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

Last weekend we took the kids to see Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. This movie is from Disney and rated PG, like the original. It was not as good and had much more gratuitous violence. My kids loved the first one, we saw it on DVD, and were looking forward to this installment. Both of them enjoyed the movie, in general but both voiced concern about the violence. My daughter felt that there was more killing of good and bad guys, than the first one and my son said, “Too Much Killing!!” He did hide his face during the movie and when I asked if he wanted to leave, several times, he refused.

I tend to research my kids movies much more than my own. For this one however, I only read reviews and based my decision on past experience. So I take the blame but I want to know why the reviewers did not mention the violence. They went on and on about bad acting, Christianity and faith, or lack there of, but nothing about excessive killing. Also the movie felt more PG-13 than PG and what is the threshold that needs to be crossed to get the 13 added? I am wondering if the PG envelope is being pushed with this and other movies. Is this because of children’s exposure to more violence today, than in the past? Or are the powers that be focused on the bottom line and want more of our dollars, as well as a new group of movie goers in the process? What do you think about this subject and have you experienced this before.

Definition of Ratings-MPAA Ratings

Boston Globe article-Ratings game

In 1966 Joan Ganz Cooney and her colleagues proposed the idea of using television to educate underserved preschoolers. They would later found the Children’s Television Workshop and of course the legendary program Sesame Street. Their Workshop model paved the way for all of the educational children’s program that we have today. Forty years later they have established the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, a great website with a positive and timely focus. Here is their mission:

The mission of The Joan Ganz Cooney Center is to catalyze and support research, innovation and investment in digital media technologies to advance children’s learning. Nurturing foundational and “21st century” literacies. The inaugural focus of the Center—given the national need—will be on determining how technology can help elementary-aged children develop the fundamental building blocks of literacy. These include the vital reading, writing, speaking and listening capabilities that all children must develop during the primary grades. A special emphasis of the Center will be on struggling readers who risk educational failure if they do not catch up to their peers by grade four.
Another important focus of the Center is to leverage the potential of interactive media to promote “21st century” literacies that students will need to compete and cooperate in our connected world—competencies such as critical thinking and problem solving, second language competency, inter-cultural understanding and media literacy. www.joanganzcooneycenter.org

Link to Sesame Workshop: www.sesameworkshop.org

My nephew, who is 14, has been visiting for the summer. As a parent of younger kids, I am not well versed in the world of teenagers. He is constantly talking and texting on his cell phone, surfing the web, has a MySpace page, set to private and is into Japanese anime. All of these tech/internet related activities got me to thinking about the safety of our kids online.

In 1998, Congress enacted the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (“COPPA” or “the Act”) to address privacy and safety risks created when children under 13 years of age (“children”) use the Internet. To protect children, the Act imposes requirements on operators of websites or online services directed to children, and other operators with actual knowledge that they have collected personal information from children. The Act generally mandates that such operators must provide notice of their privacy policies; obtain verifiable parental consent prior to collecting personal information from children; allow parents to review and delete personal information that their children have provided; and establish and maintain reasonable procedures to protect the security of personal information collected from children. (source www.privo.com)

We have all heard the horror stories about online predators and kids lying to get access to sites. So it is never too early or too late to educated ourselves and our kids about the dangers that can befall them online.

Here are some good sites for education and help related to this topic: socialnetworking.html, www.wiredkids.org, journal

Back in 1984 under the Cable Franchise Policy and Communications Act, US cable companies had to fund local organizations to provide training and access to media technology and cable distribution on the local cable systems. This policy was intended to help communities address local concerns or interest and produce community initiated programming. Public Access started out with cable television but many stations have branch out into radio and the internet. (source Wikipedia)

To read about my visit to my local station and interview with the executive director click Public Access

I took my kids and they were excited by the idea that they could create their own programs. My daughter wants to talk about her favorite books and movies. While my son wants to read an original story that he wrote. That is the great thing about this type of media you can create your own original programing. Many parents complain about the quality of what is available for their kids, now you can do something about it. Public Access stations provide training to members of the community and will help you produce your ideas. This would be a great project for teens, families and especially homeschooling families. I will be checking out the training schedule so that I can learn more about the process and who knows maybe a program is in my future.