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Learn-to-Code Program For 10,000 Low-Income Girls
theodp writes: In a press release Tuesday, the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) announced it was teaming with Lifetime Partner Apple and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) on its Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) Commitment to engage 10,000 girls in learning computing concepts. "Currently, just 25 states and the District of Columbia allow computer science to count as a math or science graduation requirement," explained the press release. "Because boys get more informal opportunities for computing experience outside of school, this lack of formal computing education especially affects girls and many youth of color." HUD, the press release added, has joined the Commitment to Action to help extend the program's reach in partnership with public housing authorities nationwide and provide computing access to the 485,000 girls residing in public housing. "In this Information Age, opportunity is just a click on a keyboard away. HUD is proud to partner with NCWIT to provide talented girls with the skills and experiences they need to reach new heights and to achieve their dreams in the 21st century global economy," said HUD Secretary Julian Castro, who coincidentally is eyed as a potential running mate for Hillary Clinton, whose daughter Chelsea is the Clinton Foundation's point-person on computer science. Last year, Chelsea Clinton gave a keynote speech at the NCWIT Summit and appeared with now-U.S. CTO Megan Smith to help launch Google's $50 million girls-only Made With Code initiative.
Everyone deserves equal opportunity, right?
Pussy!
n/t
How come sexual discrimination seems to be a one way thing with the political classes? Can you imagine the fuss and uproar if someone dared suggest a National Center for Men & [insert vocation with not many men here]? I'm sick & tired of this hypocritical social engineering.
Inch by inch, the social justice warriors are getting closer to the truth that boys dominate these fields because of all of their informal experience. Why? Because boys tend to be more willing to go against peer pressure and do what interests them. Male nerds and geeks may resent peer pressure and bullying, but they'll stick to what they like. Never met a single boy who took the attitude that he couldn't pursue his hobbies because of peer pressure unless those hobbies were things you don't mention in polite society (and maybe even make the avante garde squeamish).
No, girls don't need "more pushing." It would be a problem if a family let the sons fire up an IDE, editor + interpreter, etc. and told the girls that that was forbidden for them. I can pretty much assure you, that in the vast majority of American households, even religious ones, that doesn't happen. What naturally happens is that the boys will say "this is cool" and try it out and the girl will make all sorts of excuses ranging from lack of interest, to what would her girlfriends think.
And no, boys by and large don't put pressure on girls to not share hobbies with them. I've never met a red-blooded male who thought a generally feminine female who shared most of his interests was a bad thing.
Clinton Global Initiative is all you need to know. Why not 4 years ago, 6 or even 10? We're in an election cycle, this is now just a campaign talking point and to deflect criticism away from deleting e-mails, taking money from foreign governments and overall credibility. "Hey look we do something good."
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Girls generally get good grades in school, except the trashy ones...those girls have likely made their career choice.
Does it ever dawn on the feminist crowd that all females are not total bitches and have no interest in engineering trades?
But hey, look at the bright side. Maybe the low-income girls will accept a low enough pay that they'll be able to undercut the H1Bs brought in by Silicon Valley. Go America!
Hi, gentle reader.
You saw the summary on Slashdot's front page. You knew what the comments would be. Why did you go ahead anyway and click through?
Did you expect an adult discussion of gender issues on Slashdot? Did you expect an interesting back and forth discussion about whether this will help with various issues to do with women in tech, or if other issues need to be resolved that are of more import, or anything like that?
If so, did you miss the dozen or so other articles in the last year that dealt with similar articles, where the comments section was flooded by knuckleheads from /r/KotakuInAction? Where almost every comment that tried to discuss sexism was modded down out of view, and every comment disclaiming sexism exists or demanding Slashdot ban the subject from their front page modded up.
If ever there was a sign we need a different approach to Slashdot moderation, it would be this. I just don't know what that approach is. Slashdot's broteam is toxic, too effective at shouting down voices who want to discuss serious issues. How to deal with that in a way that doesn't have equally bad side effects is a discussion we need to have.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Let's have a basketball camp for midgets while we're at it.
Not until the misdeeds of the parochial and bigoted past are properly atoned for. Which, of course, means "never".
The only way to argue against the obvious sexism here in the current political climate of the USA is by saying it is ineffective — appeals to fairness will not get you past the establishment raised by the educators like Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers.
It has been observed, that "marrying down" costs a woman as much as $25K per year so, instead of saying it is unfair to men, try arguing that the women will be better served by there being more educated men for them to marry...
And hurry, because — with the ancient definition of "marriage" rapidly evolving nationwide — even that argument may become obsolete within a generation.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
The moderation reflects the community whether we agree with that zeitgeist or not it is the clearest mirror of group attitude I've ever seen. Which is to say it's not always fair or right or intelligent.
DISCLAIMER: Slashdot is not for everyone and should be taken in small doses
"Currently, just 25 states and the District of Columbia allow computer science to count as a math or science graduation requirement,"
Unless the 'Computer Science' courses these students will be studying is Knuth-level algorhythms, they should take the Math classes. Learning how to 'code' is vocational education, and the math background will be of more value.
>> Google's $50 million girls-only Made With Code initiative
Somewhere inside Google someone made the decision that a near-future class action targeting Google about its lack of women (whatever the number is, someone will be annoyed until it's at least 50%) would cost a lot more than $50M, so there's the budget.
Shouldn't it be 5000 boys and 5000 girls? What about kids that don't identify as either?
That way they will be used to the low incomes that developers get competing with people on H1B visas
Fuck this classist and sexist bullshit.
This has gone far enough, time for a backlash - I won't employ women in the future.
Spoken by an anonymous troll.
I really do not get the drive to get "girls" to code, especially from an organization that took a lot of money from the Sauds.
What's the end game of so many coders?
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
We don't need a sexist training program. We don't need more computer programmers - we need better ones. Society would be better off if the money were spent for training in healthcare professions.
Exactly. Programming courses - which is what these are - follow under the business category in high school. It's not computer science. Stop pretending this is anything other than programming. It does not replace math or science - not even close. Need to drop the stupid STEM acronym and go back to Science and Engineering.
Out of this 10,000 we got 1 programmer. See it works.
Can I use cash instead to buy this learn-to-code program?
If pre-algebra, aka, 6th grade through 8th grade study counts as math for high school graduation, the basic use of logic structures for loops and control in programming may as well count too.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Stop trying to force CS on girls. I have eight computers in my house. My son and daughter both teens, have free reign with half of them. Guess who wants to edit skins on a computer for a game and who wants to watch Netflix and text their friends? Encourage kids who are interested, but stop this nonsense. Trying to make everyone a programmer is like trying to make everyone an athlete. It's not going to happen.
Seriously, it is time to fight back against the feminazis and their sexist shite.
What can we do ?
Is there an organisation that represents us, a website that can coordinate action, politicians who will represent us ?
Again boys are treated as second class citizens
Why not learn to wire a house or install plumbing? Why is every program trying to over-saturate IT? I believe the construction industry is a boys only club as well.
If more women code the average coder will be paid less, right?
Why don't these poor, hard done by 'youth of color' (LOL) LEAVE and go and live in the country of their ancestors?
They could do one or the other, but not both. The country of their ancestors, for the last 10 or so generations is the United States.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Male nerds and geeks may resent peer pressure and bullying, but they'll stick to what they like.
The peer pressure and bullying I have received as a techie from my fellow techies - as an adult from adults - leads me to believe that the industry is filled with emotionally stunted men.
When my daughter's guidance councilor recommended that she do the pre-med requirements in college and go to medical school, I rejoiced. STEM fields are being offshored, the working conditions suck, and the profession is filled with bullies and misogynists.
just curious...
No push to train low income girls to become mechanics, welders, machinists, or sort of manufacturing skills?
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
I was listening to NPR the other day, and this story popped up: Examining Race-Based Admissions Bans On Medical Schools .
The short version is; certain states have ruled that colleges are not allowed to consider race as part of their admissions criteria, and medical schools are noticing that black and latino graduation numbers have decreased since then.
The intent was to focus on merit-based evaluations. Seems noble, right? We want the best doctors we can get. However, the effect appears to be to reduce the number of minority students admitted. This, of course, has people outraged, and scrambling to find ways to work around the system - like sending recruiting teams to primarily-black or latino high schools, and hoping that will increase the applicant numbers.
What shocked me is that everyone is dancing around the race issue (and only certain races; not, for example, Indian or other asians). Everyone agrees the minority graduation numbers have dropped because individuals from a given group don't actually meet the admissions criteria. They're not qualified to be students or doctors. That apparently hundreds or thousands of people's failing grades were ignored because of their race. That prior to the no-race rule, doctors, in this case, were not necessarily the most well qualified individuals for the job. In fact, some significant percentage of them should not have been allowed in.
This trend isn't new either. When I was a lifeguard back in the 90's, the requirements changed from being able to swim a specific distance in a certain time, to removing many of these fitness requirements altogether. The reason? It was apparently unfairly eliminating people with poor physical ability or handicaps. The new focus was to do all the lifeguarding from the side of the pool: hooks, ropes, and life preservers.
Heck, just last month there was a minor kerfuffle about fire departments force- and expedited-promotions of minorities over whites.
I can't help but see this girls-only computer science focus being another of these sorts of ill-considered plans, where capability takes a back seat to minority inclusion and political correctness. Sure, it's not as vital as our doctors, firemen, and lifeguards, but it's the same line of thought. In our rush to be politically correct and all inclusive, we mistake equality for equally fair, and it serves no one well except those promoting our differences.
Am I the only one who thinks this is crazy? Like Harrison Bergeron crazy? I can't be the only one, right?
Just curious, because learning to code is simple if you have a computer. There are tons of free courses, development platforms, etc... offering MORE courses seems pointless, and misses the fact that there is plenty of access to education online.
So... in my mind, any effort to educate the masses (of any sex) comes down to providing that access through hardware. Not tablets (geez, useless as anything but an aid through which you might view books or videos), but desktops or laptops (laptops are more useful if accompanied by a dock and extra monitor), which will provide a decent development environment, and broadband access.
Educational guidelines, providing languages and technology tracks for students, based on a particular field of study in computer science would also be nice, as well as a central site where access to ALREADY FREE tutorials and courses can be searched and rated, as well as grouped under those lines of study. This provides assistance to everybody, not just some finite amount of students, or students of a particular sex or race. A section devoted to coding competitions (not just hosted there, but worldwide) would also go a long way to encouraging young developers.
Once such a site is established, then work on arming students with real, physical tools to make full use of it. This is where I'd spend the rest of the money. Deciding who gets those tools is more difficult. Some sort of basic aptitude in problem-solving skills and a grasp of basic programming concepts, as well as a genuine interest in the field of study should be prerequisites.
These things should be no-brainers, but what gets lost in all of these efforts directed at special groups is that they are battling cultures and often fail to provide a true path to success (i.e. they go for quantity over quality, only making the situation more dire for those that are good, because they have to fight the perceptions employers have of their 'group' as a whole).
Now, if you can start turning out good quality programmers, as an organization fighting discrimination, you have to educate employers (or set an example, I'm looking at you, Google, and your "do as we say, not as we do" example). That's not a program that targets 10,000 low income girls, though. It's a program that targets employers and benefits everybody.
Having outlined my course of action... where does the money go in these programs? I get the feeling most of it goes to a redundant effort to create online courses, which are provided to a fixed number of individuals (why? because reasons, that's why!), while a bureaucracy swallows up the money and touts its success. It seems ridiculous - because it is, but that is the logic employed by way too many of these sort of organizations. It looks good in sketchy press releases that contain virtually no real information, outside of the stated "goal". Hopefully, I'm mistaken. I'd love to see underprivileged kids (no matter the sex or race) get decent computers and given encouragement to learn computing skills (beyond playing video games), but the cynic in me knows better.
Spoken by an anonymous troll with a username.
It will be very interesting -- and I think they should do a follow-up (but I'm not holding my breath) -- to see how many of these girls are still coding at all in 5-years time and how many are earning a living from software development 10 years from now.
licet differant, aequabitur
Since the aid is targeted at one gender, all the comments so far are complaining about that aspect. However, the bigger problem is _how_ this is being done, not _to whom._
I have about 20 years' experience in what you could loosely classify as "systems" work, so I'm not a developer. I script, I automate stuff, and do development-y things sometimes, but I don't write software. However, I do see the output of developers on a regular basis because most of my job is systems integration these days. Putting someone through a coding bootcamp is not guaranteed to generate good results. At best, you'll usually get someone who is somewhat familiar with the basics of whatever framework/ecosystem they were taught in, and the result produced may run. However, someone with enough experience and interest in the field will produce much better code in the long run. The non-bootcamp person is more likely to question why that library-based database call they made takes a minute of CPU time to run a query, whereas the bootcamp person will just order another CPU core and 48 GB of RAM with their VM.
Remember MCSE bootcamps from the late 90s? There are now adult versions of these "teach girls to code" bootcamps being offered to much the same target audience. They promise 9 weeks or so of intense study will make you a "web developer" or an "app developer." The world doesn't need thousands more people who know a little Objective-C or Ruby on Rails...if we want the profession to succeed, we need to invest in real education.
Trying to get kids interested in being more than content consumers is a good thing, but treating any of this as a fix to the problems we have with skills is disingenuous.
So I give them 10,000 low income girls, and they teach me to code?
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
Why is there no outcry about the under representation of girls for Selective Service?
https://www.sss.gov/fswho.htm
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
If I see one more article about STEM and young women I am gonna scream like a little girl. Coding is a high-risk career. It may pay relatively well out of college, but beyond that it is NOT a better choice than any other career. Burnout, agism, offshoring, wrist injuries, long hours, investment bubbles, etc. etc. etc. make it a risky career choice. At its best it's a stepping stone into something better, but so are a lot of other fields.
Table-ized A.I.
While they're giving men blowjobs for meth?
Captcha: astute
I don't think you should put children of any gender anywhere near a computer, touchscreen thing, whatever,
unless they expressly show an interest in it.
I'm not aware of any evidence that screen time is good for children, but let's just assume that it may well be.
Even if it may well be, it's still taking time away from stuff that's known to definitely be good for children: playing outside,
playing with lego, pets, etc. And of course, the most likely thing is that it's not good for them, so there's that as well...
So that's one argument against children having computers. On top of that, I've never heard of a good argument for
primary school-age children learning computers: everything I've ever heard in favour of it seems to be some "if they don't learn
it when they're seven, then how will they ever?!?" panic.
If you ask me, the best way would be:
or something. The Finnish curriculum for computers at this age is also good.
begin straight away. (compulsory)
and have it be rigourous. (opt-in)
By this age, you could pretty much even have C be the first language. Not the best language for writing actual programs
at that age, but clearly the best language for computer science. You implement linked lists from scratch, so
of course you know how they work. You learn the difference between a library call and a system call, also great. And day
one of C is learning the difference between source code and machine code.
I didn't start using computers until I was 11, and didn't start programming until I was about 15, and I certainly turned out alright
in terms of technical ability.
Children younger than that should fucking be free to go outside, poke snails in the eye, throw stones at each other, so on.
All without constant adult supervision too. It isn't play if it's not self-directed. Having some babysitter type watching over you,
dictating you to play "nice" is not good. When today's children grow up, it's going to be like Japan. Too much school, not enough
childhood, and when they do get to go outside it's on a schedule.
Because boys get more informal opportunities for computing experience outside of school,
What is that supposed to mean? Both boys and girls use technology equally outside of school as far as I can tell, in terms of access to technology or use of family laptops...
The only thing I can THINK the mean by this, by the very indirect wording, is that boys play more games. Specifically Minecraft. If that's so, say that,
But, I'm not sure Minecraft is truly a direct bridge to programming some seem to think it is... other games are actually a hinderance to learning to program, rather than a help - anything that absorbs time is to some degree taking away time you can learn to use to program.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
When my daughter's guidance councilor recommended that she do the pre-med requirements in college and go to medical school, I rejoiced.
You rejoiced that she probably now will not join and industry with the greatest ability at any point in history to have someone work on what they want, with who they want. Sad.
STEM fields are being offshored
Only the crappy work where the quality of results do not matter; who wanted those jobs anyway?
the working conditions suck
In what way? I'm a consultant, I get to choose the hours I work and take as much vacation as I like. In a job I actually enjoy doing.
The work conditions only suck if you allow them to suck. At this point anyone who is good at programming, especially a female, can write their won ticket.
the profession is filled with bullies and misogynists.
Let me take a guess - you are in California, right? Because I've seen that there, but pretty much no-where else. Businesses do not have time for such people as they are inherently unproductive.
And again, you can choose who you work with so simply do not work with those people. From what I have seen over decades, they are a tiny minority of the actual people you can work with.
By the way, if you actually had a problem with misogynists, you would be quaking in your boots at the thought of her entering the medical profession - where inherently most women are assumed to be nurses... What makes you think that field is not a thousand times worse than the tiny world of problems you know?
What makes you think the job will suck less, not more, when the stress of being a doctor is so incredibly high? What makes you think she will not be living under the cloud of med school debt for five decades as the amount of money doctors makes declines? Are you not rejoicing at the career equivalent of being sent to the front lines in WWI?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Are you sick of Slashdot's Bolshevik bullshit yet?
I'm a Bolshevik, you insensitive clod.
Slashdot's commentaries on gender issues in tech read more like an Onion parody than reasoned discussion. The investment of new dollars in STEM education for poor girls is a wonderful thing. (Frankly, the investment of *any* dollars into education for low income kids is marvelous). The desire among so many here is to just analogize from your own experience and ask "I did it, so why can't X"? It's hard to describe the number of problems with that line of reasoning. But here are a couple of thoughts that maybe can elevate the discussion.
First, there is massive confirmation bias going on. The fact that the system selects people that look like you (and, frankly me) to be successful is not evidence that the system is fair for everyone. Every time some successful person says, "well, I scored well on X test,and look at how successful I am," I just want to shake them until they realize that correlation (i.e.,only people scoring well on X test get into Y job) does NOT imply causation (I am successful at Y job, therefore X test is important.) Because if the entire pool of people at Y job is comprised of good test takers, then only good test takers will become successful.
Second, the fact that you yourself (or someone you know) achieved success against overwhelming odds (whether it be poverty, lack of opportunity, gender, race, whatever) does not mean that there are no barriers to entry into STEM. How many disadvantaged people need to be turned away for every amazing overachiever before we decide that maybe the system is broken?
Third, how can everyone on a site that claims to be nerds completely ignore the scientific evidence of how internalized gender stereotypes affect the decision of women to go into STEM? Why is it that women do worse on standardized tests when you remind them of their gender? There are really fascinating issues going on here that get completely ignored in the Slashdot group think. Frankly, I can't tell if it's just the trolls winning, or if Slashdot's blind spot really is a metaphor for what goes on in tech generally.
It's "learn a few skills that will guarantee that you will become cheap labor for the company (or companies) that sponsor the project. Also, make sure not to acquire any critical thinking capabilities that will allow you to see through that."
...they don't want to. This won't change that in any significant way.
That Gummi Ball face? She is supposedly not Bill's, but Webb Hubbells' offspring.
Why is this such a discussion, the world Bank says 87 percent of Teachers in the United States are women, and 91% of nurses are women...
why are we not demanding that boys get STEM health care experience or training in how to tutor?
This is such a dumb conversation overall.
How often does it have to fail for our lawmakers and beancounters to finally get it through their skull: YOU CANNOT SIMPLY "MAKE" PROGRAMMERS!
It's not law or BA where any monkey can get a degree by rote learning. The very last thing the industry needs is another batch of cargo cult programmers (you know the kind, the ones whose programming style follows the steps
1 google problem
2 copy code
3 paste code
4 make more or less random code changes to "adapt" code to your task.
5 hit "compile" button
6 if it does not compile, resume at step 4.
We have enough of those idiots already. We don't need more. Why not dump them into some law or BA school, at least they can't turn out any worse than what we already have.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
...the truly sexist programs are arriving. Before these kinds of programs just went to the people who needed them. Now they're going to the gender they think needs them.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
If "opportunity is just a click on a keyboard away" then just teach girls how to click on a keyboard!
What about low income boys
Everyone deserves equal opportunity, right?
The lead sponsor of this program is the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) .
Because boys get more informal opportunities for computing experience outside of school, this lack of formal computing education especially affects girls and many youth of color.
That doesn't exclude others from sponsoring similar programs for low income boys.
Is that a cricket I hear chirping?
This is amazing news. We have, apparently, eliminated low income families with boys!
Half the population down, the other half to go!
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
In this day in age, you can do anything you want. There is no digital divide other than what corporations want to pay for talent. They will dump 50 mil into driving down what they can't do themselves into a minimum wage job. It's already headed that way now... efforts like this only help the cause !
I could buy a rasberry pi for every kid in my town with the tolls I pay every year, there I am my own 501c !
If the Clintons want to help the world tell them to get out of politics for good...
Good, so now I can tell them what I'm doing, instead of 'Important computer stuffs' when they go and make me a sammich.
It's interesting that retention is one of the key problems the NCWIT calls out in their study, where they claim a 56% departure rate of women from the field, and yet they have no solutions to offer.
The network of male overlords want to eliminate all their male competition: (e.g. like schools of fish or one of the main points of Dr. Strangelove). Since the technocracy is rising, they can soon rely on robots for all the heavy lifting -- their only problem remaining is the maintaince and programming of the robots and systems they don't want to be bothered with -- so they still need some annoying technical people around. At the moment they're mostly male. :( Not good if you're trying to be the last man on earth!
Conclusion: if the goal is for the males that are now in power (or their great-grandsons who will be in power) to be the only males on the face of the planet: then for everything to keep going they must somehow inculcate females to code and eliminate the need for all (other) males entirely.
Low-income girls would be a nice controllable group to start with.
These stories will stop when they stop getting 200+ comments. Don't feed the trolls.
FTS, "Because boys get more informal opportunities for computing experience outside of school, this lack of formal computing education especially affects girls and many youth of color."
Bullshit! There are no barriers to girls learning to develop software if they have the interest. I doubt mommy and daddy would object to GI Jane asking for a book about Python for her birthday. The World Wide Web is replete with tutorials and reference materials available for the mere cost of an Internet subscription and many homes already have Internet access. Stop with the nonsense claiming girls are not afforded the same informal opportunities as boys.
It seems to me that "computer science" classes should not count towards either math or science High School graduation requirements (which are fairly low in most schools). Even, based on sample questions on the test, the AP "Computer Science A" test is not much "science" (or, "math"). Instead, it's more of a shop/trade class and should be entitled "Computer Programming A".
This isn't to say we should not teach computer programming in High School - we should and there should probably be a required semester class in it. Just don't call it "science" -- that's both a misnomer and likely to actually turn off some students who would be fine technicians.
Even many Computer "Science" BSc curricula are very light, within CSxxx classes, on anything resembling science or math, but at least they usually contain some courses that touch on such things as analysis of algorithms (I guess I could consider that science, although it strikes me as being more like math).
Of course, that's not as bad as elementary and middle schools that have "Computer Science" classes that turn out being about how to use Excel and Word.
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
My usual rate for works out to about $85/hour... I think 10,000 girls is awfully generous.
Where do I sign?
Would take a learn to code program, as it is they only have it on their resumes...
What language will these girls be learning? If it's javascript, php, python, or ruby, that's great. If it's Go or Swift, then this immediately reduces to a novel form of corporate welfare as Google and/or Apple get the government to pay for training their next generation workers
This is just more sexism and pushing people to do things they may not want to do and may not be innately good at. One more step in the journey to mediocrity. The Chinese government officials are probably laughing their heads at this as instead of pushing a class of people to do something they provide equal opportunity to all hackers to hack the US government's computers and steal your souls. (and data)
How much did her mother and (supposed) father tell her to charge for THAT?
Teenage male sees computer for first time and asks, "What can I make the magic box do?"
Teenage female sees computer for first time and asks, "What can the magic box do FOR ME?"
Most males are goofballs. They like to play, without a goal in mind, just for their own amusement.
This happens to be an excellent way to learn computers.
In contrast, most women want that immediate payoff. They don't seem to like to solve difficult puzzles without getting some kind of sensory/emotional cupcake.
This isn't a good way to learn computers. There is nothing emotionally gratifying about them. No cupcakes.
These traits are not universal, but as many here who've tried to teach women software development and computers have noted, there's a strong statistical tendency in this direction.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
...before women will finally be 'equal'?
In my experience, women typically don't want programmer jobs as much as they want the perks and benefits of the job (high salary, benefits, etc)...
Ken
Would be a better investment.
Meeting once a month. It is free. Roughly 10-20 members. I learned plenty there. It is very interesting since the members come from all kinds of backgrounds. The techniques an methods of C++ developers vary tremendously. What has this to do with this article? Simple, in all my years in this group I did not see a single parasite there.
Sure, why not do it, just don't try to fake the results or parade the hand full of exceptions you find, in front of the media, if the results are otherwise disappointing. All it takes to learn code, for any human, is the will to learn and an computing device with access to MIT's Scratch website and the Khan Academy etc. The difficulty is in transmitting to the student a genuine appreciation of why trying to learn the subject will empower them, and the confidence to believe that they are capable of doing so. This is increasingly harder to do in a world and Internet full of eye, ear and brain candy that will keep their minds sated and distracted while otherwise leaving them intellectually malnourished.
I hear she's an expert on tweeting.
to the boys only CS education fund?
If they have decided to make this a gender war, bring it on.