A Young Girl Becomes a Designer and Goes Global

Abstract

In this chapter we will meet a young girl named Jade (we have changed her name for privacy). Jade was part of an out-of-school Tech Savvy Girls Club (TSG; Hayes & King, 2009). The club was started with MacArthur Foundation funding, and had the goal of getting and keeping middle school girls interested in learning about digital technologies, particularly technologies that they might not otherwise find appealing. Lots of research has shown that, for boys, video games can serve as a gateway to technical skills. It is not just that boys play video games. Many of them eventually develop an orientation to games and other digital technologies that involve tinkering, modifying, “getting under the hood,” and producing digital artifacts— games, art, and software programs—themselves. From game-related activities, these boys acquire wider interests in computers and other digital tools, and some go on to major in technical fields in college (Margolis & Fisher, 2002; Tillberg & Cohoon, 2005).