Any idea on getting girls into CS?

[wannabecsteacher]

Not a proper teacher (yet!) but do quite a lot of outreach in schools, and keep getting this pushback from girls not wanting to do 'techy' stuff.

Heard all sorts: "My mum says...." usually followed by a crazy reason girls think they can't/shouldn't learn to code or even do robotics stuff!

Wondering if this a symptom of the area im doing these projects in? or if anyone's seen something similar. So old fashioned

Seems patronising to make 'girly' workshops, but at my wit's end? Any ideas?

Its usually super smart kids too! Point blank refusing to do engineering workshops :(

Our computer scientist teaches lots about the people behind the tech - his a level group last year was 60:40 male:female. I've learned about Ada Lovelace and debugging from him
:)

GCHQ are running their annual girls cyber competition www.ncsc.gov.uk/cyberfirst/girls-competition, maybe some images from there might help? Links to the women of Bletchley Park?

www.bcs.org/events-home/karen-spaerck-jones-lecture/

The above lecture should be right on point.

The British Computer Society are always trying to add more women. Write to them and ask about help. They might put you in touch with women in computing close to you.

You could also try to emphasise the more creative side of computing - computer assisted art and design, game design matching music to games.

What are subjects girls take an interest in at your school? Discuss with them how computers affect that subject. How it could do more.

Note that teachers in some arts subject can be a bit tech blind. I once visited a school where the English Literature teacher went on and on about not having the budget for Shakespeare texts. So I showed him Project Gutenberg, how to download and annotate - but no getting the text for free was somehow not a solution.

Show them Ada Lovelace, Grace Hopper invented COBOL, Radia Perlman created the spanning tree protocol that made the internet work.

That kind of thing has always been very popular with the girls in the schools I have taught in. I’m not sure what you mean about making it ‘girly’ or why that would be a bad thing but maybe they need something to spark their interest a bit. How is it being demonstrated to them? Photoshop has always been extremely popular. Designing and printing fabric, using a laser cutter and 3D printing have always gone down very well. Coding has certainly been popular with parents and been reasonably popular with girls. Showing them some desirable end products might sell it to them.

This is a really good listen on the subject:

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0003t9y

The latter part gives examples of tactics that are working to encourage girls to join (e.g. making the computer 'lab' a less obviously male space).

Show them Ada Lovelace, Grace Hopper invented COBOL, Radia Perlman created the spanning tree protocol that made the internet work.

Hedy Lamarr is really interesting too. I love this line from her wiki:

She appeared in 30 films over a 28 year career, and co-invented an early version of frequency-hopping spread spectrum communication for torpedo guidance.