May 5, 2008
Computing Group Strives to Get Teenagers Into Computer Careers
The WGBH Educational Foundation and the Association for Computing Machinery are launching a marketing campaign aimed at encouraging college-bound high-school students to pursue careers in computer science. The two-year project, called New Image for Computing, is particularly focused on encouraging Latina girls and African-American boys to get into the field.
The two-year project will use thousands of computer scientists, as well as parents, teachers, and counselors to spread the word that computer scientists work in a variety of settings, not just technology companies. The campaign also seeks to dispel the stereotype that computer scientists are loners and that the acumen required to tackle the field is too daunting.
The project has received a $853,723-grant from the National Science Foundation. The WGBH foundation is an offshoot of WGBH, public television’s Boston affiliate. The Association for Computing Machinery represents computer scientists in academe, industry, and government. —Andrea L. Foster
Posted on Monday May 5, 2008 | Permalink |Comments
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It would be interesting to see if this $853,723 NSF grant includes an independent evaluation of success and to know how “lessons learned” will be fed into the next generation of feel-good Federal funding.
My guess is that, instead of a marketing campaign, experimenting with appropriate training for public-school teachers at all levels and providing computational infrastructure for selected classrooms would do a great deal more to attract students to computer science and also help the nation decide what truly ambitious computer-science-education programs are worth supporting.
By the way, where’s Microsoft in all this? They earn three or four times the ROI of the oil companies and should be contributing a significant amount of those profits (known as “immoral profits” when discussing other industries) to an effort that promises to benefit them as much as anyone. Or do they also object to marketing campaigns?
— S. Britchky May 5, 04:03 PM #
S.Britchky, you raise a good point with regard to whether marketing will provide the biggest result for the dollars proposed.
With regard to your comment on Microsoft, however, I suggest you do a little research on Microsoft’s efforts in this arena. I don’t mean to suggest they are doing enough as I don’t know if this is the case, but to imply they are not to be found on this matter is either being ill-informed or using the issue to vent about your apparent dislike for Microsoft.
I am not an expert with regard to what Microsoft or any other company is doing in this regard, however, I am very concerned with the overall issue of the decline in our science and math pipeline in the US, and take interest in any activities that are geared to help stem this trend.
According to articles I have read (plus a few minutes of internet research to pull some links for you), Microsoft does (or has done) the following with regard to this issue:
1. Although not targeted solely to computer science, the Gates Foundation has contributed $1.5 B (yes, B) illion nationally to education. Much of this is targeted toward underperforming districts.
2. Bill Gates has been a frequent speaker in front of congressional committees and at Colleges regarding this situation.
3. Microsoft sponsors a number of activities geared toward getting students interested in computer science, including technology camps for girls (https://www.microsoft.com/about/diversity/programs/camps.mspx),
scholarships to students, including those targeted toward women in computing (http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2007/nov07/11-06ncwit.mspx), and sponsors minority student days where high school students have the opportunity to learn about technology and technology career opportunities (http://www.microsoft.com/about/diversity/programs/dac/bam/studentday.mspx).
There’s probably more, but hopefully the above starts to answer your question, “where’s Microsoft in all this?”
— Kevin O May 5, 07:25 PM #
I’m of the co-PIs on this project. The project consists of national research (as well as building on what that’s already been done by others), message development, extensive testing, and a pilot implementation. All along the way there will be extensive assessment and evaluation. We are not about supplanting or duplicating any proven projects that already exist, but are looking to create umbrella messaging that can be used by others and woven into what they are doing. Our experience and research to date has shown that kids won’t even consider a CS course if they perceive the field to be boring, irrelevant, too hard, etc. So, our thesis is that the first step is to change the image so that more kids are interested in giving it a try. At the core of our efforts will be a coalition of partners from academia, industry, professional societies, etc. so that we bring to the table from the outset as many of the interested parties as possible, learn from their experience, share our findings, and create a community all focused on enhancing CS.
— Julie Benyo May 6, 08:30 AM #