Technology Is For Girls and Boys

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Stuart Hall for Boys
Convent Elementary School
Technology Is For Girls and Boys
Presented at the NECC 2005 By Corinne
Corrigan Chris Corrigan Ginny Gertler Fred
Jaravata Joanne Oppenheimer
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• Children need a wide variety of learning
  experiences to develop both female and male
  gender-related skills Dr. JoAnn Deak

A drawing by a Kindergarten boy. The majority of
boys this age have control difficulty with
pencils and computer mice.
A drawing by a Kindergarten girl. Filled with
detail using developed fine motor skills.
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• Darwinist believe
• Males focused on direction from evolution of
  being hunters
• Females gatherers, detail oriented, multitask
  from evolution of berry picking and taking care
  of children at the same time
• From a talk given at Schools of the Sacred Heart
  By Dr. JoAnn Deak

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NMR Brain Scan Research has shown that the
hormones of estrogen and testosterone have an
effect on brain development

• The midbrain amygdala is the center for human
  emotion.  It is more developed among females, so
  that emotions operate with more intensity among
  women.
• High use of the amygdala prevents girls from
  taking many risks. 
• gender distinct traits are bi-modal curves with
  female characteristics applying to 80 percent of
  women and male characteristics applying to 80
  percent of men. 

http//www.view zone.com/amygdala/
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It is important during the early years to expose
females to learning experiences that will help
them develop male dominant skills and vice
versa. Dr. JoAnn Deak 
Nerve cells growdendrites and synapses increase
when stimulated by use.
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Men and woman can do the same things, but they
take different roads to get there. Dr. JoAnn
Deak
Partners on projects for boys encourage
socialization, especially when in a subject area
of strength.
Projects build on girls social and verbal
strengths to learn Math skills.
Note different types of stamps chosen by girls
in the same project done by boys. One boy picked
stamps that needed to be constructed despite
directions.
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Learning for boys should include movement and
tactile experience. Authentic learning is
captured by a digital camera and reinforced a
week later at computer time with this project.
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Boys often work harder making work for other
people. Boys enjoy being experts and teaching
adults.
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Females are successful in math if learning is
integrated with examples that are used all the
time and connected to real life situations.
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The female brain is more integrated, using both
sides. Females will use 10-12 different locations
on both sides of brain to do a math question.
It is important to give girls an opportunity to
express data in a 3D format.
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First Grade Boys Shapes Architecture
First Grade Boys Shapes Architecture
www.great buildings.com
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Boys use three to five centers on the left side
of brain to solve Math problems.  Social
Studies featured the Renaissance and perspective
drawing. These rubrics were combined with Math
standards in Geometry. They were reinforced in
computer with a photomanipulation project.
Fourth Grade
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• The rate and readiness for learning is different
  among males and females.
• Girls are more successful in the early grades
  with better motor control and auditory
  development geared to reading and writing.
• females develop auditory skills from 5 to 7 years
  old
• 2. auditory learning among males occurs from
  seven to 12 years.
• Girls are a second longer in answering because
  males have better motor reflex and speed of
  response.

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First Grade Boys Using the Web Vowel Sounds
Web
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Boys need concrete hands-on examples to help them
learn. This project combines many elements to
encourage learning.
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Kindergarten girls love stories. Using a theme
from the Gingerbread book, the girls begin
associating a picture with a word. This helps
develop a site vocabulary. Visual memory,
auditory sequencing and auditory discrimination
make females better spellers than males.  This
is not related to intelligence.
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Third Grade San Francisco Landmarks Project.
Girls wrote the facts as if they were tour
guides.
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Details of Field Trips are more memorable for
girls when they can express the experience in
their own words.After the age of 7 the higher
thinking cortex is linked to the amygdala, the
seat of emotion.
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• Images helped the boys remember details for
  their webpage
• composition about their 4th grade trip on the
  Thayer.
• Writing for the Web often increases boys
  tolerance for edits and correction.

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Writing Poetry
Girls need a safe environment to deal with their
feelings.
Boys need a safe environment to deal with their
feelings.
Raising Cain By Dan Kindlon, Ph.D. and Michael
Thompson, Ph.D. Help in developing an emotional
vocabulary, You respect his emotional life, you
take it into account, you make reference to it,
then soon he will take it into account.
How Girls Thrive An Essential Guide for
Educators and Parents Dr. JoAnn Deak Some
characteristics may be more dominant in females
or males. For example, fear and anxiety are
greater among females. 
Some characteristics are gender equalJoy and
happiness positive emotions are gender
fair. Dr. JoAnn Deak
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An example of the diamante form of poetry - 4th
Grade
Integrating Language Arts with Science can
stimulate vocabulary development in boys as
Science is a strength for boys. The technical
challenge of this assignment also peaked their
interest.
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Boys need to be encouraged to express emotion.
Writing poetry about a realistic subject allows
them this freedom of expression.
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Seventh grade girls poetry projects show ability
to express emotion both visually and with words.
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Girls need more positive experiences in the
physical sciences. In order to create a
supportive atmosphere, a teacher should model
ways to take intellectual risks, encourage
students to think creatively, require students to
treat classmates' contributions with respect
Rop, Charles Breaking the Gender Barrier in the
Physical Sciences. Educational Leadership (v55 n4
p58-60 Dec-Jan 1997-1998) Breaking the Gender
Barrier in the Physical Sciences.
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The Jason Project at the Bay Model in Sausalito
We talked directly with scientists on the Channel
Islands.
Dr. Robert Ballard documented Titanic
http//www.Jason.org
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Venus
http//pds.jpl.nasa.gov/planets/
The digital image encourages the girls dream of
space. Even projects for young students include
workciting.
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Animation brings with it the opportunity to draw
and design the scientific facts and strengthen
girls interest and learning.
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Animation helps makes facts more vivid and more
meaningful to memorize.
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The technical challenge of animation encourages
learning and sequential thought in boys.
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First Grade Boys Using the Web Rainforest Project
Website
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Second Grade Boys Using the Web Bat Study
Bat Site
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Insects and Spiders
Event 9
400 mya
Insects and spiders began to climb onto land
around 400 million years ago. Some o f the
characteristics of insects include three body
sections, the head, the thorax, and the abdomen.
They usually have three pairs of legs one pair of
antennae, and two pairs of wings. Spiders are
animals with eight legs, fangs, and poison
glands. The advantages offered by coming on land
were an empty niche, which they could easily fill.
This is an year long project in science. It gives
the boys continuity and concrete expectations.
They are ready to create the next project and
look for information that will be needed.
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Role Models Are Important for Both Boys and
Girls (But they are not always easy to find!)
Jose Clemente Orozco
1883 - 1949 By 7th grade student
1883 - 1949 By 7th grade student
Joint Foreign Language and Art Project
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A look at socialization issues indicates that a
decline in self-esteem and capitulation to the
forces of socialization encourage girls to
focus on their bodies at the expense of a
whole-person or achievement orientation.
This lessens a girls capacity for risk taking.
Girls and Technology http//ontrack.ncsu.edu/Summe
rCamp/2001/
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The Media is often too concerned with presenting
a pretty image. In the case of this mom of
septuplets, Newsweek went too far. The artist
straightened the teeth of the mother. Were they
afraid that she would not look good enough to
sell magazines?
December 1997
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The opportunity to learn photomanipulation increas
es the students visual awareness of media. They
recognize light sources,sharp edges and size
changes.
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The main colors of the poster are yellow and
blue. I think that yellow is used to catch the
viewers eye. I think that blue is used because
it stands out against the yellow, The symbols in
the poster are the two men with the guns. I think
that they are there to show what kind of stuff
Americans do in the war and to convince people to
join because of the advanced artillery of the
American forces. The messages are both visual
and verbal. The intended audience is the
Americans because its trying to get people in
America to fight. The government wants people
when they see the poster to go fight in the war.
This student missed the point and will need more
training to take time to notice visual details.
See what you think.
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Students created their own propaganda
posters.Peer evaluation can help verbalize
individual interpretations. The teacher can use
constructivist techniques to develop expressive
vocabulary.
Dont just ask boys how this makes them feel.
Asking a 17-year-old boy to talk about his
feelings is about as productive as asking a
6-year-old boy to talk about his feelings. Dr.
Leonard Sax
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• We need to find places where the boys feel secure
  in expressing some negative feelings.
• In this case, the poster expressed frustration
  with the school uniform.

Hostility to the male character -- intentional
or not -- is turning boys off learning. The
behaviors that earn reward and reinforcement --
co-operation, communal achievement and
non-assertiveness in class -- are feminine
behaviors. Meanwhile, such masculine traits as
competitiveness, aggressiveness and individuality
are seldom prized, and frequently discouraged or
even punished. Dr. Leonard Sax
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Middle School Using the Web

• Research using primary sources.
• Access anywhere.
• Use analytical skills to gain meaning from text.
• Use information to create multimedia projects.
• Develop digital literacy skills.

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Understanding female and male predispositions
can help to change gender stereotypes and
allow early intervention so that girls and
boys are strong in all skills. Dr. JoAnn Deak