Why Anywear Academy?

This material was created through a collaboration between designers and researchers at UCSC, The Game Academy, and ETR with funding through the NSF AISL program to take on an ongoing, pervasive, and persistent societal issue: 

women are still drastically underrepresented in computing careers. 

• This project targets middle school-aged girls because it is a time when many of them lose interest and confidence in pursuing technical education and computing careers

• We designed, developed and deployed a one-week experience focused on middle school girls that targets this issue with a novel combination of teaching techniques and technology.

• This focuses on wearable computing devices to support girls' social interactions as they learn computing and solve technical challenges together. 

• The goals of the project are to raise interest, perceived competence, and involvement in the computational ability of girls. 

• Additionally, the project aims to increase a sense of computational community for girls that makes pursuing computational skills more relevant to their identities and lives, and that helps continued participation in computing.