BY KRISTA RAMSEY
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Two sixth-grade girls sit at a computer in Cindy Cone's classroom at Elmwood Place Elementary. Using Hyperstudio software, they work on text and graphics for a story they are writing. A question pops on the screen: Do you want to add a live video or a Quicktime movie?

The two look at each other, smile slowly, then grab for the eyeball-shaped camera beside the computer.

Seconds later, images from the classroom flash across the computer screen. Chairs, the computer itself, and finally a pair of smiling figures. The girls stick out their tongues, wave, roll their eyes. They have found themselves in their technology, and they are loving it.

In a less literal, and perhaps more serious way, it's what their teacher hoped for last year when she started an after-school Computer Club for girls.

''It seemed to me that all kids needed more access to computers, but the boys were the ones who stayed after school to work on it or pushed the most to use it,'' Ms. Cone says. ''The girls were never aggressive about asserting their need for time on it.''

A doctoral student working on a dissertation about girls and technology, Ms. Cone knew that access to technology led to comfort with it, which led to competence and finally to power.

No room for passengers on the information highway - she wanted her girls in the driver's seat.

Competing interests

But research shows that, as with math and science, many girls tend to lose interest in technology around ages 10 to 12 unless they receive special encouragement to continue with it.

It is a crucial loss, as computer competence increasingly becomes the key to vast stores of information, and the prerequisite for many jobs.

So, with grants from the Charlotte Schmidlapp Foundation, and the American Association of University Women, Ms. Cone set out to make sure her girls were ''hooked on technology'' before they set foot in junior high.

She wanted them to experiment, not to be scared they'd ''mess everything up,'' which was one reason they gave for not using computers more frequently.

She wanted them to decide how they'd most like to use technology. ''For girls, it's a tool to communicate, express themselves, be connected with others,'' she says. ''They aren't as interested in winning a game or attaining the most points or seeing how many people they can kill.''

Finally, Ms. Cone wanted her female students to see themselves in software programs. A difficult wish, given that in entertainment software, the vast majority of characters are male. In many of the adventure-type games and programs, ''the females who are there, are there to be rescued,'' Ms. Cone says.

Companies 'should talk to girls'

So when the girls stay their hour after school for Computer Club, they experiment with sound clips, colors, patterns, script and video. They write stories, and have e-mail addresses and ''key pals,'' (the computer equivalent of pen pals). They dream a little about seeing people who look like themselves inside the screen.

''One day, we wrote down ideas for what we might like to put in our games,'' says Amanda Edens, 11. ''Most of us are into sports, like the boys, but we want girls in our games. Usually it's the big, macho guys.''

She turns back to her computer screen. ''I think computer companies should talk to girls,'' she says firmly.

So far, most of the software packages marketed to girls include Barbie, The Baby-sitters Club, the ''ultimate closet'' (filled with virtual outfits), and games where girls try to improve their social skills so they can get the perfect date.

Yet a 1995 Rice University study suggests girls really want games that feature challenges, action and social interaction. They don't like repetition.

Cindy Cone thinks the best solution will be having computer-confident girls grow up to be software designers, who will create programs to please themselves and their daughters.

''I'd like to see some adventure games that have female characters with adventure and daring,'' she says.

Then she looks across her room. Girls hover near computer screens, click mouses, discuss programs. And Cindy Cone breaks into a grin.

Krista Ramsey's column appears on Saturdays. Write her at 312 Elm Street, Cincinnati 45202 or fax at 768-8340.