Moving at the Speed of Creativity

Here is a good looking website to share: Girls Go Tech. No, we’re not talking about Texas Tech University here, we’re talking about technology, math and science. There is a national ad campaign underway for this project also.

A Tips for Parents in the Girls Go Tech booklet (PDF) is available that looks great. It is published by the Girl Scouts, and titled: “It’s Her Future: Encourage a Girl in Math, Science and Technology.” The initial introduction to parents reads:

To the Important Adults in Girls’ Lives,

“I was never good at math or science.” Have you ever used this phrase? If so, take a moment to think about the message you’re sending to a girl who looks up to you. Studies show that young girls enjoy math, science and technology just as much as boys do. Yet by eighth grade, twice as many boys as girls show interest in science, engineering and mathematics careers. As a result, only 22 percent of engineers and scientists are women – even though women make up nearly half the workforce. If this pattern continues, many of today’s girls will miss out on the jobs of the future. Adults like you hold the keys to change.

How well a girl learns is often directly tied to a caring adult’s involvement in her education. You can encourage a girl to see math, science and technology all around her. You can make it fun for her to explore these worlds. You can help her to find her own answers. Girl Scouting has encouraged girls to explore the world around them through science, math and technology for over 90 years. Today, Girl Scouts of the USA and the Ad Council have partnered to help you. Using this booklet as a starting point, you can show a girl that she need never stop excelling in math, science and technology. This message is a lifelong lesson and a wonderful gift.

As the father of two young girls, I am 100% behind and in support of this campaign!
As adults, parents, educators and citizens: We are the keys to change. We are the gatekeepers. It’s time to open the door to many things, like getting students of all ages and genders excited about learning– in math and science, as well as other subject areas.

I actually found this website on MySpace– it was a sponsored advertisement. I figure if I want to help parents, teachers and young people learn to use social networking sites like MySpace in safe and effective ways, I needed to start using it myself. I don’t really know what I’m doing (yet) but so far this looks like it will be both fun and enlightening. When you consider the huge impact MySpace networking just had on the immigration policy related protests here in the US, I think there can be little discounting the power of these tools and their social/political importance today and tomorrow.

For more on this, check out the NPR piece, “Text Message, MySpace Roots of Student Protests” from March 29, 2006. Or, you can link to my new MySpace site (”Opening the Door”) and get the link there, along with my comments in my MySpace blog!

Unfortunately, if you are trying to view the latter two links from school, you probably won’t be able to.

On this day..

• Podcast242: Solving the Publish At Will Challenge for K-12 Teachers with Podcast Producer - 2008
• 10,000 miles apart and learning - 2008
• links for 2008-04-08 - 2008
• NCCE 2008 workshop audio recordings - 2008
• Positive impressions of Wordpress 2.5 - 2008
• MySpace defamation suit highlights important issues - 2007
• Reflecting on helping kids develop their own ethical filters - 2007
• The Power of One - 2006
• Authentic education is always experimental - 2006
• Securely formatting hard drives - 2006

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 8th, 2006 at 2:21 pm and is filed under edtech, politics, science. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.