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Wonder Women! Premiering Monday on PBS

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Wonder Women!

On Monday, April 15, at 10pm ET, PBS’ Independent Lens will be airing Wonder Women! The Untold Story of American Superheroines. The hour-long film uses Wonder Woman as a starting point for a conversation about popular representations of powerful women, from comics to TV shows to the real world. The show includes interviews with Lynda Carter (Wonder Woman) and Lindsay Wagner (The Bionic Woman), Gloria Steinem, comic book artists and writers, and more.

Katie-Wonder Woman

Nine-year old, Katie, dressed as Wonder Woman

I got a sneak preview of the film and watched it with my wife. I found it fascinating—first, I learned some things about Wonder Woman’s origins that I hadn’t known before, including some of the changes in her character over the decades. But equally interesting were the stories that various people throughout the film talked about Wonder Woman and other heroines and the way that their story is interwoven with the role that real women play in society.

Kristy Guevara-Flanagan

Kristy Guevara-Flanagan, director of Wonder Women

I got a chance to interview Kristy Guevara-Flanagan, the director.

GeekDad: Hi, Kristy! I really enjoyed watching Wonder Women, so thanks for taking a little time to answer a few questions! What made you decide to use Wonder Woman as the focal point of this documentary?

Guevara-Flanagan: I actually hadn’t known much about Wonder Woman beyond the Lynda Carter incarnation on TV in the ’70s. One of the first things I did when I became interested in Wonder Woman was to read her original comics. I was so fascinated by William Moulton Marston’s ideas and when I read those early comics, I really did find a very radical female hero… even by today’s standards. She comes from the land of Amazons! A matriarchy! And she is not threatened nor inherently paranoid of other women, which is still common of female characters in pop culture today. She is interested in justice, reformation, empathy, compassion. What a compelling character I found! Then, when I discovered the women of Ms. Magazine picked her up to be their icon for the empowered woman by placing her on the first issue of their feminist magazine, that pretty much sealed the deal. I thought she would be an interesting character through which I could explore the themes I was already interested in: female heroism, pop culture, and gender disparities.

Lynda Carter

Lynda Carter, star of the Wonder Woman TV show

GeekDad: Do you have any personal attachment to or experiences with Wonder Woman?

Guevara-Flanagan: I did love the Wonder Woman TV show growing up, but I have come to discover that there are many for whom Wonder Woman was a much more central figure in their lives both as children and adults. I think my experience with her pales by comparison! I was Princess Leia for Halloween.

GeekDad: A lot of the strong female characters you mention are in the sci-fi/fantasy realm, genres which have traditionally been outside the mainstream. Do you feel that it’s easier to find these role models in geeky culture, or are they becoming more prevalent in mainstream culture as well?

Guevara-Flanagan: YES! I think its because these science fiction and fantasy realms don’t exist! So we are much more free to imagine a world without sexism and racism, that is to say a more egalitarian society, along the lines of Battlestar Galactica and even Star Trek (especially for its time). At the same time, there has also been the history of some really over the top hyper-sexualized female characters in these genres as well. I think you can find the extremes.

Wonder Woman Day in Portland, OR

Wonder Woman Day in Portland, OR

GeekDad: How important is the physical appearance of strong female characters—should they be physically attractive? For instance, do you think it’s fine to have Wonder Woman baring lots of skin because that will attract readers to her more egalitarian character and stories, or does her costume detract from her ability to be a role model?

Guevara-Flanagan: I think attractive is fine, but a woman’s strength and hence her ability to be a fully empowered role model is mitigated by her sexuality. The more overt that sexuality is and the more she is seen as a sex object and love interest, the more compromised is her power. That being said, women are used to “taking what they can get” when it comes to women in leading roles. I don’t think that is the best case scenario, though, and I am happy to see new female heroes like Katniss Everdeen, whose strength revolves around a terrific plot and a great story about a hero who happens to be a young woman.

GeekDad: In the film, it’s noted that women make up only 4% of the top decision-making positions for TV and movies: do you see that changing in the future? If so, how soon?

Guevara-Flanagan: It seems truly shocking how far we haven’t come over the decades in terms of this. Progress is slow. I think with the advent of social media, there is a growing awareness of this and a mounting pressure on executives to make more changes. But the financial stakes for blockbusters are so high, anything but business as usual is seen as risky. It has taken Pixar literally decades to come up with ONE starring heroine in their animated cartoons. And Disney still has the corner on princesses, not always the most empowering characters for girls to look up to.

GeekDad: What’s next for you?

Guevara-Flanagan: We are working on a soon-to-be-launched video game, called Wonder City. Wonder City is a companion game to the film that provides an interactive component for young audiences to identify their own heroic qualities, while reinforcing ideas explored in the film. By empowering tweens to adopt a superhero identity, players are encouraged to take on those same failures of imagination and opportunity that the film documents, and to become agents of their own values. As the film encourages young audiences to explore pop cultural history as a means of thinking critically about how we visualize power and gender, the game provides an interactive component for the same audience to identify their own heroic qualities and make empowered choices while building self-esteem.

GeekDad: That sounds great. Good luck with work on that, and thanks so much for your time!

I’ve included the trailer for Wonder Women below. Tune in on Monday night! For more about the show, visit the PBS website.

All photos provided by PBS.

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Ten Things That Make Arthur A Great Geeklet Show

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Image: ©2010 WGBH / Cookie Jar Entertainment Inc.

Image: ©2010 WGBH / Cookie Jar Entertainment Inc.

My daughter and I started watching PBS’ Arthur when she was a toddler. We’ve slacked off the past couple years (what with her being in high school and all), but quotes from its 190-plus episodes get thrown around our house as easily and often as around Star Wars or Doctor Who references.

Because here’s a secret: Marc Brown’s bookworm aardvark-who-doesn’t-look-anything-like-an-aardvark has long been sharing shout-outs to geek culture and fandom. There are dozens of references and parodies and plots exploring science (both fiction and fact), art, classic literature, movies… Honestly, it’s hard to find a show for younger kids that’s better at appealing to geek parents and sowing all sorts of neat ideas.

Ten things that make it great for geeklets (and their parents):

1. Check out the guest voices: Arthur’s had a bunch of these, several of particularly note to geeks and creative types, and one of the things I think makes them awesome is that more often than not, the visitors are playing themselves, which can introduce parents and kids alike to new faces and ideas. Neil Gaiman has been on the show in an episode encouraging kids to create graphic novels. Other guests have included architect Frank Gehry, kinetic sculpture artist Arthur Ganson, and Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek.

2. The value of reading is a huge underlying message: Arthur and his friends go to the library a lot. They did an entire musical episode which included a song and dance the benefits of a library card and another using The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde to illustrate the addictive power of books. Oh, and Arthur’s last name is, in fact, Read.

3. It’s super-meta. The characters have more than once broken the fourth wall to take control of the show, and in one particularly brilliant episode called “The Contest,” they managed to parody not only Arthur itself, but also South Park, Dexter’s Laboratory, and Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist.

4. Obligatory Star Wars reference made for no reason whatsoever: Arthur’s friend Buster, having gone away for the summer with his dad, appears over Arthur’s shoulder as a robed figure, translucent and sparkly. “Use the Force, Arthur,” he intones – and then he admits he has no idea what it means, but that he “thought it would be funny.”

5. Lucasfilm call-out number two: In an episode about misconceptions regarding the life of his Turkish pen pal, Arthur is sadly misinformed by the comic-book adventures of Illinois Jack and the Caravan of Horrors, complete with a couple brief Raiders of the Lost Ark send-ups.

6. What literary phenomenon keeps the kids of Elwood City stampeding back to the bookstore? That would be the tales of the boy wizard who’s the star of Henry Screever and the Cabbage of Mayhem, and the related Brick of Wonders and Knights of the Bouillabaisse.

7. Arthur and Buster are huge fans of comic-book hero “Bionic Bunny,” who’s a clear nod to Superman, as well as his more sinister and Batman-esque TV spinoff, Dark Bunny. And they pay tribute to comic conventions and cosplay in an episode called “The Secret Origin of Supernova.”

Image:PBSKids.org

Arthur’s Dark Bunny fandom leads him to a crisis of consumer conscience. Image:PBSKids.org

8. Brain: Arthur’s super-smart friend (Real name: Alan) is always there with a detailed scientific explanation and a winning school project at the ready. He also happily loans Arthur his books on spline extrusion and the Copernican universe model.

9. Arthur and his friends have an oft-stated fondness for clearly-cheesy-but-fun-anyway horror and sci-fi action movies like Carpet of Doom and 5000 Explosions and a Supernova.

10. Fleeting, subtle, and genius: There’s an episode in which Arthur’s friend Francine displays a swallow and then a coconut, explaining that the former had been carrying the latter. (She does not specify whether it is an African or European swallow.) Best Monty Python reference in a kids’ show ever.

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Superheroes: A Never Ending Battle on PBS Tonight

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This evening (10/15) PBS will air Superheroes: A Never Ending Battle, a documentary by Michael Kantor featuring interviews with Stan Lee, Adam West, Lynda Carter, Geoff Johns, Jeph Loeb, Michael Chabon, and too many others to list here. The three-hour series will start at 8pm Eastern and examines the evolution of superheroes from the dawn of the comic book to their presence in today’s pop culture … including that other show that airs at 8pm on Tuesdays. (So you’ll have to set your DVR or make a tough choice about what to watch for the first hour.)

The documentary, narrated by Liev Schreiber, will be in three hour-long parts:

  • Truth, Justice, and the American Way (1938-1958)
  • Great Power, Great Responsibility (1959-1977)
  • A Hero Can Be Anyone (1978-Present)

Superheroes bookIn case you miss it, you can pick up the documentary on DVD or Blu-ray; the discs will also include some exclusive extras. There’s also a companion book available, released at the beginning of the month, from Crown Archetype (a division of Random House), Superheroes!: Capes, Cowls, and the Creation of Comic Book Culture.

I haven’t watched the documentary yet, but I did get a review copy of the book and it’s chock full of information about the history of superheroes and comics. While there is coverage of TV shows and movies, it does seem like the book has an emphasis on the comic book and its history, while touching on iconic and influential examples of film and video.

You can watch the preview videos above, or visit the PBS website for more information.

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A Radical Way To Treat Autism: The Horse Boy on PBS

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Photo from horseboymovie.com

Photo from horseboymovie.com

The Horse Boy is a touching documentary about one Texas couple’s struggle to understand their child’s autism and find ways for all of them to cope with it. Their journey starts with Rowan’s chance encounter with a grumpy old mare on their ranch and takes us all the way to a shaman in the far reaches of Mongolia. The trip is filled with anxiety, doubt, and plenty of temper tantrums, but in the end they all agree that it was worth it and the results are amazing.

On Tuesday, May 11, the PBS series INDEPENDENT LENS presents THE HORSE BOY, Michel Orion Scott’s remarkable new documentary about Rupert Isaacson and Kristina Neff’s unorthodox journey with their autistic son and the miracle they find through horses — first on their Texas farm and then in the outer reaches of Mongolia. Rupert Isaacson, who has also written a book about the experience and now runs a learning center, The Horse Boy Foundation, is available for interview as is the filmmaker, Michel Orion Scott. http://www.horseboymovie.com

I thought the movie was very well done. The scenery in Mongolia was amazing, and what we see of the natives is interesting. At one point they make a connection between autism and shamans, indicating that shamans often exhibit some of the signs of autism, but they stopped short of really exploring that idea.

If you know, or are, someone with autism, I’d recommend watching. I learned a few things, and enjoyed the film. I’d love to discuss it in the comments below after everyone gets a chance to see it.

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Neil Gaiman Gets Animated on Arthur

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Image: ©2010 WGBH / Cookie Jar Entertainment Inc.

Geek parents of Arthur-watchers, set your DVRs for “Squee!,” because Neil Gaiman’s visit to Elwood City is set for Oct. 25.

Yes, that Neil Gaiman. The creator of Coraline, author of The Graveyard Bookwhich added The Carnegie Medal to its list of awards this summer and new contributor to Doctor Who will make a Halloween week guest appearance as himself on the animated PBS series.

From the press release: “This season, we’re hoping to empower our young viewers to go after their goals and dreams. Whether that means becoming a wheelchair basketball champion, or expressing yourself through writing, drawing, and making movies, Arthur and his friends show kids that determination and hard work really pay off,” said Executive Producer Jacqui Deegan. “Both Lydia and Neil serve as great role models, and we’re excited to have them to reinforce these important lessons for our audiences.” The new season premieres Oct. 11.

Image: ©2010 WGBH / Cookie Jar Entertainment Inc.

Gaiman‘s role comes in an episode called “Falafelosophy,” inspiring one of the kids who’s trying her hand at writing and illustrating a graphic novel. It’s paired with what sounds like a suitable companion story, “Tales of the Grotesquely Grim Bunny,” about changes on the shelves at the local comic shop.

In the realm of geeky kids’ TV crossovers, this may even rival R2-D2 and C-3PO landing on Sesame Street.

Related: Neil Gaiman And Ten Other Reasons Arthur Is A Geeklet Icon.

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Come Aboard The Dinosaur Eggspress

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Growing up I typically associated public television with one thing: Sesame Street. Interestingly enough, while my own geeklings still include the Street in their edutainment diet, PBS has considerably beefed up its kid-friendly offerings in the ensuing 30 years. From British import Bob the Builder and the highly successful Curious George series to the super-stylized CGI of Super Why! and Sid the Science Kid, PBS Kids offers a solid selection of programming specifically designed to educate, enlighten and entertain.

Particularly popular in my house is The Jim Henson Company’s Dinosaur Train, a series featuring lovable Tyrannosaurus Buddy and his adopted Pteranodon family. PBS and Henson have recently leveraged the brand toward iPhone-toting parents with the help of the Dinosaur Train Eggspress app which, like its source material, focuses heavily on the joys of dino identification.

Boasting solid production values and voice-work from the show’s original cast (specifically father and son team Ian James and Philip Corlett as The Conductor and Buddy), Dinosaur Train Eggspress challenges kids to three different styles of touchscreen gameplay.

In the first and most banal exercise, kids hunt for missing eggs in the Triassic period by swiping quickly across the screen. Uncovering these eggs means little when there are no visual cues provided to discern their locations, but if nothing else it’s a good way to familiarize kids with the core mechanic of the touchscreen.

From there the game moves onto a simple color/pattern matching exercise that challenges players to place the found eggs in matching nests in the Jurassic period. With the eggs properly sorted the titular Dinosaur Train moves on to the Cretatious for its final stage. Therein children must determine which egg belongs to which mommy through a series of spoken clues that describe physical characteristics of the adult dinosaurs.

With a forgiving time limit for each activity and the added opportunity to collect and color pictures of baby dinos, Dinosaur Train Eggspress is an handsome little app that should easily appeal to even the youngest Dinosaur Train fans. It looks spectacular on your Retina Display, and just the right amount of video content and voice-overs help to take the sting out of the $2.99 price tag. Most importantly, however, Dinosaur Train Eggspress offers up accurate information concerning all your favorite dinosaurs in perfect, kid-sized chunks – thus assuring another generation of dinosaur-crazed geeks.

WIRED: features the show’s original voice talent, crisp and vibrant graphics, simple gameplay that encourages critical thinking

TIRED: first game type is a little underwhelming, costs three times more than many other educational game apps

Review materials provided by: PBS Kids

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Black History Month is Living History Month

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I love Black History Month. True, I grew up in Arizona, which was the last state in the union to observe a civil rights holiday by any name. And true, it ultimately took losing the 1993 Super Bowl (and all its associated economic benefits) to convince Arizona voters to enact Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in the first place. But while I was growing up, those uncomfortable facts contributed to making February my favorite month of every school year. Being a socially aware person in Arizona during those events – child though I was – made history real for me. With few exceptions, the names and dates and places we were given to study in school were only approached in the past tense, but black history was alive and unfolding. It still is.

Now I’m grown and trying to raise another socially aware person – child though he is. I think I have it pretty easy: My son loves to ask hard questions, his school is very diverse, and he will never remember a time before America had a black president. However, because Black History Month is a month of living history, there’s always something new to learn and new ways to participate.

[You can read about Kay Holt’s visit to the new exhibit RACE: Are we so different? at the Museum of Science in Boston at GeekMom!]



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The 15 Geekiest Episodes of PBS’s Arthur

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PBS Arthur / Comic Shop

Buster Baxter (rabbit) and Arthur Read geek out. Image copyright WGBH / Cookie Jar Entertainment Inc.

Our household has always had a kind of special connection with PBS’ Arthur, because it’s one of the first kids’ shows I remember specifically sitting down to watch with my daughter. The show debuted in September 1996, so it’s almost the same age as my daughter herself – although she’s in high school now, while Arthur’s still in Mr. Ratburn’s class at Lakewood Elementary.

I’ve written before about what makes Arthur a great show for geeklets, so when Mike Wood at WGBH in Boston sent me a note about the show kicking off its 15th season today (there was a full year break from April 2005 to May 2006), I thought it would be fun to round up a list of the 15 geekiest episodes so far. Mike sent his list of suggestions, and then my daughter and I tweaked it with our own favorites and settled on the following:

15: Team Trouble – Arthur, his best friend Buster, and their classmate Francine decide to do their group project on Ancient Rome in comic book form.

14: The World of Tomorrow – During the school sleepover at the science museum (I know: Awesome, right?), Classmate Binky Barnes stars in a classic “dream trip to the future” storyline.

13: Muffy and the Big Bad Blog – Muffy and Francine deal with severe cases of “Someone is wrong on the Internet”-itis.

12: Castles In the Sky – After the gang’s treehouse collapses, the kids design a new one. With help from Frank Gehry.

11: Arthur and the Big Riddle – “RiddleQuest” stands in for a kids’ version of “Jeopardy!”, with Alex Trebek lending his voice as the TV show’s host.

10: Sue Ellen Gets Her Goose Cooked – The Lakewood kids deal with pwnage issues as Sue Ellen takes competing at Virtualgoose.com to the next level.

9: Arthur the Wrecker – Our favorite aardvark becomes addicted to a video game called “Deep Dark Sea.” (Includes the ever-popular “I wasn’t playing, I was just showing the game to my friend” gambit.)

8: Prove it! – Arthur’s younger sister, D.W., latches onto his interest in science and demands to join him on a trip to the Exploratorium. Her views on snake evolution are illuminating.

7: Tales of the Grotesquely Grim Bunny – Changes on the shelves at the comic shop have the kids debating the merits of different expressions of sequential art.

6: The Return of the King – Arthur and his friends go to a Medieval Fair and knowledge-joust against a superior team of students. Bonus points for the episode title itself, naturally.

5: Prunella’s Special Edition – Elwood City’s fandom for the latest book in the saga of Henry Skreever, the boy wizard, reaches a fever pitch. (Yeah, kind of far-fetched, I know.)

4: The Boy Who Cried Comet – Buster spots a celestial visitor that’s not in his usual UFO style, and even points out that kids have discovered Stuff Out There, too.

Buster meets astronaut Mike Fincke. Image copyright WBGH / Cookie Jar Entertainment, Inc.

3: Buster Spaces Out – Buster gets inspired by moon landing footage. NASA astronaut Mike Fincke guest stars.

2: The Secret Origin of Supernova – Arthur designs his own superhero backstory and costume for a visit to a comic convention. Includes a Jack Kirby reference, too!

Falafelosophy

Neil Gaiman, in animated form. Image copyright WGBH / Cookie Jar Entertainment Inc.

1: Falafelosophy – Geekiest Arthur ever, no contest: Neil Gaiman stars as himself and inspires Sue Ellen to write and illustrate a graphic novel.

Arthur fans, did we miss any?

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The 15 Geekiest Episodes of PBS’s Arthur (GeekDad Weekly Rewind)

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PBS Arthur / Comic Shop

Buster Baxter (rabbit) and Arthur Read geek out. Image copyright WGBH / Cookie Jar Entertainment Inc.

Our household has always had a kind of special connection with PBS’ Arthur, because it’s one of the first kids’ shows I remember specifically sitting down to watch with my daughter. The show debuted in September 1996, so it’s almost the same age as my daughter herself – although she’s in high school now, while Arthur’s still in Mr. Ratburn’s class at Lakewood Elementary.

I’ve written before about what makes Arthur a great show for geeklets, so when Mike Wood at WGBH in Boston sent me a note about the show kicking off its 15th season today (there was a full year break from April 2005 to May 2006), I thought it would be fun to round up a list of the 15 geekiest episodes so far. Mike sent his list of suggestions, and then my daughter and I tweaked it with our own favorites and settled on the following:

15: Team Trouble – Arthur, his best friend Buster, and their classmate Francine decide to do their group project on Ancient Rome in comic book form.

14: The World of Tomorrow – During the school sleepover at the science museum (I know: Awesome, right?), Classmate Binky Barnes stars in a classic “dream trip to the future” storyline.

13: Muffy and the Big Bad Blog – Muffy and Francine deal with severe cases of “Someone is wrong on the Internet”-itis.

[This article, by John Booth, was originally published on Monday. Visit the original post for the rest of the list, and please leave any comments you may have on the original.]

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The Dust Bowl: Chilling and Intense

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I was hesitant to watch the new Ken Burns‘ produced documentary, The Dust Bowl. I knew it would be excellent viewing but I’d also watched History Channel’s The Black Blizzard and I knew the story was going to be tragic and terrible.

And it is. But the last half of the film and the final chapters of the excellent companion book told a story I hadn’t heard before, about how the grasslands were reclaimed from the dust, the part played by the U.S Government in restoring the area, and about the possible future of the heartland, where perhaps another man-made problem may yet cause a disaster.

As both The Black Blizzard and The Dust Bowl point out, the dust bowl was a man-made ecological disaster, as grasslands that had long preserved the topsoil from the ravages of wind were uprooted for other crops, mostly wheat. Even worse, new methods of plowing ensured that the topsoil would be overturned and exposed to the elements. Add in a drought and a disaster was born.

The stories of the people that lived through it are tragic though some have hopeful endings. What’s different about this film is that, unlike Burns’ documentaries of The Civil War or the Brooklyn Bridge, where diary entries and letters were used to evoke the time period, the people that lived in the dust bowl are able to tell their own stories. They talk of lost homes, of family members killed by the dust, of people who broke under the strain, and they speak eloquently of the terror of being attacked by nature itself.

Page 48 from “The Dust Bowl: An Illustrated History by Dayton Duncan and Ken Burns”

Because eyewitness are telling the tale, the story is more visceral and more intense than some of Burns’ previous work.

The film and the book follow several families that went through the disaster but the spine of it all is Caroline Boa Henderson, a Mount Holyoke graduate determined to make a living as a farmer. She moved to the area most affected by the storms in 1907 and married a year later. Henderson’s story opens the film and book and her story ends them as well. She was a freelance writer whose work appeared in the Atlantic Monthly among other publications and thus many of her words are preserved. She was free of debt when the storms started. That’s likely all that saved her home.

Then there’s Harry Forester who wanted to give all five sons one square mile of land and ended up in Oakland, California, renting a home. “He was a renter until he died. And that flew in the face of his ideal and his dream. He would say, ‘Well, I reckon I’ll die a pauper.’ He didn’t feel terribly optimistic about his chances of living out the dream that he harbored when he was a young man,” his son, William Forester, says in the book. But all five of Harry Forester’s sons went to college.

It’s the last part of the documentary, about the U.S. Soil Conversation work that taught farmers how to use their farmland to restore soil, about how the government brought up abandoned land and did the same there, and the New Deal programs that quite literally kept people from starving, that caught my interest most, along with current worries about drawing down the Ogalalla aquifer.

Caroline Henderson and her husband left her homestead in 1965 to live with their daughter in Arizona. When she passed away, the homestead was placed in trust with the condition that it never be plowed again. She also warned of the dangers of irrigation-based draining of the underground Ogallala aquifer.

Wayne Lewis, whose parents stayed until the dust bowl was farmable again, said of the aquifer, “We want it now – and if it makes money, it’s a good idea. But if the things we’re doing are going to mess up the future, it wasn’t a good idea. Don’t deal in the moment. Take the long term look at things. It’s important we do the right thing by the soil and the climate.”

It’s possible to absorb the story either through the book or the film but I recommend both.

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Cool TEDx Talk by PBS Producer Making Awesome Educational Kids Apps

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Bill Shribman is a photographer and a Senior Executive Producer at WGBH Public Television – you know, the folks who make all those great kids shows? They also make the apps to go with those shows, and in this TEDx Boston presentation, Bill gives a great talk about how his passion for getting kids to learn visually has informed many of the wonderful apps his team has produced.

You can see more of the great work they do on their blog.

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Super Vision: a New App for Parents from PBS KIDS

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Image of Super Vision Icon

Image: Courtesy of PBS KIDS. The PBS KIDS logo is a registered mark of PBS and is used with permission.

I’ve been working at WGBH with PBS for about sixteen years, and pretty much everything we produce for kids has some kind of additional support, activities or background information for caregivers. This puts our games in the context of the “whole child” and gives us a chance to explain how to extend the ideas or curriculum of a digital game into the offline world, or “the world” as it used to be known.

Over time those supports have moved from being print to digital, and from digital to mobile digital, but the challenge has always been that a kid playing a game or watching a video and a parent’s potential interest in that game are not always co-located. In other words, a kid may be online at home but a parent may be at work, perhaps wondering what their kid is doing online. While for a few of you that wondering may extend only to wondering if Little Jimmy is ordering the boxed set of Game of Thrones from Amazon, we know many parents want to use the free resources PBS KIDS offers and to engage with familiar PBS KIDS characters that their children love.

Today, PBS moves another step forward in that direction with a sophisticated new (and free) app which gives a parent Super Vision.

Each child playing at PBS KIDS now has an optional session ID number which the parents can save in this new iPhone app. The app then offers them real time data about what the kids is playing or watching at PBSKids.org and offers parents the related activities that they or producers like WGBH have provided as extensions of each game. Play a Plum Landing game and then discover a rich array of outdoor science activities. Watch a Super Why video and find its matching literacy activity.

There’s also an option letting Mom or Dad remotely set a Play Timer from their mobile device that will put the site to sleep on their child’s screen, easing the transition from playing online to another activity, such as dinner time or bed time.

I asked Sara DeWitt about the app. She’s Vice President for PBS KIDS Digital.

GeekDad: How did you decide what behavior to track in this app?

DeWitt: PBS KIDS does a great deal of research, and we have heard from parents in testing that they wanted to dig deeper and learn more about what their kids are learning from our content, and how they can extend that learning beyond the screen. We also learned from research that parents want more information and related tips and tools delivered directly to them and that they are looking for ways to manage their kids screen time. We developed PBS KIDS Super Vision to meet these needs, with features including real-time information on the games and videos their kids are playing on pbskids.org, related activities and ideas, and a Play Timer to help transition from screen time to another activity.

GeekDad:  Are there other plans to expand what it can do? For example, will parents and kids be able to communicate with each other in future iterations?

DeWitt: We have many ideas of new features we could potentially add, and are planning to update the app regularly. However we aren’t making any final decisions on what features we will add in the future until parents have a chance to download the app and offer us their ideas. We want to build this app to meet the needs of parents and help them support their kids’ learning, so we want their input to help drive the app’s evolution. Since parent feedback drove so many of the decisions about this app, we’re excited to see what parents think we should add next. Parents can send their feedback directly to us via email to supervisionapp@pbs.org, or via social media using the hashtag #SuperVisionPBSKIDS.

GeekDad: Will there be an Android version?

DeWitt: We are planning to release PBS KIDS Super Vision on Android in the near future.

Image of child playing

Game Over! Image: Courtesy of PBS KIDS. The PBS KIDS logo is a registered mark of PBS and is used with permission.

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GeekDad: Parents’ Tech Survey

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Image of Ruff Ruffman. Copyright WGBH 2014

Image of Ruff Ruffman. Copyright WGBH 2014

Do you know what your kids are doing on Instagram, or who follows them (or how to even know this)? Does a typical night in front on the TV include an array of phones and tablets that are also in use? Do your kids text you from their rooms? Do you resist looking at your phone when you are driving? No, honestly, can you resist looking at your phone when you are driving?

We’re all wrestling with how to fit the abundance of new technologies into our lives. I’m working on a new media & technology project for PBS and I’d love to hear from you. Please take a few minutes to take this anonymous survey: it will really help inform what we’re doing!

The survey is here.

I’ll write up the survey results here very soon. More on the new project: Ruff Ruffman: Humble Media Genius.

Thank you!
Bill

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To Catch a Comet: PBS Documentary About Rosetta

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Rosetta PBS

You may have heard the amazing news last week that the European Space Agency successfully landed a probe on a comet. The Rosetta spacecraft was in transit for a decade, and was able to send a probe down to the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. It’s an unprecedented accomplishment and the enormous undertaking was celebrated by space geeks everywhere.

This week as part of its “Think Wednesday” programming, PBS will broadcast To Catch a Comet, an hour-long, in-depth documentary about the the mission and how the ESA managed to land the Philae lander on an icy rock hurtling through space. It will air at 10pm Eastern on Wednesday, November 19.

Or, if you’re not the appointment-television sort of person, you can actually watch the documentary online at PBS.org now.

For another fun (and shorter) perspective on Rosetta and the Philae lander, check out the xkcd strip from last week, which was live-updating during the landing. (Start on this blank screen and use the arrows to navigate.)

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PBS KIDS Launches new Channel at YouTube

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Screen Shot of Playlist

Screen Shot of Playlist

On the heels of Google’s announcement in December that it would be offering more to kids, PBS KIDS Digital announced the launch of the PBS KIDS YouTube Channel today. You can find the channel at https://www.youtube.com/pbskids.

Many PBS KIDS videos already exist on YouTube, but this is a consolidation and curation to allow PBS to experiment with new content for kids 2-8 years of age and especially with videos that promote the PBS KIDS’ educational mission and commitment. The channel launches with Odd Squad, Peg+Cat, Arthur, Martha Speaks, Ruff Ruffman and other videos from PBS KIDS series along with a songs playlist, videos about PBS KIDS apps, and videos from the PBS original digital series, Full-Time Kid.

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Daily #DadJoke for February 05, 2015

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Daily #DadJoke for February 05, 2015:

20150205Nora and I just watched a PBS Documentary on the lives of beavers.

It was the best dam TV show I have seen in years.


Have a great joke that you would like to see in print (complete with a “submitted by your name here” shout-out)? Send it in to GeekDadJokes!

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Talented Makers Abound in Season Two of ‘A Craftsman’s Legacy’ on PBS

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CL_Main

As a kid in Detroit, Eric Gorges belonged to a family that taught him about working with his hands. Whether it was working with wood, tinkering around, or just making something–anything–there was a respect in his family for creating things. Like many of us, life threw him a curve and Gorges ended up working in IT at Xerox, a far cry from getting his hands really dirty, like in his youth. So it’s no surprise that, ten years into his career and at a personal crossroads, Gorges chose a road less traveled. He left Xerox and began building motorcycles from the ground up.

While he learned, bending metal and joining alloys, Gorges continued his admiration of others’ craftsmanship: the symmetrical perfection of hand-carved wood, the flowing elegance of blown glass, and the lasting statement of carved stone. Gorges’s bikes began to sell, and, while he continued to perfect his craft, he began to meet other craftsmen; people who approached their drive to make things with the eyes of artists. Gorges realized these craftsmen had stories to tell, and he began to talk to them and to learn about what drove them to create.

Their stories were compelling, and Gorges wanted to share them with everyone. So he created A Craftsman’s Legacy, a show that appears on PBS. During the first season of the show, Gorges traveled to the shops of a goldsmith, a saddle maker, knife maker, potter, and a half dozen others. He told their stories and showcased their crafts. The show was a hit and took television viewers inside the sheds, warehouses, and workspaces of some incredible craftsmen.

CL_Armor

Season two premieres this week on PBS. This year, Gorges is back stronger than before with 13 episodes of the series, examining crafts as diverse as they are interesting. The season kicks off with an episode featuring Nate Bower, a clockmaker from Traverse City, Michigan. Bower shows off some of his handmade clocks before bringing Gorges into his shop. There, Bower shows off some of his handmade tools, reveals a few tricks of his trade, and guides Gorges in creating a hand-cut gear. If you’ve ever looked at an old clock and wondered how it was made, it is truly fascinating television.

But if your tastes run elsewhere, away from the more detailed, A Craftsman’s Legacy has something for you this season, too. Gorges will be looking at stained glass, cheesemaking, bow making, quilting, medieval armor making, and much more. Check your local listings for A Craftsman Legacy on PBS or join the Legacy Society and watch online. (It’s free!)

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A Makeover for a Maker Community

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Design Squad home page

Design Squad home page

WGBH’s Emmy-winning Design Squad Nation website has picked up a clean, new design. Kids as young as eight years old can find games, videos, challenges and tools to inspire and grow engineering skills.

The Design Squad Nation website is an online community that grew out of the Design Squad television series that aired on PBS Kids. The goal of Design Squad is to give kids a stronger understanding of the design process, and the connection between engineering and the things we all use in everyday life.

Senior Producer Melissa Carlson says, “Extensive user testing conducted this spring helped us identify some exciting ways to make the site easier to use, and more mobile accessible.” And Executive Producer Marisa Wolsky notes, “I just want to add how impressed I was with the design process of the redesign. This shouldn’t be surprising since we are, after all, engineering educators! Melissa led the change: identifying a need, conducting great user testing, and being really strategic about what to redesign.”

The site extensively features designs from kids and offers the ability for them to add to each others’ designs as well as sticker ones they like. New HTML5 games are in production, including one that will let kids design and build a flood-resistant city for its adorable but hard-working mascots, the Fidgits.

For Design Squad, an engineer isn’t a lab coated nerd. She is a creative problem solver, an innovative thinker and a team player. The project’s own redesign paves the way for Design Squad Global, a massive undertaking just ramping up with partners in southern Africa. The global project will put kids together from all over the world to solve common problems and build a global understanding of each others’ lives, supported by boots-on-the-ground mentoring programs to connect classrooms.

Full disclosure: Bill Shribman is also an Executive Producer on this project.

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‘Bob the Builder’ Returns With a New Look

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BTB_1001_EP_01_Image_01

Bob the Builder is back. He and his friends have a new look, but they can still fix it. Yes they can!

Premiering this past weekend on PBS, Bob is now a bit more grown up and sporting some new duds and enhanced CG animation.

If you have preschool-aged children–or have had any since 1999–then you’re likely very familiar with Bob the Builder and its catchy theme song. (Yep, believe it or not, Bob is 16 years old!) You’re probably also familiar with Bob looking like a cartoon caricature and moving around in wonky stop-motion animation.

Behold, old-school Bob the Builder versus his 2015 counterpart:

Bobs

Aside from the updated animation style, the new show remains true to what made the original such a success. The theme song remains mostly the same. The catchphrases (“Can we fix it? Yes we can!”) are the same. And the positive messages of creative thinking and teamwork are just as enthusiastic as ever.

But Bob’s not the only one sporting a new look. Also updated is Bob’s friend and building partner, Wendy, who happens to be voiced by Downton Abbey‘s Joanne Froggatt. (My daughter, who–at 6–fancies herself too old for Bob the Builder, is nonetheless a fan since she’s currently obsessed with British accents. The new Wendy, therefore, pushes this one into the Win column for her.)

wendy

Also along for the ride is Leo, Bob’s apprentice builder, and the slightly redesigned construction vehicles Scoop, Muck, and Lofty.

Leo

If your kids are already fans of Bob the Builder, then they’ll almost certainly be fans of the new show. It has the same charm and appeal of the original, just with an updated look and sensibilities. The new animation style might even win over a few adults… or at least make this preschool show a bit more palatable.

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How to Put an End to Distracted Driving? Listen to Your Kids!

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Ruff Texting and Driving

Ruff Texting and Driving. WGBH 2015

A new approach to road safety launches this week! It’s an unusual campaign to reduce distracted driving. Its spokesman is bright orange, and bears an uncanny resemblance to a butternut squash with glasses. That’s because it’s none other than former TV host, sometime spy, and all-around Renaissance dog Ruff Ruffman, who’s currently running a media literacy and technology project, Ruff Ruffman: Humble Media Genius, at PBS KIDS.

GeekDad sat down with Mr. Ruffman to talk about his latest endeavors.

GeekDad: So, Ruff, what’s your new project?

Ruff Ruffman: First of all, I’m more of a “Golden Acorn” squash than a butternut.

GD: My apologies.

RR: So, my project is called “Eyes on the Road!” We’ve made fantastic new videos and a game, all about traffic safety. You know, staying focused on driving, and not being distracted!

GD: Did you do all this yourself?

RR: Nope. We had plenty of help! We teamed up with WGBH and the Connecticut Department of Transportation’s Governor’s Highway Safety Program to put it all together. Fun fact: Connecticut is the “Squeaky Toy State”!

GD: Uh… I think it’s the Nutmeg State.

RR: Tomato, tomahto.

GD: So, tell me about this game.

Ruff Driving Game

Ruff Driving Game. WGBH 2015

RR: Okay, so it’s about me driving, and I have to keep my thoughts focused on road information like traffic signs and pedestrians, even though all this crazy stuff–sushi, whales, weddings, my phone–pops up to distract me. I don’t mind telling you: it’s pretty awesome! My nephew Glen is in it, too. He’s my co-pilot, and deals with all those other things while I drive.

GD: That sounds great! And why did you tackle distracted driving in the first place?

RR: Many of us spend a lot of time fiddling with our phones, and it gets very dangerous when that includes driving and texting. I admit, I used to do that once in a while. But my nephew Glen kept telling me to keep my eyes on the road. Now, he’s too young to drive, but he’s VERY good at telling me what to do. So, long story short, now I don’t text and drive, or let my phone distract me, which is so much safer!

GD: What a wonderful story! Glen must be very persuasive!

RR: Well, if you’ve ever been on the receiving end of a child begging for something, you’ll know it’s one of nature’s unstoppable forces. Just make it STOP, already! But then I thought, hey, it’s so effective! So we thought it would be a good idea if we enlisted ALL kids to be co-pilots and get their parents to hang up and drive.

GD: So let me get this straight: you’re using kids to nag their parents to be safer drivers?

RR: Definitely! This video explains exactly how it works.

GD: Is there anything you want to add for the true geeks out there?

RR: Definitely. Let me just grab my notes. I have them here someplace. Hang on a sec. Oh, here we are. “My pals at WGBH made it with responsive design.” Okay, so I have absolutely no idea what that means, but it looks like the bits move around depending on how big or wide your screen is. If that isn’t something your geeky friends would like, I don’t know what is.

GD: One last question: where can we find these possibly awesome resources?

RR: On my YouTube channel and at pbskids.org/ruff–take a look and maybe you can get your readers to take the family Safe Driving pledge. Or, at the very least, listen to my new catchy driving song, and share it on their Friendster page or whatever they’re using. #ruffdrivesafe

Full Disclosure: This author and Ruff Ruffman go way back and even share the same vet.

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