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For teachers looking to inject some excitement into their geography lesson, Skype might be the answer. Silvia Tolisano recently created a game she calls “Mystery Skype Call” that uses the video conferencing tool and some critical thinking to teach students geography in a new and exciting way.

Read more and see a video on the Spark blog…

At first glance, Pop It seems no different from the many other interactive children’s books “popping up” on the market for the iPad. But give the screen a shake and you’ll begin to see the bigger picture. The book features a child going through normal daily activities with his parents. By shaking the iPad, these parents can be changed from a homosexual couple, to a lesbian couple, to a heterosexual couple.

“It’s a metaphor for shaking from one perspective to another,” said artist and author Raghava KK in an interview with Mashable. “The relationship between parent and child does not change if they have two moms, two dads. I’m challenging the concept of family.”

Raghava hopes to use the concept to teach children to be open-minded about a variety of issues, including racial and ethnic biases. Eventually, he would like the project to be open-source and to allow users to create interpretations that address different biases that they deal with in their everyday lives. Continue reading this story on the Spark blog…

Check out these interesting articles on kids and technology!

—Parents will enjoy these iPhone and iPad apps (Parents.com)

—Mom’s Facebook Community Helps Diagnose Her Ailing Son (Mommyish.com)

—New regulations for food, beverage advertising toward children (Healthkey.com)

—Using touch screens and apps to treat autism (mercurynews.com)

—The Internet Is Making Your Kids Think Differently, Not Less (Mommyish.com)

—Teaching Angry Birds In School (neatorama.com)

—Infographic Shows Top and Bottom States for Science Education (livescience.com)

For the latest on kids and technology, visit the Spark blog!

When asked to create something, most nine year olds will grab crayons and construction paper. Ding Wen Lim of Singapore is much more likely to sit down at his computer.

The fourth grader started using the computer at age two and has since learned six programming languages. At age nine, he has already completed 20 programming projects. His latest, Doodle Kids, is a free drawing program for use on Apple’s iPhone.

Lim says, “I wrote the program for my younger sisters, who like to draw but I am happy that other people like it.” It seems this propensity for programming runs in the family, as Lim’s father, Lim Thye Chean, also writes iPhone applications.

He says, “He told me it was his wish to learn programming so I decided to teach him the basics. Every evening we check the statistics emailed to us (by iTunes) to see who has more downloads.” Read more on the Spark blog…

Story Boxes are popping up all over town—in museums, libraries, and schools. To date, about 130 Story Box units have been produced, and that’s just the beginning. So what exactly are Story Boxes, and what do they mean for children in Pittsburgh?

A Story Box is a 21” x 12” x 4” portable device containing images with “hot spots” that, when pressed, play related audio clips. For example, the “My Favorite Animal” Story Box features photographs of young children with illustrated embellishments to make them look like different animals. By pressing on a child’s photo, the listener can hear audio clips of that child roaring like a tiger, describing a zebra’s fur, or remembering the time they met a unicorn on the beach.

Each Story Box focuses on a specific theme. Story Boxes produced to date have included topics such as:

• What I Am Thankful For
• Unique Things I Know How To Do
• My Favorite Animal
• Bullying
• Martin Luther King
• Personal Narratives
• Impact Of The Arts
• Hope For The Coming Year
• Environmental Documentaries
• Career Profiles

The devices are funded by Spark and produced by The Saturday Light Brigade. The Saturday Light Brigade (SLB for short) began in 1978 as a weekly public radio program focusing on family and community life. Today, SLB has grown into a non-profit with a permanent home in The Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh. In addition to broadcasting live for six hours every Saturday, SLB also offers technical and self-expression workshops for children and youth from 8 to 18 years of age.

In 2008, SLB began working with the CREATE Lab at Carnegie Mellon on a project called HearMe. HearMe and Story Boxes have a lot in common as they both focus on collecting and distributing children’s stories. In many ways, these projects take the original intent of the SLB radio show and mobilize it. Host and Founder Larry Berger explains:

“When SLB began in 1978, it was reasonable for us to use radio to inform and delight an often-unexpecting audience with children’s stories and ideas.  We designed Story Box technology with hopes of achieving this goal in today’s fragmented media environment and fast-paced world.  As mass media shrinks and user-directed content increases, we wanted a simple way to reach people and, frankly, tempt them to listen to voices of children.”

Read more on the Spark blog…

Check out this neat tutorial on how to build a miniature robot using an Altoids tin.

Read these instructions and do it yourself! Robotics can be a great teaching tool and an easy way to get kids interested in the sciences. Several Spark funded projects involve robotics including Curious Creatures from Art Energy Design, Character Therapy from Interbots, and the Robot Algebra Project from Girl Scouts of Southwestern PA. Learn more about these programs on our Funded Projects page.

And stop by the Spark blog for more fun updates and posts!