On Tue, Apr 3, 2012 at 5:40 PM, David MacQuigg <macqu...@ece.arizona.edu>wrote:
> When I read the headline "Giving Women the Access Code", I was worried > that it sounded like a watered-down course for women. It's not that at > all. It's the guys that need to change their attitude. > I'm not sure that's what comes across in the article. According to the article: "To *reduce the intimidation factor*, the course was divided into two sections — “gold,” for those with no prior experience, and “black” for everyone else. Java, a notoriously opaque programming language, was *replaced by a more accessible language* called Python. And the *focus of the course changed* to computational approaches to solving problems across science." I think it's pretty easy to interpret this article as saying that the women couldn't hack it until it was replaced with something light and fluffy with fewer sharp edges. Nowhere does it indicate that students are learning just as much, or that this change in approach benefits all students, not just the women. Are we elevating the quality of our computer science graduates, or just lowering the definition of what that means? Without addressing these questions, I fear this article does more harm than good.
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