This morning I saw an interesting video report on MSNBC about girls and blogging. It featured agirlsworld.com which is a website run solely by two girls. Statistics show that 20% of boys blog vs 35% of girls. Girls tend to out perform boys in English and writing and are better able to express themselves which makes them natural born bloggers. Experts hope that this will translate into adulthood. Women occupy only 27% of math and computer related jobs and there has been a 70% decline in female computer science majors. This early experience gives girls hands on experience and provides a comfort level with technology.

This is a great use of technology and it offers up good peer role models. As a mother of a daughter, it is encouraging to see stories like this. From an early age we have encouraged familiarity with technology, esp. computers for both of our kids. My daughter loves programs like Scratch www.scratch.com and Crazy Machines crazy machines. No one has told her that she can’t program or solve engineering problems, sometimes faster than her Aerospace engineering father. Whether or not she pursues a high tech career, these skills will help her think critically and problem solve with the best of them.

Link to video Girls Rule the Web

The other day my husband came home from the Apple store with something new, as he is wont to do. This time he picked up Spongebob Teaches Typing, for our kids. As Mac users know software choices are limited and this was the only choice, of two, available in the store. Spongebob got me to thinking about character tie-ins and how prevalent they are in our kids lives. In our house Spongebob not only teaches typing but also level 2 reading and endorses Cheez-its, where does he find the time? My kids don’t watch much Spongebob but they don’t need to in order to recognize him and his motley crew of undersea friends. Tie-ins are something that Disney has elevated to high art and Nickelodeon, Spongebob’s home network, is not far behind. The problem for me is that they are developing brand loyalty in our kids from their earliest moments in life. This helps to feed the beast that is consumerism and the “I want that” mentality of kids. Even though we have avoided most of the obvious character riddled products, some do sneak in. Take a look around and see what characters have taken up residence in your home.

Here is an article about marketing tie-ins for the new Indiana Jones movie, it is quite a diverse lot. 2008-04-20-indiana-jones-skull-marketing_N.htm

If you are looking for typing programs here are two review sites Software for kids 2008 review and Superkids software reviews

I read an article recently on MediaWise, they are a part of the National Institute on Media and the Family. In this column they talked about how advertisers and others are getting their message to our kids. One way is Advergaming in which videogames contain advertising messages. They incorporate these messages into the background of the games. The revenues from this type of advertising can be as much as ten percent of the 10 billion dollar gaming industry. Another part of the story is how hate groups are using media, like free music CD’s, which are filled with the groups message to recruit white children. This is scary and it goes to show how media can be used in highly negative ways. Here is the link to the original story.Advertisers Want Piece, not Peace, of Mind