TechGURLS: Egaming and Teenage Girls

1. TechGURLS: Egaming and Teenage Girls Presented by Lesley Farmer lfarmer@csulb.edu www.csulb.edu/~lfarmer

2. What’s the Situation? Are girls interested in egaming? • YES! About 67% of 9-12 year old girls do and over 90% of 13-17 year old girls use technology • 40% of girl game daily • 6% of preteen and 4 % of teen girls make up game audience • Girls spend less time (household priorities)

3. Egame Mastery and Gender • Girls master individually vs. boys learning from each other (because of societal messages) • Girls ask boys for advice • Girls tend not to use manuals • Girls tend to reset level or game • Girls may walk away from controls/navigation • Expert gamers are gender-neutral

4. What’s the Problem?? Girls don’t like the computer culture: • They don’t like the nature of most computer games • They dislike stereotypical female characters • They see few female role models • And their attitude becomes more problematic when they hit adolescence because of social issues… • … by the way, did you know that parents are more likely to buy computers for boys than girls?

5. What Happens in Schools? • Technology-enhanced projects are gender-neutral or more male oriented. • Girls are discouraged from taking advanced tech courses. • Girls lack info about the impact of technology on salaries and promotions. • Girls tend to classify all tech jobs as masculine. • Schools tend to “dis” egames.

6. The World of Gaming • Nature of the game, its characters, its story line • Graphic features • Interactivity • Openness • Context • Incorporation into education • Scaffolding • Personalized textual feedback

7. Benefits of Egaming • use of fixed, equitable rules • clear roles and expectations • internally-consistent environment where everything is possible • clear goals within a rich context that gives goals personal meaning and relevance • opportunities to explore identities • cognitive and affective engagement • multiple ways to achieve goals through constructivist strategies • specific, timely feedback • sense of control and personal investment • situated learning • sense of reward for effort, including trial and error • structured interaction between players, and between players and the game • blend of cooperation and competition

8. Tips to Engage Girls with Egames • Provide choice • Get the girls’ input – and act on it • Make it social: encourage buddy learning • Focus on communication – and human relationships • Encourage intellectual risk-taking • Emphasize effort more than mastery • Have fun!

9. School Conditions for Engagement • Broad-based vision and mission • Positive and open community-based school culture • Cohesive, interdependent curriculum • Strong repertoire of instructional/learning strategies • Sufficient resources • System infrastructure and support

10. Criteria for Choosing Egames • confidence: encourage and support girls’ abilities • collaboration: facilitate working together • personal identification: relate to personal life • contextuality: present information in narrative or story form • flexibility/motility: offer several navigational paths • social connectivity: facilitate interpersonal connections • inclusion: portray diverse populations • multimedia presence: meld high-quality graphic, motion and audio elements

11. Library Portals and Egaming • add game-related displays that include game art, game-related fiction, and information about careers in gaming • link to gaming magazines and strategy guides • publicize gaming events and resources • add student-created content, such as game reviews

12. Instruction and Egaming Principles • provide student choice (which topic to study) • offer opportunities for low-pressure situations • emphasize the importance of memorizing and mastering basics of a concept before applying the knowledge • Facilitate collaborative work • provide extra help for struggling students • provide extension activities for students who excel • evaluate effort rather than product • use alternative and authentic assessments – designing demo games, tests based on mastery levels (not everyone takes the same tests)

13. Egaming and Information Literacy • just-in-time verbal or textual feedback when the learner wants it • affirmation of effort as it leads to performance and competence • incorporation of the affective domain, particularly as it relates to personal priorities • consideration of systems and relationships as they impact information analysis and use • emphasis on distributed knowledge and cross-functional information-seeking teams • acknowledgement and leveraging of multiple perspectives • empathy of complex information systems

14. What Can Adults Do? • Have girls bookmark egames when they use the Internet – make them easy to find! • Include these site on web portals • Link to projects that support girls’ career exploration • Alert the school community about these egames • Plan activities that use these egames

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