TECHGIRLS

Donna Bozzo. Special To The Tribune
CHICAGO TRIBUNE

Candice Houck is in the 5th grade. When she grows up, she wants to design sports cars.
"I'm fascinated with cars--how they are made, how they're designed,"she says. "Someday I'd like to design something big, like the Corvette. Being a car designer will require a lot of learning. You need to know how many watts to put in an engine to make it fast. And you need to know how many pieces of steel you need to make it light but sturdy. You have to know art, math and lots of technology."

To become a car designer, Candice, 11, will have her work cut out for her--that she knows. What she may not know is the odds are not in her favor--because she is a girl.
According to the American Association of University Women's Educational Foundation, women make up just 9 percent of the recipients of engineering-related bachelor's degrees. And many believe that number won't increase until there are some big changes in the classroom when it comes to science and technology.

"To get girls under the hood of technology,"says Pamela Haag, director of research for the foundation, "the process must start in the classroom."
But Candice--and her fellow class-mates--may buck the system thanks to a jump-start they are getting from their teacher, Shannon Jancich, and their school, Joan Martin Elementary in Hobart, Ind. Students there recently received an international award for the multimedia project they put together last year in Jancich's class.
"This is something extra we did, although it coincided with our curriculum,"Jancich says. "We took biography projects the kids put together and created a multimedia time machine that takes viewers through the lives of some of America's greats. With a click, viewers can learn about the lives of Martin Luther King, Thomas Edison, the Wright Brothers and George Washington."
The class competed against children in grades 3 through 5 from all over the world in a contest sponsored by the Association for Educational Communication and Technology.

Jancich and four class representatives traveled to California to claim the prize. "It was a great experience for the children to do something this powerful,"she says. "They were so proud of the project--it was very professional looking. The nicest thing is it forced them to learn things they wouldn't have learned otherwise. The project required tasks they never tried before--like digitizing video, building animation and creating links--so we had to figure things out as we went along. When everything is new, you learn so much."
Experts say getting the opportunity to kick the tires of technology in the classroom is an invaluable learning experience for boys and girls, but especially girls. "The classroom may be the only place many girls encounter the computer,"Haag says. "And although girls use the Internet and e-mail, we see a gender difference in the sophisticated uses of technology."
They can get the exposure they need if someone is willing to help.
"It all begins with the teacher,"says Flora Keslin, principal of Joan Martin School. "When teachers use technology to support the curriculum, they take children so much further into their education."
That's why Keslin says she is a big supporter of training and staff development. She believes the key to teaching students is to give teachers the opportunity to gain technical skills.
Joan Martin School, which has been receiving awards like this one since 1994, may be on the cutting edge of that thinking. According to a recent HarrisInteractive Online Survey, only 11 percent of teachers report that they received training in how to apply or integrate computer technology into their lesson plans. Training teachers to incorporate technology will help their students get jobs someday--and that's important where women are concerned.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics lists computer scientists, computer engineers and systems analysts as the top three occupations with the fastest employment growth. If girls are not present in areas of study that lead to jobs in those fields, women won't be picked for prime posts in the future. And that's not all.
"To be successful at a technical company--and all companies are becoming technical companies--you have to have technical skills,"says Bernadette Grey, editor of Working Woman magazine. "If you ever want to run a business or be a CEO of a big company, you will have to have the skills of that business. Girls are more likely to specialize in journalism, marketing or human resources. They can rise up the ranks with that kind of expertise, but in the future they will never run a company."
Or design cars.
"I would have never thought of becoming a car designer in elementary school,"says Peggy Buffington, director of technology at Joan Martin School. "But since these girls have been exposed to technology since they were in 1st grade, they are exploring options my generation never considered. They go from designing computer animation to thinking, `Hey, I can use these same skills and design a car.' "
Experts agree that early exposure is key.
"We recommend that teachers help girls and boys develop their technology imaginations early on,"Haag says. "If they receive enough exposure to the environ-ment, they will start to think about how things work and begin thinking of themselves as creators of software programs and designers of video games, not just end users."
"The children in Jancich's class started with a blank screen and created their project from scratch,"Keslin says. "They asked themselves, where do we go from here and let's learn how to get there. They became creators."
The process seems to be catching on.
"I love using the computer to create things no one has ever thought of," says Lisa Nedberg, 11, a student in Jancich's class.
And who knows how far girls like her will take it.
"People say there's going to be flying cars in the future; that's going to take a lot of technology,"says Candice.
"No matter where they work, we know all these children will need to know how to communicate through technology,"Jancich says. "And it will only become more important. Think about how much things have changed just in one year with technology. Imagine where we'll be in 10 years."
Or in 20 when today's girls will be starting careers--girls like Jancich's new baby daughter.
Little Sophie Marie is the future generation, and if technology is important for her mother's students, it will be even more important for her.
But if Jancich has anything to do with it, all the girls in her life will remain ahead of the curve.