GHC Panel: Girl Geeks in High School

“Girl Geeks in High School: Technical Experiences of Future Inventors” was
the panel I moderated this afternoon at the
Grace Hopper Celebration of Women
in Computing here in Orlando, Florida. See my

3 August 2007 blog entry for a full panel description. My daughter
Jessica and I worked on developing this panel for over six months.
She and three High School girls from the Silicon Valley joined me on the
stage today. Both she and I are blogging about it. (I haven’t read
Jessica’s blog entry yet but you can read it at
Feeling Elephants.)

I think the panel went well, both for the girls and for the audience.
In our hour, we covered both
questions the girls and I had discussed in advance plus new questions
from the audience. We talked about how the girls use technology
in school and for fun and what was working best for them. There was
some range of opinions but the girls agreed on many points:

• There were some differences between male and female teachers
  of science, math, and technology but the gender of the teacher
  generally didn’t matter.
• The gender of mentors mattered – females were much preferred.
• Laptops could be of great benefit in class but there was also
  temptation to misuse them during less interesting classes.
• No one used tablets nor had they seen them used effectively.
• Hands-on and interactive projects teach better and are more
  interesting.
• Many of their peers and adults also did not understand their
  interest in Engineering. However, their teachers and parents had
  encouraged and supported them.
• All of them came from families in which technology was
  used comfortably.

A very interesting question from the audience was whether the four
girls saw themselves as users or creators of technology. They said
they saw themselves “using to create” (being somewhere in-between
using and creating). However, their
examples of how they used technology were very sophisticated – far
beyond the abilities of a passive simple user.

I agree with one of the audience members who told me later that she
would be fascinated to see what these very talented and charming
young women did in the next twenty years. I do look forward to watching
their progress.

Official
GHC 2007 Blogger. You may comment on this blog by visiting the
GHC Forum. You
can find me at
http://blogs.sun.com/katysblog.