December 1998 — Features
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The Cyber Sisters Club: Using the Internet to Bridge the Technology Gap with Inner City Girls
Fifteen girls from Mosser Elementary School's fifth grade classes were selected by their teachers and counselor to participate in the program. A majority of the students were Hispanic, many from families who had recently come to Pennsylvania from Puerto Rico. The girls were bused to and from the Penn State campus, located about 30 minutes from their school, by the University. Club activities focused on using the Internet and creating personal Web pages. As Sherry Turkle noted in her EDUCOM '97 address, the Internet, more than any other advance in computing, has the potential to bring girls and women into the culture of technology due to its social and creative aspects such as e-mail, chat rooms and Web page design.A "Girl Friendly" Environment
The activities and surroundings chosen for the Club reflect the results of educational research focusing on girls and their preferences in a learning environment. In D'es Jane Compute, Roberta Furger documents techniques that have been used successfully to draw girls into computer activities.[4] These include assigning collaborative projects that emphasize cooperation rather than competition, acknowledging girls' expertise as they gain computer skills, using them as peer assistants, making computer activities relevant to girls, and creating a more nurturing "girls only" sanctuary where girls will not be intimidated by more computer-literate boys.
One problem observed during group work on a computer is a tendency for the most computer-savvy student in a group to take control of the mouse so that other students finish the project without gaining new skills and confidence. To avoid this pitfall but still maintain a collaborative environment, each Cyber Sister worked on her own computer while seated with other girls at a circular table. In this way the girls were able to share their online experiences as they worked and to help each other with problems. This arrangement also provided opportunities to publicly recognize the girls by asking them to help other students with something they had mastered or discovered on the Internet.
Penn State Lehigh Valley's wireless "CoLab", completed two weeks before the first Club meeting, provided the perfect setting for this type of cooperative learning. In the CoLab, modular, mobile tables can be configured to encourage collaborative learning in various size groups. The room during the first sessions of the Cyber Sisters Club resembled an "intimate cafe," with six small round tables and dimmed lighting. One drawback to this design was a lack of interaction among girls from different tables. Sites and skills discovered by one group weren't shared with the others. Also some girls were disappointed that they couldn't sit with friends at another table. By rearranging the table segments into one large oval, we changed the segregated groups into one large community. Although this added somewhat to the noise level in the room, it gave everyone a sense of belonging and also allowed new discoveries to spread around the table. Girls who wanted a quiet space to write or to consult with staff on an element of Web page design could move to one of three smaller tables in the back of the room.
