Designing Social Networks for New Learning Communities Sarita Yardi Amy Bruckman electronic learning communities College of Computing Georgia Institute of Technology Mark Guzdial

www-static.cc.gatech.edu/~yardi Statewide Vertical Alliance to Broaden Participation through Contextualized Computing georgia computes Statewide Vertical Alliance to Broaden Participation through Contextualized Computing An Alliance of Georgia Institute of Technology CEISMC (Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics, and Computing) Georgia Department of Education Girl Scout Council of Northwest Georgia and the University System of Georgia

www-static.cc.gatech.edu/~yardi Statewide Vertical Alliance to Broaden Participation through Contextualized Computing designing an online community To cause a dramatic change in the makeup of students pursuing computing undergraduate programs, we need a dramatic change in how computing is perceived. We know that women and minority students avoid computing because of their perceptions of it: boring, tedious, asocial, and irrelevant. We propose the expansion of a statewide, vertical alliance to communicate the image of contextualized computing and support women and minorities pursuing careers in contextualized computing from pre-high-school, through high-school, undergraduate, and graduate education with contextualized M.S. and Ph.D. degrees.

www-static.cc.gatech.edu/~yardi Statewide Vertical Alliance to Broaden Participation through Contextualized Computing We conducted a study in which we taught middle school teens to program in MicroWorlds… …and found that their perceptions of computer programming were completely disconnected from their everyday practices and experiences online computing perceptions

www-static.cc.gatech.edu/~yardi Statewide Vertical Alliance to Broaden Participation through Contextualized Computing What is computer science? computing (mis)perceptions What is technology? “Cool. I don’t know how to explain it. I don’t know... Cool and exciting and fun and technological and interesting” “…anything that has software… sort of software… lots of stuff… I really forget… solar powered” “it involves computers and stuff like that, technology is like… is it kind of like a chip? A TV has plugs ‘n’ stuff, anything that’s electric would have a technology… [pointing] this thing right here, the little device thing right here… I don’t even know” “a machine that has its own brain, kind of in a way?” “Science on the computer?”

www-static.cc.gatech.edu/~yardi Statewide Vertical Alliance to Broaden Participation through Contextualized Computing Undergraduate CS enrollment has decreased by 59% since 2000 Interest in CS among women fell 80% between 1998 and 2004 statistics

www-static.cc.gatech.edu/~yardi Statewide Vertical Alliance to Broaden Participation through Contextualized Computing applying computing concepts to solve human problems computing contextualized to Jump Height local "OriginalHeading make "OriginalHeading heading seth 0 forward thing "Height wait 1 back thing "Height seth thing "OriginalHeading end ==================== to Main cc talkto "t1 setsh [dog1 dog2] seth 270 repeat 200 [Walk Jump 10] end ==================== to Square Length repeat 4 [forward thing "Length right 90 wait 1] end to Start Main end to Walk StepSize QSteps repeat thing "QSteps [forward thing "StepSize wait 1] end

www-static.cc.gatech.edu/~yardi Statewide Vertical Alliance to Broaden Participation through Contextualized Computing media comp CS1315 Introduction to Media Computation

www-static.cc.gatech.edu/~yardi Statewide Vertical Alliance to Broaden Participation through Contextualized Computing How can we build on teenagers’ use of online social networks to encourage them to pursue academic and professional careers in computers and technology ? the research question

www-static.cc.gatech.edu/~yardi Statewide Vertical Alliance to Broaden Participation through Contextualized Computing the evolution of the turtle from MicroWorlds to Neopets Researcher: What do you think you could do with this turtle?” Participant: “Feed it and love it and take care of it”

www-static.cc.gatech.edu/~yardi Statewide Vertical Alliance to Broaden Participation through Contextualized Computing 87% of year olds are online 51% go online everyday Internet use jumps… …from 60% in the 6 th grade …to 82% in the 7 th grade …to 94% in the 12 th grade teens are online

www-static.cc.gatech.edu/~yardi Statewide Vertical Alliance to Broaden Participation through Contextualized Computing 89% of online teens use and 75% use IM 15 million unique visitors to Facebook in August 2006 Over 100 million registered users on MySpace 68% of teens have a MySpace, Xanga or Facebook profile Over 70 million registered users on Neopets teens are networked

www-static.cc.gatech.edu/~yardi Statewide Vertical Alliance to Broaden Participation through Contextualized Computing 50% of online teens have created content 19% have created their own online journal or blog 22% report keeping their own personal webpage 32% have shared self-created media content teens are content creators “I want to get a picture and put it on MySpace.” “Can we learn how?” “Ms. [Teacher’s Name], what you doing?” “Installing MicroWorlds” “Why can’t you install the Internet, girl?”

www-static.cc.gatech.edu/~yardi Statewide Vertical Alliance to Broaden Participation through Contextualized Computing what is contextualized computing? Cause they’re me! They’re part of [name], they’re who I am!” [name]

www-static.cc.gatech.edu/~yardi Statewide Vertical Alliance to Broaden Participation through Contextualized Computing But when she wore one of Chip's recent skins, it also became, as Erika tells me, "[A]lmost a Black like Me thing." This is because the design Chip Midnight asked her to wear is a staggeringly attractive, astoundingly photo- realistic, young African-American woman-- something of a Serena Williams, say, set to 3D. The (other) Skin I’m In Normally Erika Thereian is blonde and California tan, an avatar hybrid of Jenny McCarthy and Pamela Anderson, nothing less than the archetypal white girl of the world's dreams. Recently her friend Chip Midnight asked her to model his latest "skin“. SECOND LIFE

www-static.cc.gatech.edu/~yardi Statewide Vertical Alliance to Broaden Participation through Contextualized Computing What do you like to do online? What social networking sites do you use? How do you like to keep in touch with your friends? What new skills do you want to learn on the computer? Would you want to have a job that involves computers? next steps: asking them what they want

www-static.cc.gatech.edu/~yardi Statewide Vertical Alliance to Broaden Participation through Contextualized Computing social networking communities for teens the future of computing… …the future of Georgia Sarita Yardi College of Computing Georgia Institute of Technology