Weekly News Roundup August 5th

Check out these interesting articles on kids and technology!



7 obscure children’s books by authors of grown-up literature (brainpickings.org)



McDonalds recruits Mom bloggers to smooth over healthy Happy Meal rollout (cnn.com)



Toys R Us to carry Kindle (reuters.com)



16 Must-have apps for a healthy pregnancy (parents.com)



Cell phone use doesn't alter kids' cancer risk: study (reuters.com)



Nintendo says 3DS is not for kids (mnn.com)



Social media game aims to end extremism (bbc.co.uk)

 

 

For more news on kids and technology, visit the Spark blog!

Children’s Book for iPad Teaches Acceptance

At first glance, Pop It seems no different from the many other interactive children's books "popping up" on the market for the iPad. But give the screen a shake and you'll begin to see the bigger picture.

The book features a child going through normal daily activities with his parents. By shaking the iPad, these parents can be changed from a homosexual couple, to a lesbian couple, to a heterosexual couple.

“It’s a metaphor for shaking from one perspective to another,” said artist and author Raghava KK in an interview with Mashable. “The relationship between parent and child does not change if they have two moms, two dads. I’m challenging the concept of family.”

Raghava hopes to use the concept to teach children to be open-minded about a variety of issues, including racial and ethnic biases. Eventually, he would like the project to be open-source and to allow users to create interpretations that address different biases that they deal with in their everyday lives.

Continue reading this story on the Spark blog...




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Billboards Give Pittsburgh Youth a Voice

Hear Me, a project of CMU's CREATE Lab, strives to make the voices of children heard. This summer, they have chosen a larger-than-life medium that they hope will give children one more way to communicate: billboards.

So far, 50 billboards have been erected in Allegheny County and the surrounding region. The topics discussed cover everything from cyber-bullying and neighborhood violence to concerns over the environment. One billboard reads, "I still get called names... --- Crystal, 16." Another reads, "I was scared when I first heard the gunshot... -- Sherdina, 12." The billboards include links that viewers can follow to the Hear Me website where they'll find audio stories from more than 3,000 students in 25 school districts.

"We assume that children today have plenty of opportunities to make their dreams, fears and hopes known, whether it's by a mobile phone, computer or just talking," said Heide Waldbaum, director of Hear Me, "But learning how to express themselves about things that they really care about -- and getting adults and people in authority to really listen to them -- is difficult for many young people."

Read more on the Spark blog...

Spark Project Spotlight: Story Box

Story Boxes are popping up all over town--in museums, libraries, and schools. To date, about 130 Story Box units have been produced, and that's just the beginning. So what exactly are Story Boxes, and what do they mean for children in Pittsburgh?

A Story Box is a 21” x 12” x 4” portable device containing images with "hot spots" that, when pressed, play related audio clips. For example, the "My Favorite Animal" Story Box features photographs of young children with illustrated embellishments to make them look like different animals. By pressing on a child's photo, the listener can hear audio clips of that child roaring like a tiger, describing a zebra's fur, or remembering the time they met a unicorn on the beach.

Each Story Box focuses on a specific theme. Story Boxes produced to date have included topics such as:

What I Am Thankful For
Unique Things I Know How To Do
My Favorite Animal
Bullying
Martin Luther King
Personal Narratives
Impact Of The Arts
Hope For The Coming Year
Environmental Documentaries
Career Profiles

Learn more about Story Boxes on the Spark blog...

As the Budget Gets Smaller, Class Time Gets Shorter

It's no secret that state and local budget cuts have been putting pressure on education. A recently published New York Times article discusses one of the many outcomes of this pressure-- decreased class time. It seems many institutions are dealing with a smaller budget by creating a shorter school day. "Thousands of school districts across the nation are gutting summer-school programs, cramming classes into four-day weeks or lopping days off the school year."

Read more on the Spark blog...