This is an amended version of an artticle I first published in 2010.

One of the apparently insoluble problems of the age is how do you encourage more girls to take up ICT or Computing? I think a lot can be done, and have done so myself, but I wonder how far a lot of the effort fails to get to the heart of the issue, which could be the curriculum itself, the way it is taught, or a combination of the two?

What prompted this insight (assuming it is an insight) is a very fascinating and engaging book I’m reading at the moment called “Inside her pretty little head”, by Jane Cunningham and Philippa Roberts. It’s actually a book on marketing, and I have to say that when I came across it on the library shelf my first thought was that it was going to be either a feminist treatise or one of those books that tell you as long as you use pink and say nice words you’re on to a winner as far as the ladies are concerned.

I was delighted to discover that I was wrong on both counts. What the authors have done is very succinctly and, I believe, accurately, provided a summary of the academic research into the differences between the female and male brains, and therefore the differences between women and men in the way they think.

Now, there is always a danger of stereotyping a particular group of people – in this case women – or of taking a single idea too far.Nevertheless, although life is both complex and complicated, that does not mean that solutions have to be. Indeed, I’ve often found that the simpler a proposition, the closer to the truth it is likely to be.

At the risk of doing the book, especially the opening chapter, a grave injustice, I will latch on to just one or two of the differences the authors highlight, namely that, on the whole, men tend to analyse, to take things apart and put them together again to see how they work,  whereas women tend to take a much more holistic approach. Also, men tend to try and solve problems on their own, whilst women tend to deal with issues by drawing on their support network and discussing them.

Assuming this is actually true (I’ve read conflciting views), in answer to the question posed in the title of this article, I would say that the curriculum itself is not as important as the methods used to teach it. But what does any of this mean as far as attracting girls into computing in further and higher education, and the world of work, is concerned?

I have come across all sorts of approaches to making computing more attractive to girls, such as having girls’ computer clubs (which I regard as both sexist and potentially patronising), bringing in women speakers to address the students and focusing on “feminine” problems such as what colour nail polish to choose (which I thought both patronising and ridiculously trivial). 

But I wonder if, in the total scheme of things, providing female role models and so on is as important as providing a learning environment and experiences which are much more in tune with the way girls see and experience the world?

   

The equipment

Yet another barrier to entry might be unreliability. In one school I joined, nobody would touch the school network. The reason, I discovered, was that it had a habit of turning itself off at random times with no warning. It turned out that one of the cables in the wall was broken. Once that had been fixed, “all” I had to do was convince colleagues that the system was now robust and reliable.

   

Technical know-how

Another barrier to entry might be a lack of expertise. One way to lower that barrier to entry is to make the process of logging on to the school network, and then using it purposefully, very easy. In my case I did the following:-

• Installed a menu system on the front end so as to make it easy, once you had logged in, to select the task you wished to perform;

• Wrote a manual that had instructions on how to use one application per page, with one manual per computer;

• Posted how-to notices around the computer rooms;

• Stuck a card containing the login details on each computer.

   

Tech know-how

Another barrier to entry might be a lack of expertise. One way to lower that barrier to entry is to make the process of logging on to the school network, and then using it purposefully, very easy. In my case I did the following:-

• Installed a menu system on the front end so as to make it easy, once you had logged in, to select the task you wished to perform;

• Wrote a manual that had instructions on how to use one application per page, with one manual per computer;

• Posted how-to notices around the computer rooms;

• Stuck a card containing the login details on each computer.

   

Useful concepts for the head of computing/edtech co-ordinator: keeping computer rooms locked, and having a time-consuming means of booking them

That was the situation in a school I joined as head of computing. The computer rooms were kept locked at all times, but staff could access them any time they liked. All they had to do was get the keys.

Fairly reasonable especially as the keys were kept in the deputy heads’ office, which was open all the time. Except when it wasn’t, which was when the deputy heads were having a meeting, or teaching. In those circumstances, you were kept locked out of the computer rooms for an hour or so. I asked the school office stay if the keys could be kept with them instead, and they agreed. It made sense: there is someone in the school office every day.

That was one problem solved, but there was another one. If you wanted to take a class into a computer room you had to book it first. Again, that makes sense, otherwise two classes might try to use the same room at the same time.

The problem was that each room’s booking timetable was kept in the room itself — and there were three computer rooms (at the time: I later expanded the number to four, plus a computer area for staff only).

Thus a teacher would have to check the booking sheets for each room separately. So think about how much time this would take out of a teacher’s “free” period or their lunch break. They would have to get the keys from the deputy heads’ office (if it was unlocked), check the sheets in each of three rooms (potentially) and then return the keys.

I changed the booking sheets in two ways: I put the timetable for the three rooms on one sheet per week; I put the collection of sheets for the half-term ahead on the staffroom noticeboard.

Hopefully, this is an issue that wouldn’t arise today — at least it shouldn’t, given the (I hope) ubiquity of digital booking systems. Having said that, if the booking system is complicated enough, it could reproduce the same sort of difficulties, just in digital form.

Disincentives

It should hardly need pointing out that this sort of thing can easily put some teachers off using computers in their lessons at all. If you would like to read about an example of what I’m talking about, read this article:

My Worst IT Training Days #2: Another Internet Training Day (Updated)