Maybe Courtney can follow in the footsteps of game designers like Roberta Williams-who helped establish video games as a storytelling medium with graphical RPGs like King’s Quest and was recently featured in the Netflix documentary series High Score-along with other women in computing who “changed the game” in the ’80s.
#American girl games for full
Including coding as one aspect of a character helps to normalize computer science-just one more thing a girl can do as part of a full life.
#American girl games for movie
As the trailer for a Courtney movie reveals, she has a lot going on: Her mom is running for mayor, her sister doesn’t like her guinea pig, she’s really into Care Bears, and … the Challenger explodes.
#American girl games for code
(This kind of motivation-that someone might learn to code in order to increase their own representation or amplify underrepresented voices-is actually a focus of my own research on broadening participation in computing.) One difference between Courtney and the STEM Barbies (or even more direct learn-to-code dolls) is that her gaming and coding skills are part of the story, but not the entire story. The description for the accompanying book, Courtney Changes the Game, informs us that Courtney is the best gamer at the arcade but “she can’t understand why there aren’t more girl characters in the games she plays.” So she decides to make her own game with a girl hero. American Doll has also partnered with Girls Who Code to raise money for girls pursuing further education in computer science. “Real to the max” in 1986, Courtney listens to her Walkman, plays Pac-Man at the arcade, and codes her own video game. This week, American Girl announced its newest doll: Courtney. Perhaps other toy companies can learn from Mattel’s missteps, however, and even bring us back to an era when the number of women in computer science was still on the rise. ( One rocket scientist responded, “That’s ok … I’d rather build satellites instead.”) Similar to IBM’s #HackAHairdryer campaign, which encouraged women to “blast through the bias” by sharing engineering projects related to hair dryers, there seems to be some idea that women will only be interested in STEM if you can make it “girly” enough. With the 2017 Barbie STEM Kit, in which Barbie wears a lab coat and stilettos, children can help Barbie with such engineering projects as creating a washing machine and a jewelry rack. I Have Discovered the Perfect Form of Cardio for People Who Hate Cardioīut another Mattel product that seemed like a fix-it attempt presented other problems. How Your Tips Made Instacart an $8 Billion Company Why Did They Leave?ĬhatGPT Was the Preview. Sharks Lived on a Golf Course for 17 Years. Unlike Computer Engineer Barbie, whose computer screen literally had 1s and 0s on it, Game Developer Barbie could actually code! Subsequently, I did some consulting with Mattel on a computational thinking book that accompanied the release of 2018’s Robotics Engineer Barbie. I became part of this controversy when, in a fit of dissertation-fueled procrastination and righteous indignation, I created a feminist remix of the entire book, rewriting the narrative so that Barbie was a competent computer engineer (and, sure, Steven and Brian could help too).įollowing this controversy, Mattel publicly apologized, and in 2016 it introduced Game Developer Barbie.
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