Tips, web design book reviews, resources and observations for teaching and learning web development.
Now AOL is getting into the web series game with an AOL original series from Tiffany Shlain called The Future Starts Here. This 8 episode series is mostly about technology. Topics like information overload, tech etiquette, robots, and the creative process are included.
Here’s the first episode. Most last from 3 to 6 minutes, so you can watch all 8 in less than an hour.
Responsive Webfont Icons at Web Standards Sherpa gives you all the details on making your icons responsive.
How Will Google Hummingbird Impact Links? Here Are 6 Ways is at Search Engine Land.
A Map of the Gender Gap in Science Around the Globe. There’s no data from the U.S. on this map, which is a problem, but it’s interesting.
Hillary Clinton Announces Partnership to Help 5 Million Women and Girls is a recent post of mine at BlogHer about Intel and World Pulse teaming up to expand digital literacy skills for girls.
Ladies in Tech with Jenn Lukas at CTRL+CLICK CAST.
Designing User Interfaces for Older Adults: Myth Busters is SO RIGHT. The idea that older people don’t understand anything is SO WRONG. Here is wisdom from UX Matters.
The National Center for Women and Information Technology has a great program aimed at high school girls. This one is the Aspirations in Computing Talent Development Initiative. The initiative provides
encouragement, visibility, community, leadership opportunities, scholarships, and internships to aspiring technically inclined young women.
Applications are open now for the national and local awards. If you are a young woman in high school, apply now! You can learn more about the award and the NCWIT program here. Follow on Twitter at @NCWITAIC.
Hat tip to @redcrew for pointing this program out.
We cannot get enough women into tech fields, the pipeline is far from full. A further problem is that once women do get into tech jobs, they often leave in mid-career.
Women Technologists Count, a report from the Anita Borg Institute, takes a look at the reasons why women in mid-level jobs tend to leave technical career paths to become managers and/or leave the industry entirely.
An article at Fast Company, Why Women Leave Tech Companies, And What To Do About It, details more about the study and its findings. The article includes an infographic which summarizes the findings. I suggest you read the full article in addition to taking a look at the infographic.
[Reprinted from Old Ain’t Dead.]
Marvel is doing something marvelous for girls who are interested in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) around the release of Thor: The Dark World. The program is called Ultimate Mentor Adventure. Here’s how it works.
Natalie Portman, who plays Jane Foster, an astrophysicist, in Thor: The Dark World describes the program in a video you can see here.
A girl really cannot lose by participating in this mentor adventure. Just by participating she gets to meet a woman in a position she wants to know more about. The girls get help finding the mentors and making the videos. Everyone who participates will have a positive experience whether she wins or not.
Kudos to Marvel for this brilliant idea.
I wrote We Need More Young Geeky Female Role Models on TV on my pop culture blog, Old Ain’t Dead. I’m calling it to your attention here because I think representation in media is of supreme importance in getting more girls in the STEM career pipeline. I hope you’ll give it a read.
Skye, played by Chloe Bennet, in Marvel Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D is a good example of the kind of character I’m talking about. This show just began this week. We need more like her everywhere on TV.
Do you have any ideas about how to get more young girls interested in tech careers and about getting more positive geeky girl role models on TV?