No abstract

We describe work on developing workshop activities that are part of wConnect, a project that is building an online community of women in computer and information science. The workshops are designed by college women for high school girls, with hands-on construction of dynamic web sites. Because of limited workshop time, the activities use scaffolding to help girls achieve the intended learning objectives. In this paper we describe the design of the activities, their formative evaluation in a series of four workshops, and how we are using these results in the larger project.

The under-representation of women in computer and information science (CIS) has created a crisis in availability of qualified CIS professionals and diversity of perspectives. Many interventions are being explored but these are primarily institutional programs like curriculum enhancements and mentoring. We describe wConnect, a developmental learning community that leverages social relations and social networking software to support women in CIS. This is a practical issue of some urgency that presents an opportunity for community informatics to impact the CIS profession. We report our progress and lessons learned, so that other organizations can initiate similar outreach activities.