International Day of the Tech Girl

Geek Gurl Diaries have met lots of exciting people over the past few months, but none as exciting as Kim Wilkens whose enthusiasm for teaching and inspiring young people is infectious. Kim introduced me to the day of the tech girl and we decided to mark the day that we would try and get students from both sides of the pond sharing experiences of technology.

Some girls from Robert Clack School in Dagenham Essex, where I teach presented their experiences of our subject ICT in a short video. They talked about what they enjoyed in these lessons and what they would like to do more of, they also asked questions of the students in the USA.

7 and 8th Graders from the Community Public Charter School in Virginia watched the video and asked questions through our chat window:

Kim Wilkens: we just watched the video and they created a response video - I'll post it later

 me: Ok, do they have any questions while the girls are here?

  as we have to leave at 5pm

4:37 PM which is in 20 mins

  The girls say good morning!

 Kim Wilkens: where is the school?

4:38 PM was it 15 or 50 minutes of ICT a week?

 me: school is in East London in a place called Dagenham

  it's on google maps

  50 minutes a week

4:41 PM Kim Wilkens: is that close to bellingham?

  what kind of things do you make with the software you use?

 me: make websites, photoshop images, presentations, documents

  databases

4:42 PM Kim Wilkens: are you able to take what you learn in ICT and use it for other classes?

 me: all for different subjects like english maths or history

  yes students use their ict skills for other lessons

  create many presentations for science

 Kim Wilkens: what is their favorite subject?

 me: Lara says English

4:43 PM Sonakshi says Science!

  Miss Philbin says IT!

 Kim Wilkens: nice!

4:46 PM we're talking food here - what's your favorite? Kian says his fav food is English - shepherds pie, treacle pudding (sp?) & custard

4:47 PM me: We like Chinese food, Nigerian food, chicken, chocolate

  pizza

  we had shepard's pie on the menu at lunch in school canteen

  today

 Kim Wilkens: jealous

4:48 PM me: never heard anyone saying they were jealous of our canteen lunches before!

  now you are making us hungry as it is nearly dinner time

 Kim Wilkens: thank you all so much for sharing - tech challenges and all!

 me: we are going to have to say good bye soon, if you have any questions the girls would be happy to email your students

4:49 PM Kim Wilkens: I'll e-mail you a video link later today (I hope;-)

The female students enjoyed this opportunity to share with students in another country, and they can't wait for their video response (which I have seen, and they are going to love!) Next time we will get a video conference link working and do it in real time.

I'd really like to thank Kim, and Chad Sansing (whose class we interrupted) for sharing in this experience.