UW-Whitewater CyberGirlz Technology Camp

July 30, 2008 · by Tammy Adler

Kacie Conroy, one of our team members, and I traveled today to UW-Whitewater to observe and present to their CyberGirlz Camp. This FREE Technology Camp for Middle School Girls runs from July 28 – August 1, 2008.

The camp is meant to be a hands-on learning experience for girls entering 6th and 7th grade. It is a fun and exciting way for girls to learn how to:

• Build your own website
• Create a digital scrapbook
• Learn to animate objects
• Build a computer
• Turn digital pictures into a video slideshow
• Share digital creations with friends

QWANtify monetarily sponsored the camp and Kacie delivered her GET IT program. The program teaches, through roll playing, the different types of information technology careers available upon college graduation. Kacie starts by briefly explaining the different roles (i.e., project manager, business analyst, quality assurance analyst, software developer, software architect, graphic designer). She then begins the roll playing exercise by explaining to the students she is interested in them making her a sandwich. She asks them to become business analysts and ask her questions about the type of sandwich she wants. What type of bread, is it toasted, does it have meat, what type of meat, what type of dressing, etc. Once the students get the hang of the exercise, Kacie proceeds with the next exercise. She has drawn a landscape picture. She asks the girls to ask her questions about the landscape. Is it daylight? Is the sun out? What color is the sun? Is it summer? Are there trees? What type of trees? Are there houses, how many, what color, do they have chimneys? Are there any fences, pets, what type of pets? Are there clouds in the sky? Is the grass short? This exercise goes on for 10 minutes, rotating among the girls to ask questions. The idea is the girls ask questions, listen to other’s questions and take notes. After the question and answer session is complete, the girls have five minutes to draw the picture Kacie has in her folder. The point is to demonstrate to students the role of the information technology business analyst. After the pictures are drawn, they are all gathered, mixed together and two are randomly drawn for a bright orange GET IT t-shirt.

There were about 40-50 girls at the camp. I was amazed and very pleased to see how excited they were about Kacie’s GET ITTM program. Kacie’s on to something here. We really need to, in a very simple way, educate students about the different information technology roles. As a result of the role playing, many students voiced their interest in information as a college and career vocation. Some were excited about business analysis, some about quality assurance; others were excited about graphic design or project management. These students, mind you, had no idea what information technology was prior to attending the GET ITTM roll playing exercise.

Kudos to Kacie and the University of Whitewater for putting on such a wonderful FREE summer camp.

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