Summer Camp/Storytelling

[Anindita]

Naala,

I'm doing a workshop right now called Full-Contact Poetry, so it's
basically tech and self-expression with lots of Squeak since there's great
animation and programming, and I've been seeing very similar things-- boys
pulling in lots of cars and anime, girls choosing pastel colors.  When
girls go for characters, they've been hitting mostly PowerPuff Girls, some
Rugrats.  And they bring in more real celebrities, Jennifer Lopez and Vin
Diesel being popular ones, whereas the guys have focused on superheroes.

In terms of programming and narrative, I've had a boy get into more of the
text and playing with words and sounds whereas a girl got into more
intricate programming (if-then statements, etc.).  All of the kids are
passionnate about music and they like being able to modify things that
they bring in (drawing all over imported images, etc.).  I think a lot of
this reconstructing is very interesting and important to them-- taking
something in, changing it, making it their own and making it all act and
interact.  These are the types of themes that I think are fun to pursue
since they seem to be universally interesting and engaging.  Some of it
leads to storytelling (in a more traditional sense) and others are more
like interactive collages or graffiti.  It's great to see what new ideas
and forms of expression emerge when combining art and tech.

Anindita

On Tue, 11 Jun 2002, Naala Brewer wrote:

> Hi Edwin,
>
> I understand your position.  I have been working with a National Science
> Foundation grant for the past 2 years at the University of Kansas which is
> geared towards attracting minorities (girls being one of them) into SMET
> (Science, Mathematics, Engineering and Technology).  And I am a woman who
> went to a predominantly male dominated school (Georgia Institute of
> Technology) and chose to pursue predominantly male dominated fields -
> Mathematics, Physics, and Technology.  So I have experience as a girl being
> attracted to technical fields and as an adult attracting girls into
> technical fields.
>
> As far as attracting girls, I have found that you have to find out what they
> are interested in, as Vincent mentioned.  You cannot assume they are
> interested in one thing or another because this is what statistics have
> shown.  For example, I find the very limited supply of video games geared
> towards girls to be almost insulting; e.g. Barbies running through the
> forest trying to catch stars and butterflies.
>
> Storytelling is not something that any of the 9-11th grade girls that I
> worked with the past 2 years were interested in.  They were more interested
> in creating music, color, motion, and definite sequences in the Squeak,
> swiki, html, or Java programming.  The development of whatever they were
> making was of the same level of difficulty as the boys and the programming
> skills were exactly the same as the boys.  The final aesthetics of the
> projects seemed to be the only difference - girls seemed to prefer pastels
> and pretty pictures, whereas the boys preferred cars, cars, cars, and
> Japanese animation.
>
> Once the girls realized that they could create technical projects with their
> own personal style and touch, they were flocking to the computer classes as
> much as the boys.
>
> With my best,
> Naala