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American history, coding history, digital world challenges, technology changes, women and computing, women in history, women mathematicians

Code Girls: Top Secret American Brainpower During World War II

Posted on November 28, 2017March 17, 2019 by Marti Weston

Today we often hear that children must learn how to code as the only way to be prepared for the technical challenges they will encounter as adults. I used to teach coding to children at my school, but after reading Code Girls, I am reminded that we should not lose sight of the importance of a broad education that emphasizes languages, math, science, music, and all the other subjects that make up the liberal arts. This type of education serves people well, because it ensures that students possess thinking skills and develop the wherewithal to learn, when necessary, new types of technical skills, such as coding and programming.

in Code Girls author Liza Mundy tells the story of how young women, many of whom were academically prepared in the liberal arts to become teachers, came to work for the Army and Navy in Washington, D.C. during World War II. They mastered extraordinary technical skills, learning how to decipher complicated and perplexing coded wartime communications. Continue reading “Code Girls: Top Secret American Brainpower During World War II” →

21st Century life, civility, computer history, digital change, innovation, teaching digital kids, women and computing

Even a Web Founder Worries about Today’s Connected World Climate

Posted on April 18, 2017March 17, 2019 by Marti Weston

Can a world wide web creator be a doubter about what he helped to create?

I’ve just finished reading The Innovators by Walter Isaacson, a book that highlights the many people who helped create, step-by-step, the digital world where we now reside.

The book begins way back in the mid-1800s with the ideas of Lady Ada Lovelace, an amateur mathematician (and the daughter of poet Lord Byron). It was Lady Ada, Isaacson writes, who provided the ideas and laid the groundwork for early computer developers to use nearly 100 years later when they created their first computing machines. Continue reading “Even a Web Founder Worries about Today’s Connected World Climate” →

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 Learning, computer history, parents and technology, women and computing

Top Secret Rosies: Female Mathematicians During World War II

Posted on April 10, 2015March 18, 2019 by Marti Weston

With so many STEM-in-the-curriculum discussions and the urgency to encourage 21st Century girls and young women to take more interest in science and technology, it’s exciting to discover a resource that shares a story about women and some amazing mathematical achievements.

Check out Top Secret Rosies a video about the women, recruited by the United States Army during World War II, who worked on a top-secret mathematics project. The women, all of whom possessed strong math skills, were recommended by their college professors and traveled to Philadelphia to do the complex ballistics calculations that were required to aim weapons more accurately.

Continue reading “Top Secret Rosies: Female Mathematicians During World War II” →

coding history, computer history, early computing, women and computing

ENIAC: The First U.S. Computer and How Women Made It Work

Posted on March 31, 2015April 7, 2015 by Marti Weston

People — young and old — enjoy learning about the first computer in the United States, ENIAC, booted up in 1946. Every 21st Century learner needs to know about this amazing machine and the story of the first programmers.

A few weeks ago I visited Philadelphia and had a special opportunity to visit ENIAC. This huge, old-fashioned computer is owned by the Smithsonian Institution (read this article), but parts of it are still housed in a building at the University of Pennsylvania, almost exactly where it was originally set up. ENIAC could be programmed to do extensive calculations much faster than humans could calculate.

The letters in ENIAC stand for Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer. Continue reading “ENIAC: The First U.S. Computer and How Women Made It Work” →