XplanaZine

Girl Bloggers Rise in Numbers, Could Help Narrow Tech Gender Divide
A recent survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that, among teenage Internet users, 35 per cent of girls blog, while only 20 per cent of boys do it. Regardless of gender, blogging can be a great way for teens to build real-world skills. A young entrepreneur, a 16-year-old girl in Detroit, makes $70,000 a month designing MySpace pages for her friends. — The Canadian Press

Survey Says: Teachers, Experts Embracing Educational Games
In a survey conducted at the 2008 Florida Educational Technology Conference (FETC), 89 percent of the teachers who participated in the conference’s inaugural State Challenge Multiplayer Educational Games (MEG) Tournament, said that their opinions about educational video games “had been impacted in a favorable way.” Educators across the country are becoming aware of the findings that show that educational gaming enables players to better retain information because abstract concepts are turned into experiential learning. — TechJournal South

Measuring the Size of Your Digital Shadow
A recent study from the research firm IDC estimates that, at 281 exabytes, the digital universe in 2007 was 10 percent larger than the firm had projected a year ago. An exabyte, or a billion gigabytes, is said to be 50,000 times larger than a digitized Library of Congress. The sponsor of the study, EMC, a computer storage company, has posted a tool called a personal digital footprint calculator. After a few questions about their digital habits (giving only a first name), users can get a measure of their own rate of data generation. — New York Times Bits blog