Gender inequality in technology use remains, despite the use of technology in the classroom for the past twenty years and attempts to improve the circumstances. Girls are not best served by the way technology is used and taught in schools. While girls value projects that allow for group work and collaboration, computer use is typically independent work in a computer lab and does not take advantage of the collaborative possibilities offered by technology nor allow it in many projects. Classroom assignments that utilize technology often limit the aesthetic choices students are allowed to make, valuing a typed report over photographs or video as an acceptable medium of communication, for example. Tech Clubs often emphasize technology and girls often attach a stigma to belonging to a "technology club." Girls participated in Tech Club in past years but were few in number, perhaps because Tech Club was perceived as being exclusively about learning to use computers. In a society where digital literacy is increasingly important, alienating fifty-one percent of the population and denying females digital literacy and technology skills is unfair.
Students on the Autism Spectrum are often unable to communicate their thoughts, imaginations, and emotions. These students might lack social skills or the ability to "read" a social situation and react accordingly or appropriately. They might be unable to communicate like a typical peer. Students on the Autism Spectrum are often constrained by these communication difficulties and unable to demonstrate their creativity, intelligence, and imagination. The increased diagnoses of children on the Autism Spectrum means we must adjust our education system to accommodate them and provide them varied and multiple means of communicating. Communication means dialogue between the student on the Autism Spectrum and a typical student in the school community, and current classroom assignments and projects might not take into consideration the communication limitations some students have. An Autism Spectrum program at my school gave student classroom support, but these students lacked social situations in which they could interact with typical peers and practice social interactions. Projects that encourage students on the Autism Spectrum to collaborate with their peers and to communicate through differentiated means are important components of an inclusive Tech Club
My past efforts with the Tech Club at the elementary school where I work made me want to improve the situation. I would transform Tech Club to be a more inclusive environment. Girls made valuable contributions to past Tech Club projects that emphasized creativity and artistic expression. Future Tech Club projects would value and reward collaboration and aesthetic choice in order to match the way girls wanted to use technology. Tech Club would be an equitable environment where girls and boys were allowed matching opportunities to use technology. Appropriate social interactions are extremely important lessons for students on the Autism Spectrum, and I intended to make Tech Club an inclusive social environment for these students to collaborate with their peers and explore new means of communicating (Lord & McGee, 2003). Additionally, students who participated in Tech Club would build important digital literacy skills. These are necessary life skills and building these digital literacies in these students is very important.
The school would be different if I made changes to Tech Club. The changes I made would affect more than just Tech Club: the larger school community would be affected by the girls' and Autistic students' increased voice. Tech Club would be inclusive, honoring the diversity of its participants through the collaborative and individual work the students produced. Girls and boys would develop important technology skills that increased their digital literacy. Students would collaborate to create multimedia projects that reflected aesthetic choice. Students on the Autism Spectrum would have additional chances for social interactions and communication. Students in Tech Club would be empowered through their digital literacy.