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Recent Efforts to Broaden Informal Computer Science Education

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Participation in Computing

Part of the book series: History of Computing ((HC))

Abstract

This chapter describes some examples of recent efforts to broaden informal computer science education. The first half of the chapter discusses efforts targeted primarily at young people. Three organizations are profiled here: the Computer Science Collaboration Project (funded by the National Science Foundation), GoldieBlox (a construction toy intended to inspire interest in science and engineering among young girls), and Black Girls Code (an organization bringing technology education to African-American girls aged 7–17). The second half of the chapter concerns entrepreneurial efforts to teach computing to college-age and adult women. We present four examples: Geek Girl, Girl Develop It, PyLadies, and she++. They are all small, agile, entrepreneurial organizations created by small groups of people – mostly from the professional community. The skills that are taught here are mostly basic programming skills or the ability to use off-the-shelf technologies. Thus, these experiences represent not only an alternative path to formal education, but they emphasize a lower and less conceptual skill set that can be learned and put into practice quickly.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    This chapter can only provide a few examples of a prevalent phenomenon today. According to the Kapor Center for Social Impact, as of 2014 there were 371 private organizations teaching coding by means of specialized websites, adult boot camps, and children’s summer camps. (Hamilton 2014) Activities to interest children in computing have been around for many years. See, for example, an effort in the early 1990s by ACM’s Special Interest Group in theoretical computer science (SIGACT). (Fellows and Parberry 1993)

  2. 2.

    CodeEd is a self-funded nonprofit created in 2010 by the husband-and-wife team Sep Kamvar and Angie Schiavoni . It teaches programming to middle school girls in underprivileged neighborhoods in Boston, New York City, and San Francisco. For more on CodeEd, see its organizational website (CodeEd 2014); also see Landry (2014), Jong (2012), and Winter (2010).

    Iridescent is a nonprofit organization, founded and directed by Tara Chklovski and funded by Google , which aims to inspire children from underprivileged neighborhoods to pursue STEM careers. Its Technovation Challenge competition teaches computer science and entrepreneurship through mobile app development by high school students as part of a business plan competition. So far, over 800 girls have programmed 125 mobile phone apps. It operates in its home base of Los Angeles as well as in New York City, Boston, and San Francisco. See the organization’s website (Iridescent 2015); http://iridescentlearning.org/publications/ provides a links to conference presentations, papers, and reports given by the Iridescent staff; also see Keen (2014), Wagstaff (2014), and Scott (2014).

    Digigirlz is a program established by Microsoft in 2000. It annually offers 2,000 high school girls a chance to learn about technology careers, meet Microsoft employees, and participate in hands-on computer workshops. See the program’s website at http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/diversity/programs/digigirlz/default.aspx. Also see Landis (2014) and Bissett (2011).

    Code Now is a non-profit founded in 2011 by Ryan Seashore . It provides free weekend training, as well as online training and boot camps, for a diverse group of high school students on weekends at local tech companies. It started in Washington, DC and has expanded to San Francisco, New York City, and Miami. It has reached approximately 700 students, about equally divided between boys and girls. See its organizational website at codenow.org. Also see Ha (2014), Truong (2014), Farr (2012), and Bort (2013).

    CoderDojo is a global network of free, local programming clubs for children aged 7 to 17. They learn to create apps, websites, programs, and games in an informal learning environment. The first Dojo was opened in 2011 in Cork, Ireland by James Whelton and Bill Liao . Whelton attracted young people’s interest when he hacked the iPod Nano. There are approximately 115 Dojos in the United States. Each one operates independently, but there is a charter that each must follow. See the organization’s website at coderdojo.com. CoderDojo has been partnering with CodeStarter, a private foundation that provides laptops to minority students, financed through a crowdfunding program. See its website: codestarter.org.

    Girls Who Code “has developed a n ew model for computer science education, pairing intensive instruction in robotics, web design, and mobile development with high-touch mentorship and exposure led by the industry’s top female engineers and entrepreneurs.” (Girls Who Code 2015) It was founded in New York City in 2012 by Reshma Saujani , the Deputy Public Advocate of New York City. It has now expanded to five cities with funding from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. It has ambitious plans to expose one million young women to computer science education by the year 2020. See the organization website (girlswhocode.com) as well as CBS News (2014).

  3. 3.

    In addition to NGCP (2015), see Britsch and Peterson (2009), Cates (2014), Devaney (2014), Marra et al. (2008), Peterson (2012), Vandewater (2014), and Vedas (2014) for a discussion of NGCP.

  4. 4.

    For a thoughtful discussion of the game design movement, of which GoldieBlox can be seen as a part, see Kafai and Burke (2014). Also, for context, see Cassell and Jenkins (1998) and Kafai et al. (2008). A related activity involves getting girls interested in computation through craft, for example using the sewable electronic modules from LilyPad Arduino. For an introduction to this subject, see Guler and Rule (2013).

  5. 5.

    Earlier examples of toys in this category include the Capsela building set from Japan in which children built vehicles from plastic parts, motors and wheels, and Pikotron from the Soviet Union which provided circuits for building vehicles or radio sets – both in the 1970s. (Weiss 2013)

  6. 6.

    Harrod’s of London has reorganized its toy department into themes sections such as Enchanted Forest and Odyssey, but these remain stubbornly gendered as well. (Docktermann 2014).

  7. 7.

    Lego Friends has been successful at getting girls to play with construction toys, but there is disagreement of whether it is getting girls to be interested in engineering careers. See Dockterman (2014) for more information.

  8. 8.

    These lyrics replace the original lyrics: “Girls to do the dishes / Girls to clean up my room / Girls to do the laundry / Girls, and in the bathroom /.” See Miller (2013) for a discussion. GoldieBlox learned its lesson with a new video in 2014, entitled “Lightning Strikes”, in which Goldie tries to build a race car. The company hired Emily Haines, the lead singer of the punk band Metric, to write a new song for the video, and they hired a seasoned intellectual property lawyer who had worked on “My Little Ponies” and “Care Bears” to make sure there were no intellectual property snafus.

  9. 9.

    For a discussion of girl empowerment ads, like those of GoldieBlox , see Wallace (2014).

  10. 10.

    The parents themselves wanted to sit in on the classes of their daughters. To make it less disruptive, a separate session for parents is often run at the same time, where the parents hear technical talks and learn some programming.

  11. 11.

    This account of Geek Girl is written largely from material on the Geek Girl website.

  12. 12.

    There are problems with use of the term ‘geek’, which may have some bearing on the reception that Geek Girl receives. On the problematization of ‘geek’, s ee, for example Barker and Aspray (2006).

  13. 13.

    For a detailed account of a Python event, one held in Austin, TX in 2013, see Shaurette (2013) For an account of the establishment of the Portland, OR chapter of PyLadies, see Deckelmann (2013). Deckelmann points to the confidence that women gain from participating in PyLadies. She also compares its operation to another tech community: “Much like the way the PostgreSQL community is organized, we’ve got a loosely connected group of people working independently. We offer support to each other, but don’t have hard and fast rules about what each chapter does. We encourage teaching and workshops, but don’t require them. We share our resources and are quick to put git repos out there of our materials. We send lots of pull requests. And we’re constantly looking for ways for women to get more involved in open source and Python.”

  14. 14.

    This section on she++ was written partly from the she++ organization website, but also from Gallagher (2013), Agarwal (2014), and Dickinson (2013).

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  1. School of Information, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA

    William Aspray

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Aspray, W. (2016). Recent Efforts to Broaden Informal Computer Science Education. In: Participation in Computing. History of Computing. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24832-5_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24832-5_5

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-24830-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-24832-5

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