Ke Alahele grants support media production classes

On the outside, it's another classroom.

Inside, room I-102 at Kalama Intermediate School is a conservatory for creative thinking utilizing media technology to enhance communications on the campus.

An array of 18 iMacs line a wall where students in the last days of the 2008-09 school year reworked video and writing projects using digital media software to create graphic and video art works that will become books, posters or videos to be displayed online, in classrooms and at home.

Source: Maui Economic Development Board, Inc.
Full story: http://www.medb.org/medbnews

KIHEI - The Maui Economic Development Board's Women in Technology (WIT) Project has extended the application deadline for its annual Excite Camp to July 7, 2009. This gives intermediate school girls interested in the latest science and technology fields an extra week to sign up for one of the most popular tech events of the summer.

Begun in 2000, Excite Camp's mission is to create awareness and motivate 7th and 8th grade girls -- especially those in under-represented minorities such Native Hawaiians -- toward science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) careers.

The four-day Camp is scheduled take place July 21-24, and adds a new land/ocean component to this year's agenda. In addition to its hands-on engineering activities, tour of the telescopes atop Haleakala and visits to various tech companies at the Maui Research & Technology Park, the event will also provide a rare opportunity to explore an ancient ahupua'a site using GIS/GPS to investigate Hawaiian culture, past and present.

Excite Camp is open to girls entering 7th and 8th grade in Fall 2009 AND who are able to attend all four days of activities.

Because space is limited, interested participants are encouraged to sign up as soon as possible to be considered for selection. An Excite Camp application packet can be downloaded at http://www.womenintech.com/workshops.html. For more information, contact Jeni Salvador at the Maui Economic Development Board, 875-2332 or email jeni@medb.org.

Hawaii recently became the first state in the nation to provide Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software throughout its entire educational system, thanks to an unprecedented partnership agreement with ESRI, the world's leading GIS software developer. The new K-12 license will be coupled with the existing Higher Education license, every public school in Hawaii, from kindergarten through college, will be provided with ESRI's industry-standard GIS tools. State officials are enthusiastic about the potential for job creation through a greater emphasis on spatial literacy in the educational system.

Spearheaded by the Maui Economic Development Board's Women in Technology (WIT) Project and the State's DOE, the new expanded license will allow Hawaii's students unprecedented access to the cutting-edge software.

Source: Maui Economic Development Board, Inc.
Fullstory: http://www.medb.org/medbnews

High school students interested in the latest Dreamweaver/Photoshop,
3D CAD technologies, and Gaming are encouraged to sign up for three
separate exciting summer software camps scheduled in Kihei this June
and July.

Sponsored by Maui Economic Development Board's Women in Technology
(WIT) project, the Dreamweaver/Photoshop Software Camp will be held on
June 29 - July 3rd, 3D CAD Software Camp, July 7-10, followed by the
Gaming workshop, July 14-17th.

The training camps will be held in Kihei at the Maui Research and
Technology Park (MRTP) in the Maui Economic Development Boards Don
Malcolm Training Center. There is a $10 registration fee per camp and
lunches will be provided daily. Financial assistance is available for
students in need.

Space is limited so those interested should apply ASAP. Registered
students must commit to participate for the entire duration of the
camp.

To register, call Erin Okazaki at 875-2343 or email her at
okazaki@medb.org with the following information:
- Student name
- High school
- Grade
- Contact number
- Email address

Raise the bar and watch females succeed, researcher says

THURSDAY, June 4 (HealthDay News) -- Culture, not biology, might explain why females in some parts of the world don't perform as well as males in math.

That's the conclusion of an analysis of math performance in the United States and abroad that appears in the June 1 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"There are countries where the gender disparity in math performance doesn't exist at either the average or gifted level. These tend to be the same countries that have the greatest gender equality," article co-author Janet Mertz, an oncology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said in a university news release.

Source: Business Week
Full story: http://www.businessweek.com

By Ben Worthen

The high-tech industry has a diversity problem, according to a new study.

Blacks, Hispanics and Native Americans only make up 6.8% of engineering and other technical staffers in the tech industry, the Anita Borg Institute, a group that promotes the hiring of women in high-tech, said on Monday. These groups make up an even smaller percentage of workers at higher levels within tech companies.

So-called under-represented minorities make up 27% of the population as a whole and receive 18% of undergraduate computer-science degrees. They earn 8% of masters and doctoral degrees in computer science. But they were barely present at the seven large Silicon Valley companies the Anita Borg Institute studied. (The companies weren't identified.)

Source: The Wall Street Journal
Full story: http://blogs.wsj.com