Girls Tech CONFIDENCECOLLABORATIONPERSONAL IDENTIFICATIONCONTEXTUALITYFLEXIBILITY/MOTILITYSOCIAL CONNECTIVITYINCLUSIONGRAPHICS/MULTIMEDIAGirls, Science, and Technology


EVALUATING MATERIALS
BACKGROUND
SAMPLES RATED
RESEARCH
REFERENCES
GIRLS TECH HOME
carat Does the web site allow the user to select from numerous navigational paths?
carat Does the resource allow the user to rearrange the physical placement of objects on the screen?
carat Does the resource require closure, or does it support fluidity and exploration?
carat Do questions and problems embedded within the resource have multiple solutions?

Young women are likely to prefer electronic resources that have multiple possible paths and many possible answers to questions and problems posed.
        Some women dislike computers based on a belief that there is just one “right way” of doing things in the digital world. This gender-based attitude surfaces in women’s and men’s evaluations of computer software. In general, women “are drawn towards a style of programming…best characterized as…a relational encounter… It is marked by an artistic, almost tactile style of identification with computational objects, a desire to ‘play with them’ as though they were physical objects in a collage.” Many men, on the other hand, tend to prefer a risk-taking style, “characterized by testing the limits of both machine and self through mastery and manipulation of the computer environment.”
        It has been found that young women do not desire closure of a section of a computer game “before moving onto another game or segment of a game. They seemed to prefer moving freely among environments without ‘completing’ or winning one. The contrasting paradigm — that players will continue until they win or move to the next level — which usually appears in popular gaming software, was not observed….”
 

Good examples that enable flexibility/motility:

Solar System Simulator (web site)
Grades: 4 & up. The Solar System Simulator enables users to view full-color representations of numerous planets and satellites as they would appear at any day, year, and hour of the past or present. VIEW RATING

Technology at Home (web site)
Grades: 4 & up. PBS presents a self-directed tour of twentieth-century home technology advances. VIEW RATING

Do It Yourself (web game)
Grades: 3 & up. This addictive site allows users to design and build 3-D block models. Users can email their creations to friends or post them to the site. VIEW RATING