JULIA FERRAIOLI: My name is Julia Ferraioli,
and I'm a developer advocate with the Google Cloud Platform.
Today I have the privilege to introduce Ashley Gavin, who's
a curriculum consultant to schools, non-profits,
and companies with an intense desire
to teach young people computer science.
ASHLEY GAVIN: Hi.
Thanks.
JULIA FERRAIOLI: So during CSEdWeek,
we got to hear a little bit about the Girls
Who Code mission as well as some of the long-term goals
of the organization.
So what drew you to Girls Who Code?
ASHLEY GAVIN: It's actually kind of a funny story.
I left my work at MIT Lincoln Laboratory
without a job knowing that I wanted to move back to New York
to write a musical-- so really completely tangential--
but I got a call from a friend saying
there was this organization that was teaching young women how
to code, and they lost their robotics instructor.
And when I was at Bryn Mawr, they offered a course teaching
computer science using personal robots, so I thought,
oh this is a really good match, and I happened
to have ten robots in my closet--
as I always do-- and I said, I can be there next week.
And so I went in, and learned a little more
about the organization, and never left.
JULIA FERRAIOLI: That's awesome.
Was having the 10 robots in your closet a prerequisite?
ASHLEY GAVIN: No.
No, but it's just something that I always happen to have.
I have more robots than any one person should,
especially in a closet.
JULIA FERRAIOLI: What kind of robots are they?
ASHLEY GAVIN: So they're called Scribbler robots.
You can-- the robot itself is made
by a company called Parallax.
You can actually buy them online.
And they have a little chip developed by Bryn Mawr College
and Georgia Tech specifically to run certain APIs and such
for educating kids in computer science.
JULIA FERRAIOLI: That's fantastic.
So curriculum developer, that's not really a career
that you hear about very often within technology.
Definitely wasn't one that I'd ever
heard about when I graduated with my CS degree.
So tell us a little bit about what
you do within Girls Who Code.
ASHLEY GAVIN: Yeah, so when I first
started teaching at Girls Who Code, the role of curriculum
developer was not something that I had heard about either.
It sort of formed itself.
My responsibilities vary on a day-to-day basis.
Some days, I'm helping teachers with their instruction
in the classroom.
Other days I'm training teachers on how to give instruction.
Other days I'm writing code to develop libraries
for making computer science education easier,
or I'm assessing other people's libraries.
Other days I'm just writing a ton of assignments,
thinking of creative ways to get people
interested in computer science through things
like art, and music, and robotics,
app development, things of that nature.
So it's all over the place.
It's working with people.
It's working alone.
It's really fun.
JULIA FERRAIOLI: Sounds like the perfect combination for someone
who's interests vary quite a bit as well.
ASHLEY GAVIN:Yeah.
JULIA FERRAIOLI: Yeah.
ASHLEY GAVIN: I think so.
JULIA FERRAIOLI: Yeah, so that sounds-- that's awesome.
For those who might be interested in pursuing
a similar path, can you tell us a bit
about your background, how you got to where you are today?
ASHLEY GAVIN: Yeah, so I started as a typical computer science
major.
I knew I wanted to major in computer science.
I was lucky enough to be exposed to computer science
in high school, fortunate enough that an adviser talked
to me about it.
I had never really thought of teaching as a career,
but while I was in college, I loved
being a teaching assistant.
It was my favorite thing.
I worked on a fellowship where I actually
worked with Bryn Mawr professors on that Scribbler project
that I described, and when I got into my later years of college,
I started teaching middle schoolers,
and I found that all of my extracurricular activities
were centered around teaching or advertising computer
science, which probably should have been a sure sign that I
should do that.
But when I graduated, I went to MIT,
which was phenomenal and a great experience,
but I found myself yearning to be doing more interaction
with people and to be helping people in a more direct way.
And so that's-- when I found out about Girls Who Code,
it kind of dawned on me, oh, maybe you should try doing this
for a living.
You really like it.
And I think it's something that not a lot of computer science
majors consider while they're in college.
JULIA FERRAIOLI: Definitely not.
It's not a career that I had ever heard about,
and it sounds almost kind of similar to what
I do in developer relations as well, helping people learn
new technologies.
So what kind of role did science and math
play in your early life?
Do you think that you were uniquely
suited to go into computer science once you were exposed?
ASHLEY GAVIN: In some ways, yes.
And in some ways, absolutely not.
People thought I probably would have been a train wreck.
So I'll start with the yes.
I played tons of video games as a kid, which is sometimes
a telltale sign that you might enjoy making a video game
or making technology.
I was the kind of kid that built websites for fun.
I loved Photoshop, but simultaneously,
at the same time, I was flunking biology
and getting D's in math.
I begged to get out of math actually.
But I wasn't allowed to take computer science
at first because of my poor math grades.
JULIA FERRAIOLI: Oh, wow.
ASHLEY GAVIN: Yeah, and so I think a lot of people
would have said, maybe she could be a graphic designer or a web
designer, but I don't think a lot of people
would have said that I'd be a good computer scientist,
and so finally, when my adviser in high school
took over the computer science department
and opened it up to more kinds of students,
I was lucky enough to try it, and magically, I
was very good at it, and my other grades
improved, all the typical signs of when a student is excelling.
It sort of excels across the board.
And I just never stopped.
JULIA FERRAIOLI: That's an amazing story.
What would you say to other young adults who
maybe think that math isn't really their strong suit,
but the idea behind creation and making
that you oftentimes see in computer science and technology
still appeals to them?
How would you guide them?
ASHLEY GAVIN: Yeah, I think, I mean,
there's first of all the initial fear of feeling like you are
not one of those people, or it's not for you.
And I would say, if you're the kind of person who
enjoys any art form-- creation with your hands, with words,
with performance-- I would say at least consider it and look
at it from the perspective of building a world.
What kind of world do you want to build?
Is it a video game world?
Is it an app world?
And that can make it a lot more appealing.
And at Girls Who Code we start our first week
entirely building video games.
JULIA FERRAIOLI: Oh, wow.
ASHLEY GAVIN: So just to keep kids
engaged, and they come out pretty complicated and pretty
fun.
As far as directly actually going out and learning computer
science, I think you have to get a little creative in where
you look for resources, because it can be taught
a little dryly, and I think that's why people get turned
off, because they're not doing a full weeklong of video games
as their first assignment.
So I actually would recommend looking for a game development
course or an app development course.
Those are probably a good place to start rather than straight
up computer science.
I think it might be a more engaging way to learn.
JULIA FERRAIOLI: Gotcha, and you actually
had the benefit of working with robots in some of the intro
classes for computer science as well.
Would you recommend that approach
to learning computer science principles?
ASHLEY GAVIN: Absolutely.
Yeah, in fact, if you're willing to go out and get
one of these robots or download the software that-- Can we
provide links at the end of this?
Is that a--
JULIA FERRAIOLI: We can put them in the comments.
ASHLEY GAVIN: OK, yeah.
We'll put some in the comments.
I have some links to open source materials
that you can teach yourself Python
while using either a real or simulated robot.
I recommend the real robot, but not everyone
has $200 to shell out for a robot.
Or you can borrow one of my 10-- that's not a real offer,
but we'll provide links, I guess.
JULIA FERRAIOLI: Yep, definitely.
Definitely.
So let's dive into a little bit of the Girls
Who Code aspect of your role here.
What makes the curriculum of Girls Who Code different
than a traditional CS education?
You touched a little bit on this already.
ASHLEY GAVIN: Yeah, I think there
are two ways to look at it.
There's the actual content that we teach,
and then there's the process by which we deliver that content.
In terms of the actual content that we teach,
it's very similar to the first two semesters
of college-level computer science,
except everything's done through another layer,
and each week that layer changes.
So, the first week, the layer is video games.
The second week the layer is robotics.
The third week, the layer is art, like graphics--
like Pixar, for example, sort of thing,
or other 3D animation graphics.
And because we have a different layer every week,
it's not just appealing to young women.
It's appealing to anyone who has an interest in any
of those layers.
So if you're the kind of person that's
interested in medicine or mobile applications,
you can find how computer science
can be interesting to you.
A lot of young women want to help people.
So a lot of these "layers," as I'm calling them,
have to do with helping people through medicine
or through sort of social justice,
and that makes it very "girl" friendly
or, I just think, human friendly.
I think, without that layer, it can get dry,
and it's important to have that.
On the other side, I think a lot of computer science education
right now is sort of like the way
we learned math 50 years ago.
It's very rote.
And it's more about syntax and language,
whereas at Girls Who Code it's very project-based,
and it's very exploratory.
We don't really have a set curriculum in terms of,
today you're going to learn about operators,
or today you're going to learn about [INAUDIBLE].
We kind of find those topics through our projects,
and the projects are designed to find those topics,
but the girls will encounter them on their own
and actually look things up and learn about them based
on their own initiative, which makes it a lot more fun.
You go out to learn something because you
need it to make that video game work.
It's a lot more interesting than learning operators
for the sake of learning operators.
So it's exploratory, and experimental, and
project-based.
JULIA FERRAIOLI: The layers definitely
contextualize the lessons, so that's fantastic.
Have any particular layers been especially successful
amongst young women?
ASHLEY GAVIN: Yeah, we do-- I mean,
this might not come as a surprise,
but the mobile app week is intensely popular.
Everyone wants to make a mobile app, and some of these apps
are really, really impressive, and it sort of brings out
their own interests.
We had some girls make a mobile application
so that if you don't have a dollar but you encounter
someone on the street, a homeless individual,
it automatically pulls up the-- actually
using the Google Maps API-- it automatically pulls up
the closest soup kitchens and a list of homeless shelters
and provides directions.
Because a lot of times homeless individuals,
they'd like to frequent those locations,
but they don't know where they are.
They don't have access to technology,
and so this serves as a little reminder
that the user can show this person,
and it has other information.
So really, really popular mobile apps.
JULIA FERRAIOLI: OK.
So you obviously have a really interesting role in technology,
helping to inspire others to follow STEM careers.
Have there been any specific moments where you thought,
I can't believe that I get to do this in my day job?
ASHLEY GAVIN: Yeah, so one comes to mind,
and I just get a little giggly about it,
because it was just so cool.
Well, two now, but the first one was we recently
had an article in "The New York Times" mention us.
Something that people noticed was
that there is pretty good gender equality in biology
and forensic sciences, and we notice
that all of our students when they come in--
or many, many of our students when they come in-- they
want to be forensic biologists, and it's because of CSI.
And so this article basically wrote,
why is there not a hacking, coding equivalent of this where
a young woman can watch TV and see another young woman coding?
And after reading-- some producers of MTV
actually read this article and reached out to us,
saying that they are producing a show where-- on MTV--
where a young woman solves crimes
using computing and works for the NYPD.
It's called "Eye Candy," and they made the pilot,
and it's starring Victoria Justice.
Probably most developers don't know who Victoria Justice is,
but ask any 15 year-old who Victoria Justice is,
and she'll freak out.
And they invited me to teach the entire cast how to code.
And so I was sitting with Victoria Justice,
and she signed my robot-- getting a little weird,
but you get-- and yeah, it was just amazing to--
and the director of "Twilight," Catherine Hardwicke,
was there as well.
And so-- she's directing the show--
and that was pretty unbelievable.
I couldn't believe that my computer science degree got me
into the room with these amazing, creative people,
and it was a pretty cool moment.
My students were obsessed.
They thought it was the coolest thing.
JULIA FERRAIOLI: That's awesome.
I mean, you've taught basically people who probably had never
thought they'd learn how to code how to code
and then got a signed robot to boot.
ASHLEY GAVIN: Yeah, I mean, and they
loved-- the great thing about it was they were awesome at it.
I mean, they were really good coders,
and I think that speaks to the creativity piece.
They thought it was amazing, and they
loved all the different applications
they could think about being used on the show.
There's natural-- kind of related back to my work
at MIT-- there's interesting, crime-solving abilities
inherent in computer science that a lot of people
don't know about, including the cast of the show.
JULIA FERRAIOLI: Yeah, definitely.
Well, that's fantastic.
Thank you so much, Ashley, for joining us today and telling us
a bit about Girls Who Code.
We'll see if we can get some links to some resources
that you were mentioning today in the description
of the video.
So thank you so much for joining us.
ASHLEY GAVIN: Thanks for having me.
It was a lot of fun.
JULIA FERRAIOLI: Thank you for tuning
in to this special edition of Women Tech Makers.
You can look forward to more segments coming down the pipe.
To find out more about Girls Who Code,
visit girlswhocode.com, and make sure to check out
our previous interview with Reshma Saujani, founder
of Girls Who Code.