I’m sat here watching the teaching awards 2006 on TV in the UK and it’s amazing what teachers manage to do within schools. These teachers all want the children to be the best that they possibly can. One thing that does become apparent is that the teachers need the support and encouragement of the people around them before they can encourage others. I wonder then whether the teachers in the UK can manage to help make technology more accessible and exciting to all the children in the class, even the girls…
The thing is they need to know what it is that excites females about technology, the boys it seems fall into the subject area through games. As a girl I didn’t get into computers until I got given a book on how to program it. 
I know… very geeky! How to program the Commadore 64 in basic! For me it was all about the challenge of solving problems in UI design, and getting data from a to b. It was and still is also about creating something new and innovative for me. It’s not that dry dull subject that most people think it is and I think it takes a very special sort of teacher to bring that message across to students. Technology is such a fast growing area that curriculum is bound to always be many steps behind what is really happening around the children. Many children may not understand how big a part technology plays these days and I am hoping that one day we can get these messages across to them.
Technology is exciting, it has so much to offer and there are so many different things that are going on in the industry. If every school in the UK asked for one hour of a local high tech firm’s time to take someone from industry and place them in a school to do a single lesson on the subject I am sure the children would remember it. The thing is getting the right people to do those sort of talks. They have to be technologists who can make technology accessible, exciting and fun! Who knows if an initiative like this could get off the ground, then maybe we would see a whole lot more people from the UK going into those IT related degree courses and eventually into businesses!
About Sarah Lamb
Sarah is the founder of the Girl Geek Dinners & GirlyGeekdom. She is a lover of gadgets, geeky things and sport! Find out more about her on her website.
Web | Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn | More Posts (289)
