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- Educating Girls to be Tech Savvy
- Susan Boone
- Teacher: Westside High School
- Eleanor Roosevelt Fellow: 1991
- EDS Grant Recipient: 2003
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- Babbage worked on plans for this new engine. An Italian, Menabrea, wrote
a summary of what Babbage described and published an article in French
about the development.
- Ada, in 1843, married to the Earl of
Lovelace. She was the mother of three
children under the age of eight when she
translated Menabrea's article.
- In her article, published in 1843, Lady
Lovelace's prescient comments included
her predictions that such a machine might
be used to compose complex music, to
produce graphics, and would be used for both practical and
scientific use.
- She was correct.
- Ada suggested to Babbage writing a plan for how the engine might
calculate Bernoulli numbers. This plan, is now regarded as the first
"computer program." A software language developed by the U.S.
Department of Defense was named "Ada" in her honor in 1979.
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- In a March 14, 1948 interview by the Daily Texan, she commented on the
future prospects for women in engineering: "There is no demand for
women engineers, as such, as there are for women doctors; but there's
always a demand for anyone who can do a good piece of work." A New
York Times article of Feb. 19, 1956, said, "She believes that women
may help solve today's critical need for technical manpower."
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- Hopper chose to remain
at Harvard until 1949.
She left Harvard to
join Eckert-Mauchley.
- She developed the first
compiler in 1953.
- In 1959, the first specifications for the programming language COBOL
appeared.
- She was briefly retired from the Naval Reserve in 1966, but was called
to active duty the next year to take charge of the Navy's
standardization of COBOL and other languages.
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- Over the last ten years, the number of women graduating with Bachelor's
degrees in computer science from United States universities has
dramatically decreased and is continuing to do so. Data from the US
Department of Education shows that the percentage of computer science
graduates who were women dropped from a peak of 37.1% in 1984 to 28.4%
in 1995, at the Bachelor's level.
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- Women are more educated, more employed, and employed at higher levels
today than ever before, but they are still largely pigeonholed in
“pink-collar” jobs,
according to the American Association of University
Women (AAUW) Educational Foundation report,
Women at Work
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- Women have achieved parity with men in obtaining four-year college
degrees and are more likely to work in managerial and professional
careers today than twenty years ago,
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- “The good news is that women have made great strides in education and
the work force.”
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- “Education in computer and information technology fields is critical to
thriving in the new high-tech economy,” stated Jacqueline Woods, AAUW’s
Executive Director. “And with only 28 percent of women studying in a
field that will prepare them for work in science, engineering, or
information technology, we’ve got a real problem.”
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- …the quality of the solutions we achieve is enhanced by the diversity of
the individuals contributing to these solutions.
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- Life experiences that are applied are limited.
- Technology pays an opportunity cost…
- a cost in products not built,
- in designs not considered,
- in constraints not understood, and
- in processes not invented.”
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- In 1992 the AAUW Educational Foundation published a landmark report
providing overwhelming evidence that girls were often ignored in the
classroom and neglected in the curriculum. This report brought gender equity to
the forefront of educational reform.
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- Gender differences remain in the type of math and science courses taken
- More girls enrolled in Algebra I, Algebra II, geometry, pre-calculus,
trigonometry & calculus J
- Boys are more likely than girls to take all
three core science courses.
- A marked gender gap persists in physics.
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- More boys than girls receives top scores on the NAEP test.
- Scores on the TIMSS test revealed a gender gap in math and science that
increases with age.
- Girls’ enrollments in AP calculus and chemistry increased from 1990-1994
J
- However, girls do not score as well as boys
on the AP exams.
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- Girls are significantly more likely than boys to enroll in clerical and
data-entry classes.
- In 1996, girls comprised only 17 percent of AP test takers in computer
science.
- Fewer role models for girls in computer games or software.
- Girls use computers less often outside of school.
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- Girls consistently rate themselves significantly lower than boys on
computer ability.
- Boys exhibit higher computer self-confidence and a more positive
attitude about computers.
- Teachers receive little or no training in how to use technology to
create an innovative, engaging, and equitable learning environment.
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- Look to girls and women to fill the IT job shortage: Girls are an
untapped source of talent to lead the high-tech economy and culture.
Curriculum developers, teachers, technology experts, and schools need to
cultivate girls' interest by infusing technology concepts and uses into
subject areas ranging from music to history to the sciences in order to
interest a broader array of learners.
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- Prepare tech-savvy teachers: Professional development for teachers needs
to emphasize more than the use of the computer as a productivity tool.
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- Educators and parents should help girls imagine themselves early in life
as designers and producers of new technology. Engage girls in
"tinkering" activities that can stimulate deeper interest in
technology; provide opportunities for girls to express their
technological imaginations.
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- Create a family computer: Among other things, place computers in
accessible home spaces.
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- Equity in computer access, knowledge, and use—across all races, sexes,
and classes—cannot be measured solely by how many people use e-mail,
surf the Net, or perform basic functions on the computer.
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- girls' mastery of analytical skills, computer concepts, and their
ability to imagine innovative uses for technology across a range of
problems and subjects.
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- "When it comes to today's computer culture, the bottom line is that
while more girls are on the train, they aren't the ones driving," stated
Pamela Haag, the Foundation's director of research.
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Notes
