After several years working on the Investigations K-5 math curriculum Investigations in Number, Data and Space, I have had my belief in girls' math abilities reinforced over and over. While I have only been "hooked" on a few computer games myself, I have enjoyed watching my nieces (especially) and nephews and friends' children make their way through educationally rich computer games - and love to figure out how to ask the right questions to encourage them to think more deeply about the content.

I've done some work developing educational software myself and have tried to consider the gender issues it raises. The latest example is software called CamMotion, which allows users to extract and analyze data from digitized video. The example I use most often to demonstrate it is a video of a teenage girl doing a cartwheel, an example purposely chosen to provide an alternative to the standard boy-playing-basketball that is commonly used.

I'm particularly concerned at this point about the explosion of "girl games" that treat girls like dating-and-fashion creatures with few deeply intellectual interests. I am hopeful that the Glass Wall project can start to change that trend.