Weblogs: February 2008 Archive Page

Bennett Gordon, Science and Technology blog (Utne Reader):

Every diorama in the Home School Science Fair, which took place inside a shopping mall in Roseville, Minnesota, had a biblical quote attached to it. A young woman whose project involved teaching her dog how to run circles between her legs decorated the words: "If you love me, you will obey what I command." (John 14:15) in pink lace fabric. This quote got to the crux of the science fair, in my opinion: parental commandment. These parents pulled their children out of school, away from their peers, and said, "Now prove that Darwin was wrong."

This blog entry gives the impression that one particular homeschool group's Creationist science fair is "the 2008 Home School Science Fair," perpetuating the meme that all home school families are the same.  I left a comment on the site that said, in part, "I understand and appreciate your desire to protect the name of science from those who misappropriate its terminology. I hope you'll also respect my desire to address misunderstandings about home schooling."  (My reasons for choosing home schooling are not religious; my wife and I simply don't want to entrust such an important task to strangers -- we want to be a part of it.)

Update: Gordon e-mailed me to thank me for the comment I posted on his site. He said he had thought that the word "Creationist" in the title of his blog entry was enough to contextualize this particular science fair, but noted that the comments his blog attracted have already made a pretty good case for correcting that. I suggested that he do a profile on a homeschool family that doesn't fit the stereotype.

Stephanie Rosenbloom, NYT:

Research shows that among the youngest Internet users, the primary creators of Web content (blogs, graphics, photographs, Web sites) are not misfits resembling the Lone Gunmen of "The X Files." On the contrary, the cyberpioneers of the moment are digitally effusive teenage girls.

"Most guys don't have patience for this kind of thing," said Nicole Dominguez, 13, of Miramar, Fla., whose hobbies include designing free icons, layouts and "glitters" (shimmering animations) for the Web and MySpace pages of other teenagers. "It's really hard."

[...]

Teasing out why girls are prolific Web content creators usually leads to speculation and generalization. Although girls have outperformed boys in reading and writing for years, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, this does not automatically translate into a collective yen to blog or sign up for a MySpace page. Rather, some scholars argue, girls are the dominant online content creators because both sexes are influenced by cultural expectations.

"Girls are trained to make stories about themselves," said Pat Gill, the interim director for the Institute for Communications Research and an associate professor of gender and women's studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

After work today, I stopped by the house of a colleague who had asked me to teach her about blogging.  Her eighth-grade daughter watched and kept nodding, nodding while I talked about the various options. She sparkled with happiness when I showed her where the style settings were, and urged her mother to start personalizing the blog right away. She already knows how to do HTML, and even knew about cascading style sheets. I was impressed!

As I was getting ready to go home, she pointed to a huge professional photograph of a ballerina hanging over the computer and said "That's me!"  The young lady had danced the role of Clara in The Nutcracker this Christmas, and the photo was taken for the lobby display.

I wonder whether boys are more likely to contribute to message boards... I haven't read this Pew study yet, I've got some other things on my plate I'll have to do first, but I always find the Pew reports insightful.

Random thoughts are exactly what they are, random!

Anyone can say random words. It does
Have favorable results. His attempts to woo
-- But never all the way -- toward the cliff
Conform to something so unlike yourself

The other points are pretty valid. It's
A place to jot down information as
Questions. For example: how many?
Some mystery, not just telling the story

And one of the issues that I struggled with
Has meaning and the other does not.  Which
Alters it, stepping farther and farther away
From the last meeting to give you an idea.

I should just take a note book and go sit
At the food court at the mall.

Wired:

A leading general and former top military spokesman in Iraq is pleading with the armed services to let troops blog and post to YouTube.   Too bad the video site is banned on military nets, and Army rules squeeze military bloggers, hard.  Greg Grant notes, politely, that Caldwell's "recommendation that appears to run counter to Pentagon policy."