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General Project Description –

In today’s society, the most common exposure girls have to computers is the WWW and word processing.   Due to a lack of interest in computer technology for its own sake, girls are often thought to be also less interested in computer applications.  There have been many papers proposing ways to bridge the gender gap in technology fields.  One of many ideas is to develop computer games that are geared exclusively toward young girls.  The focus on girls of this age is important because this is the time when girls often decide what field they will go into [Gender and Career - Bair]. 

The creation of more computer games focused on female preferences is crucial.  Because there aren’t enough computer games available to promote girls’ interaction with computers. In regard to the domination of games created for boys, one paper states: “In addition to the strong signal it sends about who is likely to want to play computer and video games, it contributes to boys spending more time on computers, and thus developing more basic skills and confidence.  Moreover, boys are often motivated to learn to program to be able to create their own computer games.”  [Girls, Boys, and Computers - Klawe.] 

Jane’s Domaze will be directed toward the preferences girls have with computer games.  At the highest level, our game will allow the user to manipulate character actions and environment settings in a non-hostile way… an idea that was proven to be successful in the Bret Harte Middle School in study of 2001.  “Girls appreciated the opportunity to create their own games.  They liked working on creating their own characters instead of having them chosen for us.” [Developing a Hardware and Programming Curriculum for Middle School Girls - Countryman, Feldman, Kekelis, and Spertus]. 

Another issue pertaining to the gender gap in computer technology is that often there aren’t enough computers available in schools, and boys tend to be more aggressive at getting access to those computers [Girls, Boys, and Computers - Klawe].  We plan to change this by creating our game to be played on the Handheld PC.  With the Handheld PCs the game can be easily distributed to junior high and high schools to give girls exposure to the game. 

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The goal of Jane’s Domaze is to avoid obstacles, while solving challenges to acquire skills and funds to move upward to additional levels.  Everything in the environment (including the player’s avatar) is an object in a class, the behavior of which the player may manipulate by altering attributes and assigning methods.  Mastery of object concepts will enable the player to guide the main character (heroine/hero/pet) through a maze. As the player modifies objects and invokes methods, the game will generate code based on his/her actions.  This code will contain explanations and may be viewed by the user at any time during the game. [Proposed screen layout is shown]

 Methods (to be utilized, background research to be studied)

Students will research both technology and the social context of computing.  They will be assigned a PocketPC and a workstation where development will take place.  After completing the four phases of activities below, they will be able to begin work on developing the Jane’s Domaze application (phase V).

Phase I – Investigate the problem domain. To acquaint themselves with the social context of computing, students are required to read and summarize several articles on gender-related topics [see References].  They will each also install and evaluate an existing application that is marketed to encourage young women to pursue computing.  Both Alice (Carnegie-Mellon) and/or Virtual Family (UBC) are available.

Phase II – Research mobile applications.  To learn about some possible applications of the PocketPC and Windows Mobile environment students will read reviews of current and proposed application [see references], and write a summary, including

-     What the technology is/does

-     How the technology works

-     Who the target audience is

-     Why the PocketPC platform is appropriate

-     Any questions or comments

Phase III – Explore the technology.  The student will also download and install a PocketPC application from a given list [see references].  She will then write a summary, including:

-     what the application is/does

-     how the application works

-     why/where/when you might use the application

-     what difficulties (if any) you had with using the application

Phase IV – Learn the development tools.  The last stage of research and training will be for the student to create a simple "Hello World" application for a PPC using the .Net Compact Framework, and then build a Currency Converter application from a given tutorial.

Phase V – Design and implementation.  After individually completing these research activities, the students will form into a development team, as described in Activities (below) to integrate their findings with the basic specification for the project.

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Activities and Responsibilities

Faculty

Project planning and oversight – Ms. Bettina Bair will directly supervise the students’ coding and design work and provide them with regular feedback and encouragement.

 

Research oversight and advising – Dr. Tim Long will ensure that research objectives are met.  He will guide the development so that software engineering principles are followed and also so that the game presents an accurate picture of object-oriented philosophy.

 

Student

 

This project will follow a phased and iterative approach to system development, such that one module of functionality is designed and built at a time.  While this will enable the students to see results faster, it will also enable subsequent iterations and modules to benefit from key learnings and best practices developed in earlier efforts.

 

Primary Design - Marcella Tanzil and Robin Ewald will launch the project by creating a working prototype of the application in its simplest form.  The prototype will feature the ability to move the avatar through its environment and identify obstacles encountered. [Robin is only available during the first three months of the project – then she graduates]

 

Implementation - Chetna Sharma, Rebekah Billing, Betsy Beraduce and Marcella Tanzil will refine the developmental prototype and add details to the classes. 

 

This pattern of prototyping, design construction, and testing will continue as the students create additional classes (academy, skills, and variations).

 

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Participants (students and faculty

 

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References

Readings on Gender Issues in Computing 1.      Women’s Media – Giving Back 2.      Girls, Boys and Computers 3.      Engaging girls with computers through software games 4.      'Virtual  family': an approach to introducing java programming 5.      Developing a hardware and programming curriculum for middle school girls 6.      Gender, software design, and occupational equity 7.      DigiGirlz:  Microsoft's High-Tech Camp for Girls 8.      Diversity in Engineering 9.      In Their  Nature 10.  Geek  Mythology 11.  Women’s Wall Street 12.  Why Doesn't Barbie Want To Play With Pascal? 13.  The Making of a Girl Techie 14.  Brenda Laurel on How to Write a Game 15.  Genderplay: Successes and Failures in Character Designs for Videogames 16.  Gender and Computer/Video games 17.  Girls and Computers – a History 18.  Computers and Video Games

PocketPC Application Reviews 1.      An Architect's Tool 2.      Use in a German High School 3.      Medical Information 4.      Navigation Aid 5.      Personal Shopping Assistant 6.      Hotel Reservation Tool 7.      Social Services Patient Information   PocketPC Applications to Evaluate 1.      Engineer’s calculator 2.      Pocket blinds 3.      BMP calculator 4.      Chemistry assistant 5.      Tip & split 6.      ClassMate 7.      BioBody

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