{"id":2239,"date":"2016-11-10T05:14:03","date_gmt":"2016-11-10T05:14:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.doc.gold.ac.uk\/blog\/?p=2239"},"modified":"2016-11-10T10:21:49","modified_gmt":"2016-11-10T10:21:49","slug":"goldsmiths-gets-girls-into-computing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.doc.gold.ac.uk\/blog\/?p=2239","title":{"rendered":"Goldsmiths project gets more girls into computing"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"girls-in-computing\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Lecturer Dr Sarah Wiseman reports on a Goldsmiths initiative to get more girls studying and working in\u00a0computing.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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An issue common to computer science departments throughout the world is the gender inequality in the student population. Almost wherever you look, the majority of students are male.\u00a0For the past 10 years, just 15%<\/a> of students accepted to computer science degree programmes were women – though here at Goldsmiths, the figures are a more healthy 31%.<\/p>\n

To tackle\u00a0this inequality, there are many initiatives being set up to try and encourage more women to consider computer science as an option for further education. These can range from peer support groups for women in university (such as the Hoppers in Edinburgh<\/a>)\u00a0to dedicated programs aimed at educating young girls (for example Black Girls Code<\/a>) and women (for example Code Liberation<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Not all initiatives are successful however. Do you remember Hack A Hair Dryer<\/a>? IBM set out to encourage women into computing and engineering by suggesting they create things using their hairdryers \u2013 a message that could easily be considered pretty patronising.<\/p>\n

This year\u00a0at Goldsmiths, we wanted to approach the problem by doing something that would benefit both boys and girls who were might be interested in computer science; we wanted to provide school children with strong female role models.<\/p>\n

We decided to run a series of workshops that would do just that, whilst also showcasing the exciting and diverse range of topics that come under the term \u201ccomputer science\u201d. We invited 100 pupils aged between 12 and 15 from schools within the local area to come to Goldsmiths and get involved in one of four\u00a0different computer science-related workshops run by women within the department.<\/p>\n

\"celebrities\"<\/p>\n

The first workshop looked at problem solving. The aim of this session was to give the kids an idea about the types of puzzles you can solve in computer science. The pupils learnt about encryption<\/a> by sending a chained up, locked box file between groups. The contents of the box, decided by the students at the time, ranged from Justin Beiber\u2019s new album title to nuclear missile launch codes (both equally sensitive information). Other tasks included arranging celebrities in alphabetical order for the red carpet (using sorting algorithms<\/a>) and designing a city layout using graph theory<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"girls-in-306\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In other workshops, children programmed Arduinos to send Morse code, and created a servo-powered fortune teller. In our\u00a0Game Design workshop the children considered\u00a0how games can be designed to be fun and engaging, and designed their own board games and rule sets. The process isn\u2019t as easy as it seems, no matter how many coloured pens and tokens you have available to you!<\/p>\n

The final workshop looked at machine learning<\/a>, and how you can use the webcam on your computer to create an instrument. Rebecca Fiebrink showed pupils how to use her fantastic\u00a0Wekinator<\/a>\u00a0tool\u00a0to create drum machines controlled by moving in front of the webcam. The noise from that lesson was quite incredible, from the strange and wonderful noises coming from the instruments, and from the students\u2019 excited conversations while they learnt about machine learning.<\/p>\n

At Goldsmiths, we\u00a0want\u00a050% of our Computing students to be women. And one of the ways of doing this is by working with the generation of children who are just beginning to think about what they want to\u00a0do at GCSE and ‘A’ level. This\u00a0project engaged 100 kids – and we’re looking forward to meeting more of them next year.<\/p>\n

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Thanks to Harris Academy Peckham,\u00a0Harris Girls\u2019 Academy,\u00a0Eltham Hill School, Streatham and Clapham High School\u00a0and\u00a0Chislehurst School for Girls.<\/p>\n