Background
Columba College is a decile 10 school for girls in central Dunedin, teaching Years 7 to 13.
HOD Digital Technology Julie McMahon explains that the school has always had a strong Digital Technology component, with the girls exposed to a variety of skills and applications to create a range of mixed media outcomes.
“In previous years we did a lot on digital information and website design, where we used applications to create websites. However, some of my students were getting into more interactive PHP-based websites, so I took a year off to upskill myself on different programming languages. Through this experience, we had decided that digital media and programming were really important and we wanted to introduce that at every year level starting from Year 9.”
The gaming and programming world is often perceived as a male dominated arena, so Julie has been setting out to address that imbalance. “At Columba we take it as a challenge to expose girls to traditionally male-dominated fields. This starts with introducing the girls to the work of female web designers and 3D artists, and female programmers in particular, because I think that some of the girls think that programming is just for guys,” says Julie.
Inspector Black review
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This exposure includes class visits from female programmers sourced through Futureintech and online interviews with high-profile female programmers.
“At the start of Year 9, we show the girls an interview with Jade Redmond who works for EA Games and is the creator of Assassin’s Creed, one of the most popular games of all time. This works as an introduction for students new to the digital tech unit, and says to them: ‘Alright girls, you can do this, you can be a programmer!’ We introduce them to the idea that they can be programmers at Year 9, then Year 10 is the skills foundation and Year 11 is their third exposure to computer programming.”
The computer gaming course is an excellent example of a Year 11 project that takes a foundation of computer programming skills accumulated over previous years to make an original outcome.
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