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Girls and Software

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Re: Girls and Software

#401

Post by VonGuard »

casca wrote: post #346
VonGuard wrote: post #50

themade.org teaches free programming classes to kids. We've been doing this for 2 years now, and most of the time, our ratios are 50/50. Yesterday, in fact, we had 3 boys and 6 girls for our scratch class, then had 8 girls and 2 boys for our interactive fiction class, taught in Twine. Couple things we've learned. First, girls default to pair programming. They cluster, they work together, when they have a problem, the…

Do you have any material or guidance that could be used for people wanting to set up a similar programme in other parts of the world?

http://scratched.media.mit.edu/resources/scratch-curriculum-...

We are lucky and have some amazing teachers who make a new game each week in Scratch, and teach it to the kids. It's always Asteroids, or Moon Lander, or Nanacara Crash, or Pac-Man, or Flappy Bird (OMGWTFBBQ!?). Generally the best advice I can give you is to drag a roomful of kids at computers through the Scratch cirriculum MIT has created, and feel free to skip ahead if they get bored. MIT tends to be all engineery about the curriculum, and leaves no corner unexplained.

We find that if you ask kids 8-14 "Wanna learn to make videogames?" the answer is always yes. Then you just have to walk them through it in Scratch. It's super easy for them, and it does exactly what MIT designed it to do: teach kindergarteners how to code.

Re: Girls and Software

#402

Post by sjy »

spikels wrote: post #125
timr wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"My point here is that you become what you invest time in becoming. If you want to ascend to elite-level hackerdom, then you almost have to put things like attractiveness and popularity on the back burner." No, you really don't. You believe this because it's what you've seen around you, but that's a selection bias. Someone else on this thread pointed out that Von Neumann was an exceptionally stylish guy, but he's far…

Specialization is almost entirely responsible for all the gains in our standard of living since the stone age. This includes almost every technological advance. Heinlein is wrong on this and a specialist himself: a writer who requires other specialists to meet his every basic need (water, food, shelter...). Don't dismiss specialization as it is the key to both past and future success.

Maybe the quote would make a bit more sense in context.

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."

Re: Girls and Software

#403

Post by VonGuard »

Angostura wrote: post #392
VonGuard wrote: post #50

themade.org teaches free programming classes to kids. We've been doing this for 2 years now, and most of the time, our ratios are 50/50. Yesterday, in fact, we had 3 boys and 6 girls for our scratch class, then had 8 girls and 2 boys for our interactive fiction class, taught in Twine. Couple things we've learned. First, girls default to pair programming. They cluster, they work together, when they have a problem, the…

Fascinating stuff. We're setting up a 'Code Club' ( https://www.codeclub.org.uk ) at my kids primary school next term. I'll make sure to consider the pair programming dynamic when we set it up. Sadly, my two daughters seem really rather interested in the whole affair (probably one two many nudges from dad in the past). One thing about Minecraft though, even if kids can't make mods, they can learn useful aspects of lo…

Minecraft is the single most addictive and screams-of-glee-inducing thing in our museum. No matter what we have for the kids to play, they always go "minecraft? You have Minecraft!? Can I play Minecraft!?" which is nuts, because they can play it at home, and playing at the MADE is no more interesting than at home. We don't have enough machines to network it in the museum, and the classroom doesn't have it installed.

I'm told that will change, soon. Hoping to have a club, soon.

Re: Girls and Software

#404

Post by sdegutis »

Wow. Susan Sons at 12 years old was way better at open source software than I am today! We need more children like Susan Sons in the world, and we need to give them unlimited, supervised computer/internet access.

Re: Girls and Software

#405

Post by Crake »

judk wrote: post #330
hueving wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is 25 really when most women are hoping to starting a family by?

Not just start a family, but, a man can spend 5 years dating, and at age 30 meet a 25 yr old to eventually have kids with. For women, youth is an advantage in dating. For men, the opposite, which both supports and demands career success.

>For women, youth is an advantage in dating. For men, the opposite, which both supports and demands career success.

IMO this is probably the biggest reason for the under-representation of women as CEOs/engineers/etc. You don't have to make a lot of money as a female to attract a mate, but you're sure as hell going to have a hard time with that if you're a male.

Re: Girls and Software

#406

Post by Crake »

marquis wrote: post #188
belorn wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any source for your claim? Is classes for girls better in producing hackers, ie, someone who is passionate about programming to the point of both work and hobby? I sincerely doubt it, but feel free to prove me wrong.

Hi, personal experience is my source and the fact that I come across very very very few other technical women in my field, and when I do they benefit from small, gender-balanced or single-gender classes. I think what works best for girls depends on their age - and there are a lot of studies out there showing that boys also do better in puberty in single-gender classes.

"Single-sex schools do not provide any social or educational benefits over coeducational programs within the public school system, according to a study by researchers at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Their findings dispel assertions from proponents of same-sex schools that boys and girls learn differently and must therefore be separated to reach their full potential.

The team of psychologists examined all available research on single-sex education published within the past seven years, which included 184 studies comprising 1.6 million students from kindergarten to 12th grade in 21 different countries, and found no evidence to support proponents’ claims.

In their study, which appeared Monday in Psychological Bulletin, a journal published by the American Psychological Association, the psychologists said that students who attended single-sex schools weren’t any better off than peers who attended coed programs in terms of self-esteem or performance in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) subjects."

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/2/5/study-single-...

Re: Girls and Software

#407

Post by Crake »

codygman wrote: post #213
fudged71 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've wanted to mention this for a while but the topic hadn't come up. My engineering faculty tried many things to get more girls in the program, including having girls-only events with the female dean. Of course, all students got these emails, and many of us guys were left wondering why we never had the chance to meet the dean in events like these. Excluding sometimes seems worse than the biases these programs aim to…

Excluding the more privileged sometimes seems worse than the bias which excludes the less privileged? That doesn't seem to make much sense to me.

Sex based discrimination doesn't help reduce sex based discrimination. Surprising, I know.

Re: Girls and Software

#408

Post by Crake »

selmnoo wrote: post #105
facepalm wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Girls don't get barbies thrown at them, they beg for them. The are expensive, too.

Not if they never find out that there exist things called "barbies". We never introduced our girls to barbies or anything -- only cars, legos, etc. etc. and they're more than happy with them. I think barbies dolls should be outright banned. Why're we teaching our children to worry about their looks at such a young age? That's what barbie dolls are -- "pretty woman", woman with obnoxiously pretty dresses, lipsticks, e…

>I think barbies dolls should be outright banned.

You do realize there are plenty of girls out there who love their barbies, right? Why do you hate them?

Re: Girls and Software

#409

Post by belorn »

aestra wrote: post #348
e12e wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you define feminism as "equality for men and women", most people would probably say they are feminists. dict feminism 1 definition found From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006) [wn]: feminism n 1: a doctrine that advocates equal rights for women 2: the movement aimed at equal rights for women [syn:{feminist movement}, {feminism}, {women's liberation movement}, {women's lib}] Is there some other definition of which I'm not a…

> Is there some other definition of which I'm not aware? He has already defined it all over this thread as "It is the idea that women are victims and should get special treatment because of that" and anything else is "my version of feminism." There's absolutely no convincing someone otherwise when they have already made up their mind like that. It's really a shame.

Under that definition of feminist, whats the difference from being a humanist?

I rarely if ever see feminist trying to push forward right of men where equality would prompt it.

A better definition would be "the movement aimed at equal rights for women [in cases which women are underprivileged compare to men]".

Re: Girls and Software

#410

Post by belorn »

e12e wrote: post #336
facepalm wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"That amounts to asking employers why they are breaking the law, which makes it a little tricky" Maybe you haven't noticed, but you are already assuming that employers are guilty. That kind of thing is exactly what makes me speak out against feminist articles all the time, because there are so many unspoken assumptions. What if they aren't and there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for them paying less to women?…

You said: > For example, in the wage gap discussion, I have never seen anybody ask an employer why they pay women less. Who knows, there might be some surprising answers. I replied: >> "That amounts to asking employers why they are breaking the law, which makes it a little tricky" Because your question assumed some employers paid women less, and in eg: the US, systematically paying women less for the same job that yo…

(replying to this comment since I can't tell which is the furthest down on the comment tree)

Wage differences are not as simple issue as potraited here. For example, if discrimination is the only factor, why is the discrimination only after the age of 40? Before that, wage difference is in many professions negligent. A study in Sweden noticed that by every 10 years from the age of 30, average wage differences between men and women increases by a factor of 2 (ie, 30 = 0-10%, 40 = 15-20%, 50 = ? - 40%).

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