Lakewood High is in Hebron, Ohio. The school has a very special program. It’s called Girls Who Code. This past May, a Girls Who Code meeting was taking place in a school library. The student leaders of the program were having trouble with a smart board. It had been brought in by Mark Vukovic, who teaches information technology at the school.
Senior Gabrielle Jones, junior Cambree Booth and sophomore Madelyn Prentice tried to figure out what was wrong. After a while, they got the smart board up and running. They then continued with their lesson. Their students were sixth-grade girls.
Vukovic only serves as the teacher overseeing the program. He lets the high school students run the sessions. He purposely did not offer help when the student
instructors
had trouble with the smart board. Vukovic wanted them to solve the problem on their own. When the three students got things working, he smiled proudly.
Helping Girls Learn About Technology
Girls Who Code
encourages
younger girls to go into computer programming. It is based on an organization in New York City, New York. The Lakewood branch was started by Abigail Smith (now Abigail Hyde) in 2018. Back then, she was a senior at the school.
Vukovic and Gabrielle both
recently
won awards. Gabrielle won an award for being an
excellent
computer science student. Vukovic won an award that is given to one teacher in Ohio each year.
"It's so neat, getting to receive the award together," Gabrielle said. “I was lucky to get the award… Hopefully, it can bring attention to and grow the program."
A couple of Lakewood graduates who were part of Girls Who Code have already found good jobs. Club founder Hyde now works for Brigham Young University-Hawaii. Jensen Gartner is a web designer for Booz Allen Hamilton. She also works with the Air Force base in Dayton, Ohio.
Girl and her teacher hold their awards.Zoom in
Lakewood High School senior Gabrielle Jones (left) and Mark Vukovic, information technology instructor at Lakewood and C-TEC, recently received awards from the National Center for Women and Information Technology (NCWIT). Gabrielle won the Ohio Aspirations award, given to excellent students in computer science, while Vukovic won the Ohio Educator award for the NCWIT Ohio Affiliate, which is given to one teacher in Ohio each year. Photo: Courtesy of NCWIT
New Leaders
Cambree and Madelyn are part of the new leadership team for Girls Who Code. They are helping plan
future
lessons for the younger students.
"The last couple weeks, they've focused on cybersecurity and encryption," Vukovic said. Cybersecurity and encryption are both ways of keeping people safe on the internet.
Vukovic “offered us a chance to run this program together," Cambree said. "This is a topic a lot of people need to know about. They're learning about using longer passwords and malware (software designed to attack computers). … Overall, it's about being safe on the internet."
Madelyn said she had always enjoyed Vukovic's computer programming class. Joining Girls Who Code was a natural next step.
"I learned about this (cybersecurity and encryption) in Mr. Vukovic's class…. We thought it would be a good topic to teach people," she said. "It's going really well, and I've really come to enjoy watching the girls enjoy what we have been showing them."
Most of the students on Lakewood High’s tech team are girls. They work on broken laptops. After they fix them, they send them back to students. Their chances of finding good jobs in technology are better than ever. Tech giant Intel Corporation is opening a branch of the company near the school.
Gabrielle says the tech team does most of its work over the summer.
Gabrielle will be going off to college soon. She plans to study music education. But she will still keep an eye on Lakewood’s Girls Who Code program.
"I want the library to be filled (with Girls Who Code girls) after school," she said.
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