Increasing high school girls' exposure to computing activities with e-textiles: challenges and lessons learned

Valeria Borsotti

    Research output: Contribution to conference - NOT published in proceeding or journalPaperResearch

    Abstract

    The number of female students in computer science degrees has been rapidly declining in Denmark in the past 40 years, as in many other European and North-American countries. The main reasons behind this phenomenon are widespread gender stereotypes about who is best suited to pursue a career in CS; stereotypes about computing as a ‘male’ domain; widespread lack of pre-college CS education and perceptions of computing as not socially relevant. STEAM activities have often been used to bridge the gender gap and to broaden the appeal of computing among children and youth. This contribution examines a STEAM pilot workshop organized by the IT University of Copenhagen which targeted high school girls. The workshop aimed to introduce the girls to coding and computing through hands-on e-textiles activities realized with the Protosnap Lilypad Development board. This contribution discusses the advantages and challenges of using e-textiles activities as introduction to coding and computing.
    Original languageEnglish
    Publication date18 Sept 2017
    Publication statusPublished - 18 Sept 2017
    EventCHITALY 2017: 12th biannual Conference of the Italian SIGCHI Chapter - Cagliari, Italy
    Duration: 18 Sept 2017 → …
    http://sites.unica.it/chitaly2017/

    Conference

    ConferenceCHITALY 2017
    Country/TerritoryItaly
    CityCagliari
    Period18/09/2017 → …
    Internet address

    Keywords

    • wearables, e-textiles, STEAM, gender gap in software education, gender stereotypes, Denmark

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