begin to associate the idea, for example, that all doctors are men, white, etc...
• only computer science is declining in females, not other STEM fields
• was not always this way; women were active in programming (e.g. ENIAC)
• nerd stereotype most common explanation for low female participation
• sexism in CS culture (especially gaming): recruitment, hackathons, sexual harassment/rape culture, lack of role models

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An Exciting First Day at GHC13

Today was our first full day in Minneapolis for this year's edition of the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing.  It's so nice to live the conference through the eyes of the students I organized to get here, seeing as it's their first time at GHC.  It's also nice to meet up again with all my women-in-computing friends that I rarely get to see outside of the conference.

Things got started with a nice welcome session that happened to include me going on stage with my co-chair for the Communities Committee, Charna, to get recognized for our efforts.  The opening speakers (including student members of the ABI boards!) also gave some great advice for newcomers.

Then came a highlight of our day: the keynote / plenary session that featured Telle Whitney (CEO of the Anita Borg Institute), Sheryl Sandberg (COO of Facebook), and Maria Klawe (President of Harvey Mudd College).  There was a lot of really good, frank talk about gender issues and facing them head on.  Karla, a GHC Communities Volunteer, blogged about this session - check it out!

There were a bunch of sessions in the afternoon, but I couldn't pay full attention to them because they were either full or I worked on my class's assignment to be released on Friday instead.  I did have fun presenting my Gram's House poster at the poster fair, making some really great connections with potential collaborators.

I'm really pumped to see everyone again tomorrow (for longer!), the sessions, my own talk, and most of all, the dancing!

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A Preview of My GHC13 Gram's House Poster

It's not finalized, but here's a preview of the poster I made about Gram's House, a research project I started a few years ago, for the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing.  Gram's House is a game designed to encourage girls to consider computer science through a story about making a difference for a loved one and through computer science concept puzzles.

As usual, my poster is fairly minimal in terms of text content.  I use my posters as props to talk about the project during the poster presentation, or as teasers to entice viewers to get more information.  If you'd like to know more, visit me during the conference poster session, or check out my research page about the project where you can also look at the PDF of the poster.

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Making the Most of Your Messaging in 'Women in Computer Science' Outreach

If you've ever done outreach with girls to try to get them into computer science, you may have wondered what the best way to do it is.  After all, we've been at this a while, and yet we haven't seen the level of progress we had hoped for.  What is going wrong?

 Confused Owl / ~Phee

I have a formula that I've used in my outreach for the last 6 or 7 years now.  It goes something like this:

• I introduce myself with fun pictures of my family and hobbies.  I also include a photo of me at the Golden Gate Bridge so I can talk about how companies like Google support women in CS through scholarships and gatherings.
• I ask the girls what computer science is, then explain that it's really all about problem solving.  I go through several domains to show how computing is connected, and if there's time, I ask them for their hobbies and give some possible connections there.  I also show a video from University of Washington on various pathways in computer science to drive home the point that CS is really diverse.
• Our discussion then turns to the issue of women in CS.  I show some graphs that illustrate the problem, then ask the girls to discuss three questions in small groups before we bring it up with everyone: (1) Why don't girls go into computer science? (2) Why is this a bad thing? (3) What would make you interested in trying computer science in high school or college? This is followed by the great little video on women in CS from Google.
• Finally, I do a hands-on activity to showcase a real computer science problem (typically, a CS Unplugged activity).

This formula has served me well.  In my mini-course, I have this discussion on the first morning of five full days of learning about computer science and videogames.  I do pre-course and post-course surveys to see how the girls' attitudes change, and generally the trend is positive.  Even when they aren't sure about CS being a good career for them, they are interested in pursuing some courses in the future.  (You can see some results here, here, and here.)

But is my approach the best it can be? Will it encourage the girls to stick with CS even if they do decide to pursue it somewhere they are likely to be the minority?

My section on the 'women in CS' issue has been questioned a couple of times.  In the first, Barbara Ericson mentioned that when they tried to counter stereotypes, they actually ended up reinforcing them, causing a decrease on the number of girls who thought they could succeed at computing.  More recently, Jim Davies pointed me to research about normative behaviour, explaining that by pointing out the problem, people are more likely to focus on that and behave the same way.

Obviously, these two things had me a bit concerned, and got me wondering if I should be dropping that portion of my outreach altogether.

But I knew I had a purpose for talking about the problem.  It would feel disingenuous to ignore it altogether because I think most people realize it's an issue; however, if doing so improves our results then it may be worth it.  Another reason I do it, though, is based on the fact that I am not only trying to change a current opinion about the field.  I want to make sure that if I can convince them to further pursue computer science, they will not leave again as soon as they run into the issues that might have kept them away now.  In other words, I want to prepare them for what may come next.

Based on this, I knew I had to dig deeper so I could try to modify my approach instead of dropping that section altogether.  I found the research that Jim was talking about: a paper called Managing social norms for persuasive impact.  It describes a study on what type of messaging is most effective when trying to convince people to behave a certain way (in this case, to stop people from stealing wood from a petrified forest).

There are two main ways of illustrating the type of behaviour you want from people.  You can use descriptive norms, which make use of what people are currently doing.  Public health campaigns use this often: "more than 3 million youths in the US smoke and ... 3,000 become regular smokers each day."  Alternatively, you can use injunctive norms, which focus on what people ought to do.  For example, "don't leave your campfire."

Previous theories as well as this particular study have shown that the most effective type of messaging is not descriptive, but injunctive, for the reason Jim mentioned above.  Further, it is much more effective to use negative wording rather than positive (e.g. "don't leave your campfire" vs. "stay with your campfire").  This is interesting given how many campaigns meant to persuade people ignore this advice.

In my case, it seems clear that focusing on the actual number of women who don't go into computer science is a mistake, given the descriptive nature.  The girls in my audience may focus on that and think, "well if no other women go into computer science, why should I?" The follow-up discussion may counteract that, but why risk it?

If I still want to address the issue in some way, I need to find an injunctive way to do it.  I think it may be possible to do this by focusing on what we want the girls to do: try computer science.  A negatively worded question I came up with is this:

What would stop you from trying and enjoying computer science?

I think this avoids the issue of focusing on women who don't go into CS, yet allows us to explore the issues they might face later on.

What do you think? Is there a better way to approach this problem that fits with the research? Where can you switch your own messaging from descriptive to injunctive?

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Female Friendly Narrative Modding in Games

Why is it that there are still so few video games stories with awesome female protagonists that don't play into the usual gender stereotypes? What's a gamer to do if he or she wants to experience more of them today? Narrative modding might be one minor possibility...

Zelda Cosplay :D / CLOUD1414

I started my journey into female friendly narrative by randomly looking up a link I've had saved up for a while: Ada: Journal of Gender, New Media, and Technology.  I found an interesting article called Self-Saving Princess: Feminism and Post-Play Narrative Modding.  It discusses the idea of modding not the game itself with editors or code, but the modding of the narrative outside the technology, that is, "modding that takes place through player and critic participation after the game has been created through discourse."

For example, Anita Sarkeesian of Feminist Frequency is discussed as someone who has modded the narrative of games with respect to how women are portrayed in them. 

Her call for funding for a series of videos on this topic was met with outrage, disgust, threats, anger, and resentment from some sectors of the gaming community online. ... But anger wasn’t the only response to Sarkeesian, and in fact, it seems that the anger and threats of violence incited more support for her project than had existed previously (and may have existed at all).

And now, with three videos published from the Tropes vs Women series on video games, Sarkeesian is calling on players to look at female characters in games in a whole new light.  This is narrative modding because "it fundamentally changes the way that players are able to engage with the game because of their knowledge of her critique and the community’s response to it.  Once these tropes are exposed and brought into mainstream discourse, the player’s experience of the game is modded."

The latest Women vs. Tropes video, Damsel in Distress: Part 3, embedded above, mentions explicit narrative modding, albeit briefly.  One well-known projects that changed Link into a girl through a Wind Waker mod came from a fellow Carleton University alumnus, Mike Hoye.

Initiatives like these are very cool, but the fact that any sort of narrative modding is even necessary has to make you wonder when video games are going to grow up and offer more female-friendly stories.  I'm hoping it'll be in time for my daughter to enjoy them when she's old enough to play.  (She's almost 2 now, so get on it, industry!)

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A Picture of Me Dancing With Graphs

On Wednesday, I did my annual mentoring with Girls @ Virtual Ventures, the all-female section of the popular science and engineering camp held at Carleton.  As usual, the girls made a wonderful audience as I told them what computer science was, had them discuss why there aren't more women in CS (and why it mattered; things got intense!), and ran the CS Unplugged searching activity.

This photo was posted on the Virtual Ventures Twitter account.  I like it; it looks like I'm dancing with graphs. :)

In other news, my post about how improving CS education improves it for everyone was featured on the blog of the Ontario NSERC Chair for Women in Science and Engineering.  Stay tuned for an original, more personal post to appear there later this month.

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When You Picture an Engineer, You Probably Don't Picture Me

Debbie Sterling has experienced life as someone who doesn't fit in.  In her inspiring TEDx talk, she shares her story of how she discovered engineering, and makes a bold claim: "I don't fit in, but I believe that our little girls will."

Why care about the fact that most engineers are men? As Debbie and many others have pointed out, "with half the population being female, we deserve to have the female perspective" on today's top innovations.  From a very young age, girls are taught by the pink toy aisle that they should only want to be princesses.  While the boys play with building sets that inspire them to pursue math and science, girls get only dolls and makeup kits.

That's probably one reason why Debbie was surprised to hear her high school math teacher suggest engineering as a major when she headed off to Stanford.  But the advice lingered, and she gave mechanical engineering a shot.  Turns out, while she definitely didn't feel like she fit in, she did love engineering!

Debbie was enthralled with the fact that, as an engineer, you get to invent and design things.  "How empowering to be able to build whatever you want!"

After graduating with the knowledge that "it's not about being a born genius, it's about how hard you work," Debbie had her sights set on an invention of her own.  She wanted to give girls the same opportunity to discover engineering as the boys had with their construction toys.  She designed GoldieBlox.

Debbie researched what sort of toys girls would like, and quickly found that they got bored of traditional construction sets rather quickly.  When working directly with the girls, she found out what they really loved: books and reading! That where she got the "simple, aha idea: what if I put those two things together?"

It worked! "I had little girls in tutus building belt drives - it was awesome."

And even though the old men in suits at the New York Toy Fair said that construction sets for girls just don't sell, Debbie's GoldieBlox Kickstarter campaign has proven otherwise.  (Be sure to check out my unboxing post as well!)

Turns out gold really is the new pink.

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Improving Computer Science and Programming Education for Women Improves It for Everyone

We know that computing fields are gender imbalanced. While 57% of all undergraduate degrees in the United States were earned by women in 2009, women made up only 18% of all computer and information sciences graduates [8].

Why does this matter? As Klawe et al. point out, “Diversity often leads to enhanced abilities to perform tasks, greater creativity, and better decisions and outcomes” [3]. Furthermore, the number of computer and mathematical science job opportunities are projected to increase by 22% by 2018 — more than any other professional occupation [8]. We simply won’t have enough skilled people to fill those jobs if we don’t get more females on board.

There exist several areas of effort aimed at bringing more women into computing, but for our purposes, we will focus on adjusting course curriculum so that it works well for a diverse audience.

Critics often worry that changing computer science curriculum to attract more students means making it easier (for example, by not teaching more difficult topics). This is not the intention; rather, the goal is to change the way we teach it. And, as it turns out, the two main proven techniques we’ll talk about here work well for everyone, not just women.

Connect Computing to Relevant Application Areas

The first way to improve computing curriculum is to relate the material to application areas the students are interested in. Though men are often interested in computers and programming specifically, some men and many women prefer to view them as tools to accomplish something. The meaning for these students is found in the connection between computing and other fields [4].

A well known example of adding relevant context to introductory computer science curriculum comes from the Media Computation courses developed at Georgia Tech [1, 7]. As described in a National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) case study [7]:

Like traditional introductory courses, the two-course sequence introduces computing concepts and data structures in a context of creating and manipulating media. For example, in Introduction to Media Computation, students learn about loops by creating picture negatives or reversing sounds, learn about conditionals by implementing red- eye removal and edge detection, and learn about string processing by writing programs that pull information out of web pages. In Representing Structure and Behavior, students experience linked lists, trees, stacks, and queues by creating animations through continuous and discrete event simulations.

Though Media Computation has successfully student retention (especially women), it is worth noting that the choice of context matters, and that context is not always appropriate to use at all.

You must be careful to choose applications that are relevant to all students. Sports is a popular theme in many programming assignments, but women have been reported to feel harassed or made fun of when they, say, get the teams wrong [4]. Even forgetting such an extreme behavior, sports just doesn’t appeal to all men and women. The same goes for mathematical programming problems. (The easiest way to find out what your students are interested in is simply to ask, and possibly provide options so they can choose what they like best.)

Further, as Guzdial [2] points out, concrete examples don’t always work. Sometimes students are unable to “recognize that material learned in one situation or context is applicable in another one” (that is, transfer does not occur). To help avoid this problem, you can provide multiple contexts, and follow up with decontextualized content (possibly in a future course).

Provide Opportunities for Collaborative Learning

Collaborative learning has been shown to increase the retention of all students, as well as close the confidence gap between males and females. Women are more likely to continue with computer science after experiencing a course that facilitates collaborative learning. Meanwhile, everyone benefits from improving their critical thinking ability, gaining an appreciation of diversity, and developing many social and professional skills [5, 6].

One type of collaborative learning is pair programming, something many professional developers have seen in the workplace. How to implement pair programming in a course is explained in an NCWIT case study [5]:

Preparation involves establishing guidelines and mechanisms to help students pair properly and to keep them paired. ... In addition, effective preparation requires contingency plans in case one partner is absent or decides not to participate for one reason or another. ... Effective pairing attaches students of similar (though not necessarily equal) abilities to each other as partners; pairing mismatched students often can lead to unbalanced participation. Faculty must impress upon students that pairing is not a “divide-and-conquer” strategy, but rather a true collaborative effort in every endeavor for the entire project.

Another type of collaborative learning is called Peer-Led Team Learning (PLTL): “It involves teams of six to eight students that meet weekly in a workshop with a trained peer leader who is under direction of the instructor. During the meeting, the group engages in interesting problem-solving exercises” [6].

For PLTL to work, all students must attend the workshops and course instructors need to remain involved with the workshop content and the peer leaders. The workshop materials should be well integrated with the course material and encourage active and collaborative problem solving.

Other Ideas

Here are some of the top ten ways to retain students in computing, as listed by NCWIT [9]:

• “Emphasize that intellectual capacity — like a muscle — increases with effort”
• “Provide early and consistent feedback on assignments”
• “Praise and encourage your students”
• “Connect students to faculty”
• “Routinely discuss the options, advantages, and rewards of computing careers”
• “Steer clear of stereotypes embedded in assignments and examples used in lecture ”
• “Treat all students as individuals, not as representatives of a group”

And, finally, some suggestions from Klawe et al. [3]:

• “Make a computing-related course a requirement, or a highly recommended option, for all students in majors that have many females”
• “Create or publicize majors that combine computer science with another area.”
• “Train instructors of introductory CS courses to encourage high- performing women to take a second course and consider majoring in computing.”
• “Encourage female students to attend computing conferences.” 

References

1. Guzdial, M. A media computation course for non-majors. SIGCSE Bull. 35, 3 (June 2003), 104-108.
    
2. Guzdial, M. Does contextualized computing education help? ACM Inroads 1, 4 (December 2010), 4-6.
    
3. Klawe, M., Whitney, T., and Simard, C. Women in computing---take 2. Commun. ACM 52, 2 (February 2009), 68-76.
    
4. Margolis, J. and Fisher, A. Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing. The MIT Press, 2003.
    
5. National Center for Women & Information Technology. How Do You Retain Women through Collaborative Learning? Pair Programming (Case Study 1). November 1, 2005. [http://www.ncwit.org/resources/how-do-you-retain-women-through-collaborative-learning-pair-programming-case-study-1]
    
6. National Center for Women & Information Technology. How Do You Retain Women through Collaborative Learning? Peer-Led Team Learning (Case Study 2). May 1, 2007. [http://www.ncwit.org/resources/how-do-you-retain-women-through-collaborative-learning-peer-led-team-learning-case-study-2]
    
7. National Center for Women & Information Technology. How Does Engaging Curriculum Attract Students to Computing? Media Computation at Georgia Tech (Case Study 1). [http://www.ncwit.org/resources/how-does-engaging-curriculum-attract-students-computing-media-computation-georgia-tech]
    
8. National Center for Women & Information Technology. NCWIT Scorecard: A Report on the Status of Women in Information Technology. December 31, 2010. [http://www.ncwit.org/resources/ncwit-scorecard-report-status-women-information-technology]
    
9. National Center for Women & Information Technology. Top 10 Ways to Retain Students in Computing. May 2, 2011. [http://www.ncwit.org/resources/top-10-ways-retain-students-computing]

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Unboxing GoldieBlox

Way back when, I missed out on the Roominate Kickstarter campaign, and I regretted it afterwards. So when GoldieBlox was proposed, I jumped on it.  Plus, $30 to have the toy shipped right to me sounded like a pretty good deal!

It took a little longer than they expected to ship to Canada, but it was worth the wait.  I got my toy a few weeks ago and finally had the chance to try it out! My (lowish quality iPhone) photos of the unboxing are below.

The toy is really neat, and my only criticism is that some of the manufacturing isn't perfect, resulting in it occasionally being difficult to get the figures to stay on top of the wheels.  I am sure this will improve over time.

I can't wait for Molly (currently only 1.5) to be old enough to try it out!

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Motherhood, Tech, and Leaning In With Marissa Mayer

Recently, I happened to start looking at some of the stories featured on the new Lean In website and came across Marissa Mayer's.  For all the interest and controversy she's drummed up in the news lately, I quite liked hearing her perspective on joining Yahoo! when expecting a baby.

Fortune Most Powerful Women Dinner With Marissa Mayer / Fortune Live Media

Although she'd received offers like that of Yahoo!'s before, this time was different.  The company was a perfect fit for her experience.  But as she says, "...it wasn’t a foregone conclusion that I would or could make it work when I got that first phone call. At the time, I was pregnant, and I was thrilled."

Motherhood is an oft-discussed topic for women in tech (and probably women everywhere).  It can be difficult to be a pregnant woman among many men who don't necessarily understand what comes with that.  Equally daunting is the prospect of taking time off for maternity leave when you'd be one of the few to do that in your company or perhaps in your position.  (If there were more women in the field, it wouldn't seem like an uncommon occurrence.)

Mayer had been looking forward to a six-month maternity leave with Google, way longer than most Americans can even dream of.  By taking the CEO job, she would cut her leave down to almost nothing.  "The responsibilities were too big, and time was of the essence—it just wouldn’t be fair to the company, the employees, the board, or the shareholders for me to be in the role, but out for an extended period of time."

Did she find that motherhood has hurt her ability to be CEO?

I’ve come to realize that being a mother makes me a better executive, because motherhood forces prioritization. Being a mom gives you so much more clarity on what is important. I’m very close to my own mother; she has always been my most important role model. I’m grateful to her and to my father for a lifetime of their love, attention, teaching and sacrifice. Over the past five short months, my appreciation has grown for all parents, especially those balancing work obligations, because I know they have that same clarity of dedication and purpose.

Clearly, it's not an issue.  Granted, she has much money at her disposal to help keep her personal priorities.  However, families around the world have been figuring out many different ways to make it work for many years.  Money might make some things easier but it's not the only answer.

So can we stop bringing in the pregnancy and motherhood issue into discussions of women in tech (and other) companies? It's not like we ever do the same thing for men with young families.

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Got What it Takes to Be a Technical Co-founder? Here's an Opportunity for You!

Two recent Y Combinator graduates contacted me recently in an effort to recruit a female technical co-founder for their startup.  Although any awesome engineers would be welcome in their company, they believe that women are likely to better understand what other women would want in their fashion-focused product.  This is such a great example of why we need more women in tech — why should only men design products intended for women?

Here's a blurb about their company and info about who they are looking for.  If you think you've got what it takes to be a technical co-founder, I hope you'll give this opportunity consideration!

Join team StyleUp! A Winter 2013 Y Combinator-backed company, StyleUp is a Pandora for fashion. We are influencing the way people shop and get dressed every day and are looking to expand our engineering team. We are looking for part-time as well as full-time candidates. Tasks include (but are certainly not limited to) creating new product features, responding to customer feedback, and working closely with the StyleUp CEO, Kendall, a former Conde Nast fashion editor and MIT Sloan MBA '13, to shape the product vision and road map.
At 20% month-over-month user growth, the StyleUp system needs monitoring and performance improvement to ensure the best service and experience for our users. This involves writing code up and down the stack -- from database query tuning to front-end javascript algorithms. Having a performance-first mindset to all new features is a must.

If you are scrappy and creative, love working with fun people and get stuff done fast, we want to talk to you! Please send your resume to kendall@thestyleup.com.

A little about the technology stack:

• Python/Django stack with a MySQL database
• Front end using Bootstrap for CSS; jQuery/jQuery UI
• Hosted on Amazon EC2; deployment in Fabric and Boto (EC2)

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Go Code Girl a Great Success!

On Saturday the University of Ottawa held its inaugural Go Code Girl event.  I designed the workshop's curriculum and taught the English section for the day.  I must say, it was a great success!

We started the morning with a general welcome session with the workshop organizer, then headed to the computer labs in two groups (French and English).  I had my group of girls "interview" someone they didn't know yet after introducing myself, then had them introduce each other.  It was really great to see what a big variety there was in their backgrounds.  Some girls came because their older sisters brought them along, others already knew they were interested in programming, and still others came because their parents made them.  All of these girls stood to benefit from attending.

As I often do, I began with a discussion of what computer science is really all about, and why women don't tend to go into it.  I usually do this with a younger audience, so it was great getting insight from the high school perspective.

The key points that came up were the fact that many girls don't know what computer science is (and how it connects to so many different areas), that it's easily seen as a boy's thing given the current gender imbalance, and that it is intimidating being one of the only girls in a large class.

Interestingly, the discussion focused from there on the quality of high school programming classes.  Over the years, I have been asking high school students what they thought of these courses.  Anecdotally, it seems that they are often not overly effective, particularly for women.  The girls in the workshop wished that the courses weren't just about programming, but rather used programming as a tool to solve more interesting problems that they actually care about.

It also seems that the backgrounds of some programming teachers is not even related to computer science.  In one girl's high school, the gym teacher also happened to teach programming; he didn't even bother promoting programming when they had a course fair for students.  This means that the quality isn't necessarily the fault of the teachers.  There just aren't enough computer scientists willing to teach! But that doesn't mean we can't train others on how to teach CS.  In fact, this is something I want to do as time goes on, similar to what Barbara Ericson from Georgia Tech does in her home state.

After our discussion, I had the girls download a finished Processing project.  It was a memory game I had created for a previous workshop and then adapted for the undergraduate game dev tutorial I was TA'ing for.  I told the girls I wanted them to play with the game, look at the code, and start finding ways to tinker with it.  I interrupted them every ten minutes or so and taught them a new programming concept (variables, boolean and if, loops, arrays and lists, methods, and objects).  After each concept, I left up a small snippet of code they could independently type in and tinker with to better understand the topic.

This was a new approach for me, but a few smart people had suggested it works pretty well (including Barbara mentioned above, as well as one of the creators of Processing himself!).  It supported the idea of just-in-time teaching, where we expected the girls to run into problems so we could help them learn something right when they needed the knowledge.

Did it work? Let's just say a mentor mentioned to me that one girl said she had just learned more about programming in the first hour of the workshop than she had in four months at school.  Sounds promising to me!

In the afternoon I had the girls choose a tutorial to work on where they were guided in making a mini-project of their own.  Every needed step was described, but not always completely explicitly.  Some of the girls struggled with these more than others, so it might be worth making an easier one for those who are less confident.

We still have some data to look at via surveys we gave at the beginning and end of the workshop, but overall I think the day was quite successful.  Huge kudos to Nathalie Vallières from the University of Ottawa who organized the entire day, contacting me as a potential instructor months ago.  I'm looking forward to this becoming an annual event!

Check out all the workshop material on my website.

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'Go Code Girl' Processing Workshop Registration is Open!

I'm pumped that registration is open for a workshop I'll be leading April 20 at the University of Ottawa.  It's called Go Code Girl and it's going to be a programming workshop for high school girls.  I'll be basing the day off of my earlier Processing workshop for Girl Develop It with a few new tricks up my sleeve.

If you are or know of an Ottawa area high school girl, be sure to visit the registration and info site today! My guess is that spots will fill up fast.

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