Girlgeeks

So check out this fascinating little peice of image-based sociological research: Gender, Technology, and Toys R Us.

The author, Lisa Wade, checked out gifts for the geeky boys, vs gifts for the geeky girls using the Toy's R'Us suggestion centre. She points out that in terms of defining interests Toy's R' US gives very similar options for boys and girls ie; arsty, sporty, outdoorsy, techie etc.. But given that, the gift suggestions are very different. The breakdown is essentially this:

So that’s 13 building/engineering games (like Lego and KNEX), 3 ipod accessories, 4 portable DVD players, 2 MP3 players, and a few other things.

What do girls get? Seven ipod accessories, 5 portable DVD players, 4 MP3 players, 3 laptop computers, 3 cameras, and one building/engineering game. One.

This awesome series of comics about the adventures of Byronic genius mathematicians Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage as they try to combat the "economic crisis" with an Experimental Engine, has already wasted a good 45 minutes of a day that started too late to begin with.

Best part of the strips? Puns like "steamulus".

These are the finished strips - there are a bunch of little sketches here there and everywhere as well.

Lovelace the Origin

Lovelace and Babbage vs. The Economy part 1 - 3

Not much to report, I am a little obsessed with this game World of Goo that Steven gave me, but I have to report I found this Youtube video of someone completing chapter 2 (which I will not watch all the way through because I am only on the windmill level) and this person is going way faster then I do. See:

For those of us involved in youth media or technology, the last few weeks have been all about the results of a 3.3 million dollar research project, funded by the MacArthur Foundation called Kids' Informal Learning with Digital Media: An Ethnographic Investigation of Innovative Knowledge Culture. The project was carried out by investigators at the University of Southern California and the University of California, Berkeley. The purpose of the research? To discover and learn about what young people are doing when they hang out online, doing what researchers like to call "informal learning" and what the rest of us usually refer to as 'playing', 'hanging out' and if we have an assignment due 'wasting time'. During this study dozens of research projects looked at teenagers use of MySpace, Youtube, Neopets, gaming and more.

Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be Luddites is the Globe and Mail's take on the research. For a more nuanced discussion, here is a video of Mizuko Ito, lead author of the study talking about the findings.

If a three year study can be boiled down to one sentence, then Ito has it: "There are myths about kids spending time online – that it is dangerous or making them lazy. But we found that spending time online is essential for young people to pick up the social and technical skills they need to be competent citizens in the digital age."