SEP a success!

For the past few weeks, I had been intensely preparing for a weeklong program for high school girls interested in computer science. I mentioned the program a couple times in past posts. I wanted to follow up now with a summary of week, including highlights and lowlights and lessons learned.

The program ran from Jun 28th to Jul 2nd. It started at 10am and went to 3pm every day, with an hour lunch break at noon. There were about 20 students in total, although some students had previous commitments and didn't make it every day.

Over the course of the week, we taught the students a variety of computer related topics. First, we started them off with a group exercise where they came up with an idea for a mobile app (exercise based on the Technovation Challenge). This exercise was designed to teach the students that applications don't start with coding. You first need an idea before you can start creating the app. The students worked for an hour on this task, then had the opportunity to present their idea to the rest of the group. The students came up with some really great products:

1. An app for learning more about colleges and signing up for newsletters, etc
2. An app for identifying what an animals body language might be telling you
3. [I can't remember this one, and it's the one that won! I'll figure it out soon and fill in this blank]
4. An app for allowing users to quickly jot down reminders and add the reminders to a calendar

The students then voted for the best app, and the group with the most votes got a prize (#3).

Next, we taught the students about computer architecture. We had about 6 computers set up that the students could take apart. We had worksheets with labeled pictures. I was surprised to find out that several of the students had already taken apart computers, and one had even built a computer from scratch! Students typically enjoy this exercise, since it's very hands on.

After computer architecture, we jumped into some python programming. We showed them some of the basics, including the infamous print "hello world" statement, data types, variables, and data structures. The students picked up on the concepts very quickly. They worked through exercises and seemed to understand the concepts really well.

After the intro to programming, we moved on to Computer Networking. This is usually one of the most popular lessons! As part of the lesson, we teach the students how to send email directly from the command line. This allows them to specify any sender email address, they'd like. :) This is fun for them, since they can send emails to friends from obama@whitehouse.gov or some other similar email address. They also learned about GET and POST, using GET directly from the command line.

Next, we taught them about databases and persistent data. They created tables in a database, added data to the table, and retrieved the data from the table, all using SQL! They even learned how to do joins, and were very curious, asking how to delete data and remove tables from the database.

With networking, databases, and programming under their belt, we introduced them to Google App Engine. Google App Engine allows users to create web applications very easily. We had developed a basic web app for them to build upon. The final product can be seen here: http://testingforsep.appspot.com. We choose the Outfit Builder app because it seemed like a product they could relate to. I know when I was a teen, I loved shopping and buying new clothes. We were assuming that teens haven't changed much over the years. :) As part of the intro to App Engine, I showed them how to create a basic application from scratch. They then practiced deploying an application to the Google servers.

Now that they understood how App Engine worked, we needed to teach them a couple more programming concepts before they could actually start filling in the missing pieces of the app. First, we taught them if statements. Once they understood if statements, they could build out the change background color portion of the site. Next, we taught them for loops. They could then display the bottoms on the page, and also work on the filtering form. We gave them a few other exercises to work on, including updating the database when a form was submitted on the Edit page and creating the random outfit. Overall, the students performed very well on all these exercises and finished them very quickly! In the future, I would prepare more advanced exercises for the students who were more advanced.

On Thursday, we gave the students a break and took them to the Intel museum. This turned out to be a lot of fun. Our tour guide was very knowledgeable and good with the students. We had a tour and also an activity called "Puzzle Ball" where the students had to write instructions for for to put together a puzzle. The students were allowed to keep the puzzles afterwards, which everyone was happy about. I would highly recommend the Intel museum tour to any school or summer program. It offers a great opportunity for students to learn more about computer processing.

Finally, we taught them about Android phone development and gave them access to App Inventor to create the basic HelloPurr application. App Inventor provides developers with a GUI interface that allows developers to drag and drop UI elements onto the phone screen, edit the properties of each element, then open another GUI application to add the functionality to each element. This portion, the Code Blocks editor, acts like a jigsaw puzzle. The students choose which element they want to add functionality to, then can select from different methods and outcomes, each fitting together like puzzle pieces. I was very impressed at how quickly the students picked it up!! The entire exercise was supposed to take about 1:30 in total. They finished in about 20 minutes!! Amazing. In fact, many of them even figured out how to add different things to the app, including changing the background color of the screen or changing the .wav file associated with the program. I was really impressed and am excited to see what Google does with App Inventor. I think it's a great tool for students to learn how to program the Android phone. In fact, I think it could be useful for everyone, kids and adults alike. I might even use it if I needed to create a basic Android app! Good work Google, keep innovating. :)

Overall, it was a great week. When the students were leaving, they were all smiles, which is always a good sign. A few things I learned from the program:

1. Prepare extra difficult material for those students who might outperform the rest
2. Have more lessons for App Inventor.
3. Go to the Intel museum again!
4. Give the students more opportunity to customize the App Engine application
5. Have backup material prepared in case something doesn't work correctly.

Thanks! If you're interested in learning more about the program, please feel free to contact me (kat.brisbin at gmail). You can also download most of the material at this website: http://cs.usfca.edu/~sep/calendar.html

Python for Girls!

Hi all! I'm working on a new python tutorial for beginners, specifically aimed at girls. There aren't many of those out there yet, so I thought it would be a great opportunity to help start building the library! Here's a link to my documentation so far: http://docs.google.com/View?docID=0AQGjCIWYc3RlZGdoYjk0bnRfMTQwMmNtcTVrNmhm&revision=_latest&hgd=1. It's definitely a work in progress, but feel free to peruse the tutorial. If you notice any errors, feel free to comment!

What I think sets this tutorial apart from the rest is the writing style and approach to teaching. I'm writing the tutorial in a very comfortable and relaxed voice. I write what I would say if I was explaining python to someone in person, interjections and all. Hopefully this will make the tutorial more interesting and easier to read.

My approach to teaching is also different in that I provide concrete examples before explaining the programming concept. From what I've read (sorry, can't find the post anymore..), girls learn programming better when they first understand the problem at hand, then are taught how to solve the problem. I use this format frequently in my tutorial. For example, I first ask how lists are used in real life and provide some examples before even explaining what a python list is. This will hopefully help the girls realize that programming is about solving real life problems, such as creating the list of TV shows to display in the TiVo menu or creating an application to track your grocery list, and then teach them how to do so.

I'm hoping this approach will work well! I get a chance to test my material at the Summer Enrichment Program! If I have time, I will try to document my experience (what worked, what didn't) so that future tutorials can continue to improve!

Summer Enrichment Program Website Now Live!

I'm pleased to announce the launch of the Summer Enrichment Program (SEP) Website! As I mentioned in my previous post, the SEP is a program designed to get young women excited about computer science. It's being held this summer at the University of San Francisco, most likely during the week of June 28th - July 2nd.



Thanks to Anna Hurley for designing the logo! It's perfect!

Minimizing the Gender Gap in Computer Science

I'm female. And I like computers and technology. I'm a minority. This has led me to try to understand the gender gap in technology. In this post, I take a look at some recent studies in the field and look at my own experience to develop some ideas that might help minimize this gap.

First, I should ask the question: why do we even need women in technology? The field seems to be progressing fine without them, right? A good reason to have women more involved in technology is because groups with both women and men tend to work better together. According to this article in Forbes, papers that have both men and women authors have 42% more citations than papers with a single gender. It seems that women have a very positive effect on any collaborative work!

Next comes the question: why are girls avoiding the tech industry? One study suggests that the environment itself prevents them from taking an interest. A group of scientists recently performed a study on students' interest in computer science. Students were asked to sit in 2 very different rooms and asked to fill out a survey about their interest in computer science. Given a room decorated with very geeky paraphernalia, the girls were much less likely to be interested in computers than if they were in a room with gender-neutral decor.

Also, as a child, I remember my own experiences. I liked playing computer games as a kid, and I liked programming my TI-85 as a high school student. But I never took a computer class in high school. In fact, I never even considered computers as a potential career path. How could this happen? One obvious reason was that computer classes were never required in elementary school, middle school, or high school. Another major factor was peer pressure. I'm afraid to say this, but only the geekiest, most unpopular kids were taking the computer courses at my high school. Taking such a course would be akin to "social suicide".

So, what can be done to get more girls in the industry? First, we should address the fact that the environment might have an affect on students' perception of computer science. We should make an effort to minimize any male-oriented objects in the environment and make the classrooms as gender neutral as possible. One study suggests that we should eliminate all boys from the room, since single-sex classrooms increase the likelihood that girls will take interest in computer science.

Another suggestion I have is based on my own experience. I think we should require students to learn how to use computers starting from elementary school all the way through high school. By exposing all students to computers, these classes would not be reserved for the geekiest, most unpopular students. Plus, it would allow all students to explore computers as a potential career. We already impose requirements for biology, math, and English, why not computers too? Computer engineering is a highly viable career option (maybe more than English). And, even if computer science isn't a student's main interest, knowing how to use computers and technology is integral to almost every professional career and would be useful for everyone.

Finally, I think we need to reach out to girls on more areas than just schools. There are many other media that can help. I'm so excited to see that Barbie is reaching out to young girls! Let's not stop here, though! TV programs for young children can do the same by including more girls using computers and studying computer science. Teen magazines can include articles about programming and majoring in computer engineering. Movies can include more female computer scientists.

With all these ideas in mind, we can start making a difference! I'm going to start this semester. I'm helping plan the Summer Enrichment Program for high school girls interested in computer science. The program is held by my grad school, USF. It runs for a week in the summer and exposes girls to a wide range of topics in computer science. Last year, we taught them about computer architecture, python programming, and java programming. The program is such a great event. Last year, the girls showed marked increase in their interest in computer science, approximately 1.5 points on a scale of 5. I look forward to this year's program and hope to inspire the girls just as much!

If you are interested in minimizing the gender gap too, I urge you to get involved!