10 Tips For Getting Girls Interested in Computers

1. Girls like to join clubs and take classes with their friends. A lone girl is unlikely to join a computer club by herself. Invite girls to join clubs or classes as a group.
2. Girls need role models; they need to see women using computers with confidence. When you invite speakers to classes or clubs, make sure you include women. Share information about women who are leaders in the field.
3. Make a conscious effort to encourage girls. Make them lab assistants. Call on girls more often, even if they don't volunteer. Ask them difficult questions. Try to find time for girls to be on machines when boys are not around. Choose a girl to help set up new hardware or software. Start a club that appeals to girls. Make sure they take the highest level of computing offered. Personally invite them to go to a computing contest.
4. Inform them of what computer science as a career is really like. Girls may perceive it as a job spent all day in a cubicle with nothing but a machine.
5. Girls tend to ask for assistance when something won't work Encourage them to be daring with the machine. Only step in if you really need to, and then try just a hint or help them to read the manual.
6. For young girls, purchase games that appeal to them. The more time she spends on a computer, the more confident she will become with the machine.
7. In class, collaborate more; compete less. In general, girls respond better to collaborative projects rather than competitive. Encourage collaborations, but be alert to boys dominating the group.
8. Girls like to see what computers can do for them. Let them prepare their papers on the computers, show them how to write Web pages, or teach them to make a graph using a spreadsheet.
9. Put the home computer in a centralized location and give girls equal access with their brothers.
10. Find out what percentage of the students in the highest level of computer science taught at your school are girls. If it's not at least 50 percent, make the school aware of the problem. Talk to counselors, parents, and other teachers to enlist their help in encouraging the girls in your school into the highest levels of computer science.

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