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computer history, family conversations, parents and technology, women and computing, women and math, women mathematicians

Women Mathematicians Who Helped Save Lives During WW II

Posted on November 11, 2015March 17, 2019 by Marti Weston

If you want to help your kids or grandkids learn more history about interesting ways that women contributed to saving lives during World War II, look no farther than Top Secret Rosies, a PBS video that tells the story of the women who were a part of a secret project to figure our mathematically various trajectories of weapons during the war. Called female computers — that is people who compute — these women were recruited from all over the country to go to Philadelphia and work in secrecy at a special lab set up just for them.

With so many STEM-in-the-curriculum (STEM is short for science, technology, engineering, and math) discussions and the urgency to encourage 21st Century girls and young women to take more interest in science, math, and technology, it’s exciting to discover a resource that shares a story about women and their amazing mathematical achievements. Top Secret Rosies is a one-hour documentary, produced by LeAnn Erickson, a professor at Temple University tells the story.

Continue reading “Women Mathematicians Who Helped Save Lives During WW II” →

21st Century life, commenting, digital learning, family conversations, media and family life, media messages, modeling for kids, parents and technology, teachers

StoryCorps’ Great Thanksgiving Listen – Check It Out!

Posted on October 28, 2015March 17, 2019 by Marti Weston

Every Thanksgiving I write a post on each of my blogs listing the digital opportunities in my life for which I am thankful. In this age of constant worry about the various problems and challenges that technology presents for growing children, I like to remind myself that the connected world has given me and young people much to enrich our lives.

This Thanksgiving one more item will definitely be added to my list. StoryCorps, the storytelling feature that we listen to on National Public Radio (NPR), is featuring The 2015 Great Thanksgiving Listen. The goal is to:

… work with teachers and high school students across the country to preserve the voices and stories of an entire generation of Americans over a single holiday weekend.

Listen to a National Public Radio report about the Thanksgiving StoryCorps event.

Continue reading “StoryCorps’ Great Thanksgiving Listen – Check It Out!” →

21st Century Learning, 21st Century life, digital citizenship, digital devices and gadgets, family conversations, kids changing lives, parents and technology

Digital Literacy 101 for Kids, PreK -Grade 6: A Checklist

Posted on October 22, 2015March 17, 2019 by Marti Weston

In his book Net Smart, Howard Rheingold writes that for any of us to become knowledgeable connected world users and citizens, each of us needs to develop and continually strengthen five areas of digital literacy. People who use the web wisely and with good results develop fundamental skill in five literacy areas — attention, participation, collaboration, network awareness, and critical consumption of content.

New Smart – Read Rheingold’s Educause book excerpt.

As the lives of children, online and off, grow more complex by the day, we adults spend a good deal of our time helping them learn more about the lives they will live in a 21st Century world. We are accomplished at mentoring children in the parts of their lives that are offline, but often teachers and parents simply react to digital life problems rather than build fundamental digital literacy skills that will help children avoid problems. For kids to really be prepared to develop the five literacies that Rheingold describes, they need to build up a foundation of knowledge about the connected world environment.

How is it that children, pre-adolescents, and teens can understand how to use digital devices, consume digital culture at an early age, and even figure out digital device problems for their parents, but have only the barest knowledge about how to relate thoughtfully to people online, take complete advantage of digital resources, and solve problems rather than create them? The reason? We adults have so often put the cart before the horse. We give children their own personal devices or let them borrow ours — gadgets connect in various ways to the entire world, albeit different ones at different ages — and only gradually go about teaching the fundamental literacy aspects later on and especially when something goes wrong. Continue reading “Digital Literacy 101 for Kids, PreK -Grade 6: A Checklist” →

21st Century life, Conversation skills, parents and technology

Why We Need Baby Talk in the Digitally Connected World

Posted on October 11, 2015March 17, 2019 by Marti Weston

I just finished reading an engaging National Public Radio (NPR) report about Dana Suskind, MD, a University of Chicago surgeon, learning about her new book, 30 Million Words, Building a Child’s Brain. Dr. Suskind, who notes that we should speak to babies all the time that they are awake — when we play, when we help them with things, when out on walks and whenever else, because it ensures that the best neural development takes place. Baby talk has a huge purpose.

After writing my previous post, Does Digital Life Distort our Conversation Skills? about Sherry Turkle’s new book, I was reminded about the people we see talking on mobile phones while pushing wide awake babies in strollers. But I also pictured myself grabbing a glance at my phone when my baby grandson gets especially engaged with a toy — a time when I should continue to, well, babbling away with him.

30 Million Words is another must read book.

Continue reading “Why We Need Baby Talk in the Digitally Connected World” →

21st Century Learning, 21st Century life, 21st Century parenting, Conversation skills, digital devices, digital health and wellness, parents and technology

Does Digital Life Distort Our Conversation Skills?

Posted on October 6, 2015March 17, 2019 by Marti Weston

Jacket-for-Reclaiming-Conversation — Learn more about the book.

Do our conversation skills weaken as we continually connect — virtually and physically — with our digital devices? How does this always-connected environment affect our children and youth? Are conversational and empathy skills developing as they should?

Sherry Turkle describes these problems in Reclaiming Conversation, a book that relates how the individuals in many of her interviews note — uncomfortably so — that they are less and less able to carry on a conversation confidently. More worrisome, children, in general, appear to be less able to converse, put themselves in another individual’s shoes, and empathize with that person. Turkle backs up her assertions with evidence.

Continue reading “Does Digital Life Distort Our Conversation Skills?” →

parents and technology

Digital Devices & Sleep — Charging Outside of Bedrooms

Posted on September 30, 2015March 17, 2019 by Marti Weston

Experts continue to express concern about digital devices and sleep, and children, with their ever-present mobile phones and tablets, do not always get an adequate amount. Ditto for many adults. Check out my sleep resources at the bottom of this post.

One idea that improves a family’s sleep situation markedly, according to parents and pediatricians, is the concept of a centralized charging area — a space away from bedrooms where family members store and charge digital devices for overnight.

A few years ago I wrote Get Better Sleep With a Centralized Charging Station, describing the different ways people create spaces to charge devices away from bedrooms. Some of the suggestions were do-it-yourself (DIY) projects that family members can make together. Continue reading “Digital Devices & Sleep — Charging Outside of Bedrooms” →

21st Century Learning, 21st Century teaching, commenting, parents and technology, social media

Let’s Teach Children How to Comment

Posted on September 24, 2015March 17, 2019 by Marti Weston

Knowing how to write a comment that is appropriate for different online settings is a critical literacy skill for 21st Century children (and also for many of their parents). Too often young comment writers end up fervently wishing they had thought a bit more about what they posted.

Educators and parents need to pay serious attention to the commenting lives of kids. While the World Wide Web and social media offer young children, pre-adolescents, and teens nearly unlimited opportunities to comment and express their opinions, problems occur when young people do not possess the impulse control skills for such unrestricted access. Continue reading “Let’s Teach Children How to Comment” →