Much of the tech learning seems to see men doing the teaching, but that doesn’t have to be the case. For International Women’s Day, we’re looking at resources women can rely on.
No form of education or skill should be cut off from one gender to the other, but in technology, there’s often a pretty obvious disconnect between how many women are visible as the creators and heads of companies.
There’s a gradual shift to see more women in tech, but if you’re struggling to find some support, there are some places to turn. While last year we focused our Women’s Day coverage on women who have made a difference on science and technology, this year we’re showcasing a few places to help push that even more, such as those below.
Code Like A Girl
A tech and coding program in Australia designed for women by women, Code Like A Girl’s online schools provide a safe space for women to get stuck into tech and coding in a way that can benefit for long term growth and even eventual placement in fields.
However there are still courses made for beginners to get stuck in and learn how to code, covering web development, C#, and Python, ideal if there are programming languages you’ve wanted to try, and haven’t found quite the right course to try it out with.
Girl Geek Academy
A slightly smaller program not unlike Code Like A Girl, Girl Geek Academy started in Australia to teach programming to children, and now covers programs to girls and women covering all sorts of things.
The organisation aims to offer courses online and offline, though you mightn’t expect too much in the latter given this whole pandemic thing we’re gradually making our away out of.
However, there are online workshops for women, for girls and mums, providing yet another research women can turn to to find out what’s going on that they can learn from.
She Codes
Another small educational platform and meet-up group for women, She Codes aims to inspire 100,000 women across Australia by the year 2025, and offers tutorials on its website to offer the basics, while also has run workshops in the time past, as well.
Programs by She Codes have run across Australia in general, and while we expect the pandemic has made an impact on where it can run its face-to-face workshops, suspect we’ll see more from the organisation in the weeks and months ahead. If anything, its tutorials are worth a glance through, and there’s a mailing list to keep you apprised of anything going on.
Women Who Code
The name of this one kind of gives everything away, because this international site is all about “women who code”.
Importantly, however, it’s also about women who want to code and women who want to learn how to code, offering coding resources on its site, plus an assortment of links to digital events related to coding that might be ideal to learn with or experience more at.
As to what Women Who Code is about, this one aims to bring more women into technology and the roles that requires it, providing education and role models, and includes local chapters, as well, with Women Who Code group in Sydney, plus one in Melbourne, also.
Udemy
This one isn’t quite a female-specific place to learn anything at, but does come with the ability to see who will be teaching your course, and to get a vibe over whether they’re the type of instructor to lead you on your educational journey.
Udemy is one of the larger sites for tutorials and courses created by experts around the world, with pricing typically ranging from $20 to $200, and providing a go-at-your-own-pace approach to teaching what you’re bought access to.
Some instructors are clearly better than others, but almost every course offers a preview of what you can expect, providing the opportunity to see whether the teacher will work better not only with you, but also the things you want to learn.
DIY with edutainment apps
If courses still aren’t cutting it for you, consider sone of the many entertainment-connected approaches that don’t take a gendered approach to the teaching of programming and coding concepts.
If you own a Mac or an iPad, you may want to check out Swift Playgrounds, an edutainment concept that not only tries to impart the processes in a fun way focused on kids and teens, but can also be used by them to create real apps on those devices.
You can think of Swift Playgrounds as one of the great starting points for anyone — girl or guy — to get stuck into learning, without needing to have a specific person teaching it. Rather, this is just the concepts of coding played one level at a time, before you start dabbling in other ways and building out functional apps.
While Swift Playgrounds focuses on Apple’s Swift development language, it’s not the only solution that takes an entertainment-led approach to teaching coding.
Over one Android, Google has an app to teach coding at your own pace in Grasshopper, a beginner focused app that teaches you JavaScript, another of the commonly used web languages that translates to apps, as well.
