Clarence Fisher of Remote Access and a 7/8 grade teacher at Joseph H. Kerr School in Snow Lake, Manitoba writes about the girls in his class being first adopters:

The kids who are most excited about technology, who are the ones downloading Skype after we talk about it in class and are putting in the most time designing their blogs and supporting information on our wiki are the girls who seem the least “technologically adept.” These girls are not the gamers, the hackers, the “tinkerers.” They are the communicators, the writers, the readers. This group likes to talk, think, revise, re – write, and re – visit. They have quietly gone home and set up Skype accounts, websites, wikis of their own, and subscribed to podcasts. They like the information coming in to them from all directions and are appreciating new channels to get it from. They are subscribed to class blogs and kids from classes around the world, but they like Gizmodo for the new ideas it gives them, and they like Ourmedia to dip into the lives of people around the world.

His account of their progress really makes me excited about how well they are doing. Being able to communicate and connect with others in so many different ways is really great.

When I was a young girl in 10th grade, (I was going to write, not that long ago!, but it really has been a while now. :-) ) the geometry teacher connected keyboards to old 12-inch TV sets, which enabled students to write programs in BASIC. I spent extra time writing this cool program that allowed users to input hours worked and pay rate, and it would then calculate gross pay, deductions, and net pay. I was so proud of myself. :) I hope these girls have a sense of pride in what they’ve been able to accomplish.

Clarence has another good point:

Wait until technology penetrates into places it isn’t right now. When we hear from more African girls, and the voices of young boys in South East Asia, I’ll know that we are getting somewhere.

Yes! Absolutely! We’ll get there.

BTW, I love the WordPress theme on his course blog.