Mob Nos

The Communications of the ACM, January 2000-Volume 43, Number 1 has an excellent article on, "Engaging Girls with Computers through Software Games" by Cecilia M. Gorriz and Claudia Medina. Even though the subject is games, this is an important article for those involved with educating girls with multimedia to read because many of the factors that cause girls to be attracted to a specific game are the same factors that can cause them to be attracted to multimedia of an educational nature. Also, if you are preparing multimedia for girls, it is important for you to know what appeals to girls and what does not. If you are teaching girls to do multimedia whether standalone projects or Web project, it is important to know what appeals to girls so that you can have these kinds of tools a media available to them to use in their own creations. We have been brought up said to say in a world where books and other such materials are customized to some standard denominator and that has not been one with girls specifically in mind. Before we go further, we should say that some games can be educational also. However, do beware, that a lot of the edutainment hype, that is the promise of educating as well as entertaining, is just that or rather just something to get parents to buy without guilt.
The article points out that girls like collaboration, like puzzle-solving rather than tests of eye-hand reflexes, and like good audio quality and rich textures. There are other suggestions in the article.