Engaging Middle School Girls in Computational Electronic Design

该项目将使城市中学女生在支助性社区内学习复杂的计算机编程和电子学，在那里，学习是嵌入在有意义的项目中的。 该项目满足了国家让更多女孩参与计算机科学和工程的需要。这是一个混合在线和基于学校/校外（OST）的程序，通过互动叙事集成编程和电子产品。这些挑战将需要编码，设计，电路或使用电子纺织品的解决方案制造，这应该证明是女孩自然参与的活动。 电子纺织品是一种织物，可以将LED、扬声器、传感器、微型计算机和其他电子产品等数字组件嵌入其中。商用电子纺织品的使用正在迅速增长，从能够进行健康监测的电子纺织品，到监测士兵在行动中的位置，再到监测飞行员或驾驶员疲劳的电子纺织品。通过iRemix在线社会学习网络（SLN）提出的计划挑战将支持参与者学习技能，以便他们升级（即，在挑战中掌握一个级别）并最终获得电子徽章。例如，为了提高电子学的水平，女孩必须学习串联和并联电路的基础知识。 通过发展这些领域的技能，女孩将能够创造电子纺织品。参与者将与同行和导师面对面和远程地合作，这些项目由SLN支持，并嵌入到一个引人注目的故事情节中。随着女孩的升级，她们将获得更先进的工具和更丰富的电子纺织品制造材料。 参与者将从芝加哥地区的特许学校招募。该项目将调查这样一种假设，即在这种对女孩友好的环境中参与的女孩将至少与男孩一样掌握这些领域，并形成女性可以在STEM职业中成功和快乐的观念。 基于研究的基本原理是，对STEM的兴趣是通过以参与的方式接触STEM来发展的，兴趣可以通过跨时间和空间的支持性活动从偶然的兴趣加深到发展良好的个人兴趣。 该项目将使用混合方法进行研究，收集和分析有关基线数字和技术流畅性的数据，学生调查（访问，经验和未来的可能性，在线活动，社交网络参与分析以及学生参与情况）。

This project will engage middle-school urban girls in learning sophisticated computer programming and electronics within supportive communities where the learning is embedded in meaningful projects. The project addresses the national need to engage more girls in computer science and engineering. It is a hybrid online and school-based/out-of-school (OST) program that integrates programming and electronics through interactive narratives. The challenges will require coding, designing, circuitry, or fabrication for the solutions using e-textiles, an activity that should prove naturally engaging for girls. E-textiles are fabrics that enable digital components, such as LEDs, speakers, sensors, mini-computers and other electronics to be embedded in them. The use of commercial E-textiles is rapidly growing, ranging from e-textiles that enable health monitoring, monitoring the positions of soldiers in action, or monitoring of pilot or driver fatigue. Program challenges, presented through the iRemix online social learning network (SLN), will support participants in learning a skill so they level up (i.e., master a level in a challenge) and eventually earn electronic badges. For example, to level up in electronics, girls will have to learn the fundamentals of both series and parallel circuits. By developing their skills across these areas, girls will be able to create e-textiles. Participants will work face-to-face and remotely with peers and mentors on projects that are supported by the SLN and embedded in a compelling storyline. As girls level-up, they will unlock access to more advanced tools and a richer set of e-textile fabrication materials. Participants will be recruited from Chicago-area charter schools. The project will investigate the hypothesis that the girls involved within this girl-friendly context will develop a mastery of these areas at least equal to boys and develop the perception that women can succeed and be happy in STEM careers. The research-based rationale is that interest in STEM develops through exposure to STEM in engaging ways and interest can deepen from a casual interest to well-developed individual interest through supportive activities that take place across time and space. The project will use a mixed-methods approach to research that will gather and analyze data regarding baseline digital and technical fluency, student surveys (access, experience and future possibilities, online activities, analysis of social network participation, and profiles of student engagement.