Image Credit: AmericanGirl Library
The Care & Keeping of YOU is the godliest book that ever freaking existed. If you didn’t have this sh*t growing up, I’m not quite sure how you survived. READ MORE: Friendly Reminder That American Girl Doll Created The Ultimate Puberty Bible | BuzzFeed
Cash Cayen spends a lot of time at the local library in Timmins, Ontario. She was excited when she saw it was going to offer a session about robotics, and went to sign up. But the library said she wasn’t allowed — it’s for boys only. READ MORE: This Girl Taught Her Local Library A Lesson After They Blocked Her From A Robotics Class | BuzzFeed News
Image Credit: CogniToy
DON COOLIDGE AND JP Benini are bringing cognitive smarts to the world of children’s toys. Coolidge and Benini just launched a Kickstarter for a toy dinosaur toy driven by IBM Watson, the machine learning service based on the company’s Jeopardy-playing cognitive system.
Developed under the aegis of a company called Elemental Path and a project called CogniToys, this tiny plastic dinosaur uses speech recognition techniques to carry on conversations with kids, and according to Coolidge and Benini, it even develops a kind of smart personality based on likes and dislikes listed by each child.
The toy is another example of online machine learning pushing even further into our everyday lives. This is made possible not only by an improvement in AI techniques, but also by the ability to readily deliver these techniques across the net. READ MORE: A Toy Dinosaur Powered by IBM’s Watson Supercomputer | WIRED.
https://embed-ssl.ted.com/talks/rana_el_kaliouby_this_app_knows_how_you_feel_from_the_look_on_your_face.html
Rana el Kaliouby, a Cambridge- and MIT-trained scientist and leader in facial-recognition technology, is concerned about how computers are affecting the emotional lives of her two small children.
There is much research that suggests that emotional intelligence develops from social interactions, yet children are increasingly spending their days in front of computers, tablets, and smartphones. Today, children under the age of eight spend on average two full hours a day in front of screens. El Kaliouby is deeply concerned about what happens when children grow up around technology that does not express emotion and cannot read our emotion. Does that cause us, in turn, to stop expressing emotion?
The answer, according to recent research, is yes. A University of California-Los Angeles study last year found that children who had regular access to phones, televisions, and computers were significantly worse at reading human emotions than those who went five days without exposure to technology.
But El Kaliouby does not believe the solution lies in ridding the world of technology. Instead, she believes we should be working to make computers more emotionally intelligent.
READ MORE: What Emotion-Reading Computers Are Learning About Us | Fast Company | Business + Innovation
Parents might be happy to know their kids can get a head start in the competitive slipstream of computer programming by doing something they already enjoy — playing video games.
That’s the goal of Server Design 1, a new online course rolled out Tuesday by Youth Digital, a tech education company that teaches kids to code, develop apps, and design 3D modeling. The company’s new program allows kids to create their own worlds, with their own rules, all while playing the popular video game Minecraft with their friends.
READ MORE: Teaching kids to code, using Minecraft’s building blocks | CNET
Note that Youth Digital offers many other online coding and design courses for children – not free though!
Researchers at the University Of Tennessee At Knoxville have confirmed what my kids believe they already know – that some video gaming can be as physically intense for younger gamers as playing outside.
Before you let your toddlers have a four-hour Minecraft session, however, check out the methodology [hint “active gaming”]. READ MORE: Study Finds That Active Video Gaming May Be As Good For Kids As Playing Outside | TechCrunch.
Wrong on so many levels. North Carolina (and South Carolina if you are aware of today’s news) seem to be having troubles with kindness lately…(my opinion and not passing judgement on every citizen of these states in the USA).
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — After a third-grader tearfully recounted how another boy had called him “gay” during gym class, teacher Omar Currie chose to raise the issue during story time by reading his students a fable about a prince who falls in love with another prince, ending with a happily-ever-after royal wedding.
That decision in April ignited a public outcry from some parents in the rural hamlet of Efland, North Carolina, resulting in Currie’s resignation this week from a job he loved. The assistant principal who loaned Currie her copy of “King & King” has also resigned, and outraged parents are pressuring administrators at the Orange County Schools to ban the book. READ MORE: North Carolina’s Omar Currie Resigns After Reading Students A Gay Fable | Huffington Post
At the link the author further recommends in the article 23 books about girls for little boys to read. Great post!
I recently took my infant son to a gathering where he played happily on the floor, the center of attention in a ring of adults who were all interacting with and admiring him. Then I mentioned that his new favorite toy is bright pink. The men in the circle chuckled awkwardly and exchanged glances, and then someone joked: “so does that mean he’s gay?” I see this kind of gender policing happening so often, so early, for little boys.
In a related issue, when Nicola Griffith posted her astonishing data showing that books about women don’t win awards, it begged the question: why don’t men seem to care about women’s stories? Why don’t judging panels value the experiences of women? And yet I’ve heard this offhanded sentiment from friends of mine who are men: “I guess it’s a pretty good story — even though it’s about a girl.”
The root of the problem, I believe, isn’t simply that men don’t care about women or can’t imagine women’s experiences. It’s that they are actively shamed — even as infants! — when they show interest in anything perceived as “girly” or as a compromise to their masculinity. They’re not supposed to like pink, or dolls, or dresses, or princesses, or stories about girls. They hear it first from their caregivers and authority figures, and then from each other once they’ve internalized the message. READ MORE: Let’s Stop Shaming Little Boys Who Read About Girls | BookRiot
Children have to learn the birds and the bees somehow, and the 1975 book How a Baby Is Made was written to show them EVERY step of the process. In graphic detail. READ MORE: This Vintage Children’s Book Leaves Nothing To The Imagination | BuzzFeed
infophile 