Weekly News Roundup July 22

Check out these interesting articles on kids and technology!

Parents will enjoy these iPhone and iPad apps (Parents.com)

Mom’s Facebook Community Helps Diagnose Her Ailing Son (Mommyish.com)

New regulations for food, beverage advertising toward children (Healthkey.com)

Using touch screens and apps to treat autism (mercurynews.com)

The Internet Is Making Your Kids Think Differently, Not Less (Mommyish.com)

Teaching Angry Birds In School (neatorama.com)

Infographic Shows Top and Bottom States for Science Education (livescience.com)

For the latest on kids and technology, visit the Spark blog!

New Member

Welcome to Alayna blogging for The Spark Blog sponsored by the Sprout Fund! She's already jumped in feet first so enjoy her contributions!

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...