The Pennsylvania State University proposes to increase the number of women entering computing by creating a developmental learning community: A community including high school girls, undergraduate women in CISE majors, and female faculty and alumni professionals engaged in collaborative activities that scaffold the participation, understanding, and skills of young women as they encounter and engage the concepts and practices of computing. The community will provide younger members with mentors and social models at multiple stages of CISE careers. Some community interactions will be face-to-face, but for the most part the group will be maintained and enhanced through an on-line community system. Through a participatory design process, female undergraduates will develop and deliver workshops in which high school girls' work together to build software applications specifically designed to appeal to them. The alumni will develop similar workshops for the undergraduate community members. In the course of planning and fielding these outreach activities; community members will develop and use an online community system for their collaborative work.
