Mini-Course: Round Three

I'm super excited to be doing round three of my week-long mini-course for grade eight girls 'Computer Science and Games: Just for Girls!' this May. I've been thinking about what I might change this time around to make it better than ever:

• Try using Scratch instead of Game Maker. The girls are definitely capable of making some great little games with Game Maker, but I am particularly interested in the fact that there is a community of similar-aged students using Scratch. This community might encourage the girls to keep using it after the course.
• Do even less lecturing. I want to do even more activities, and maybe even show some games during the lecture portion of the class. I have a couple more CS Unplugged activities in mind that should fit well into the class.
• I want to tweak my survey so I get even better information about how the course affects the girls' opinions of careers in computer science.
• I'd like to find an effective way for the girls to keep in touch after the course (with each other as well as with me). This will be even more important during high school when the pressures of being cool might make them look away from computer science.