Reports

iLearn II: An Analysis of the Education Category on Apple's App Store

by Carly Shuler | January 2012 | View Bio |  (18)

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Key Tags:  iLearn, iLearn II, Mobile, Apps, Apple, Carly Shuler

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The New Coviewing: Designing for Learning through Joint Media Engagement

by Lori Takeuchi and Reed Stevens | December 2011 | View Bio

Produced by the Joan Ganz Cooney and LIFE Centers, the report features case studies written by researchers and producers on the challenges and successes of bringing families together around newer forms of media. The design guide that follows offers essential advice to media producers also interested in engaging children, parents, grandparents, and educators in meaningful conversation and play in this digital age.

Contributors include: Brigid Barron, Erica Branch-Ridley, Mindy Brooks, Hillel Cooperman, Ashley Fenwick-Naditch, Shalom Fisch, Rebecca Herr-Stephenson, Carlin Llorente, Siri Mehus, Shelley Pasnik, William Penuel, and Glenda Revelle.

This report was designed to be viewed online with Acrobat Reader. If you are on a Mac using Preview as your main PDF reader, or interested in viewing this document on a mobile device such as an iPad, please download the mobile version, available here. Both files have the same content, but the desktop version features interactive navigation and elements that are best viewed with Adobe Acrobat.

Download Adobe Reader to take full advantage of the interactive version.

Download the interactive desktop version (best viewed on PCs and Macs with Acrobat Reader)

Download iPad/mobile version here.

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Take a Giant Step: A Blueprint for Teaching Young Children in a Digital Age

by Brigid Barron, et al. | November 2011

In January 2010, the Cooney Center, in collaboration with the Stanford Educational Leadership Institute, convened a Digital Age Teacher Preparation Council, co-chaired by Linda Darling-Hammond of Stanford University and Michael H. Levine, the Cooney Center's Executive Director, at Sesame Workshop. The Council's eighteen members from academia, industry, and policy assessed current practices in early education and elementary school teaching and have designed a professional development "blueprint" to advance the use of effective digital media in teaching and learning, with a special emphasis on instruction for underserved students. This report, Take a Giant Step, represents the Council's multi-sector action plan to enhance teacher education and a higher quality, 21st century approach to the learning and healthy development of children in preschool and the primary grades. The report sets forth several goals for the nation to meet by 2020, including advancing technology integration and infrastructure; a more robust professional training program for early education professionals; the expanded use of public media as cost-effective assets for teachers; and the establishment of a Digital Teacher Corps.

The report was authored by Brigid Barron, Laura Bofferding, Gabrielle Cayton-Hodges, Carol Copple, Linda Darling-Hammond and Michael H. Levine.

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Key Tags:  professional development, teacher training, digital

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Technology for Developing Children's Language and Literacy: Bringing Speech Recognition to the Classroom

by Marilyn Jager Adams | October 2011

According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), about fifty percent of low-income fourth graders in our nation's schools are unable to read at a basic level.  In this report, Brown University’s Marilyn Jager Adams, a pioneer in literacy research and practice, points to evidence that speech recognition technology -- which is widely used in telephone call-routing and directory assistance -- can be tapped as a cost-effective and technically viable means to advance early childhood literacy.  When coupled with effective pedagogy, voice recognition tools can provide valuable assessments that reach beyond the human capacities of the average public school classroom teacher. Adams argues that this emerging technology has the potential to offer real-time literacy support to every student by helping young children learn reading with the fluency needed to compete and cooperate in an increasingly complex age.

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Key Tags:  speech recognition, literacy, Marilyn Jager Adams, vo

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Families Matter: Designing Media for a Digital Age

by Lori Takeuchi, Ph.D. | June 2011 | View Bio

Families Matter focuses on two complementary studies that document how families with young children are integrating digital media into the rhythm of daily life. Results from a survey of more than 800 parents of children ages 3 through 10 reveal how parents nationwide feel about raising children in a digital age. In-depth case studies provide further insight into these statistics, probing how parent attitudes toward technology, along with family values, routines, and structures, are shaping young children’s experiences using digital media. This research assumes an ecological view of development and learning, which considers the many different spheres of influence — from parents to peers to the social and economic context — that a child now must navigate while growing up.

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Key Tags:  families, digital media, technology, social media, pro

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Always Connected: The new digital media habits of young children

by Aviva Lucas Gutnick et al. | March 2011 | View Bio |  (3)

Today’s parents, academics, policymakers and practitioners are scrambling to keep up with the rapid expansion of media use by children and youth for ever-larger portions of their waking hours. This report by Sesame Workshop and the Joan Ganz Cooney Center takes a fresh look at data emerging from studies undertaken by Sesame Workshop, independent scholars, foundations, and market researchers on the media habits of young children, who are often overlooked in the public discourse that focuses on tweens and teens. The report reviews seven recent studies about young children and their ownership and use of media. By focusing on very young children and analyzing multiple studies over time, the report arrives at a new, balanced portrait of children’s media habits.

Always Connected was written by Aviva Lucas Gutnick, Michael Robb, Lori Takeuchi and Jennifer Kotler.

Related blog post:

Technology, Activity, Content & Context: Reflections on “Always Connected” by Jennifer Kotler

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Learning: Is there an app for that?

by Cynthia Chiong & Carly Shuler | November 2010

A mobile media revolution that is changing the lives of adults, and now children of all ages, is under way across the globe. This report focuses on how new forms of digital media are influencing very young children and their families in the United States and how we can deploy smart mobile devices and applications-apps, for short-in particular, to help advance their education. It does so in three parts: Part One discusses new trends in smart mobile devices, specifically the pass-back effect, which is when an adult passes his or her own device to a child. Part Two presents the results of three new studies that were undertaken to explore the feasibility and effectiveness of using apps to promote learning among preschool- and early-elementary-aged children. Though designed to complement one another, each study approached mobile learning from a different angle. Finally, Part Three discusses the implications these findings have for industry, education, and research.

Appendix A
Appendix B
Appendix C

Related Report:

iLearn: A Content Analysis of the iTunes App Store's Education Section by Carly Shuler, Ed.M.

Industry Brief: Pockets of Potential: Using Mobile Technologies to Promote Children's Learning by Carly Shuler, Ed.M.

 
Related Presentation:

Mobile Phone Learning: K-12 Students
Carly Shuler, Ed.M. presented Learning: Is there an app for that? to a group at Teachers College at Columbia University.View the presentation in its entirety. 

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Key Tags:  iPhone, iPad, mobile, app, children, learning, education

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Can Video Games Promote Intergenerational Play & Literacy Learning?

by Cynthia Chiong, Ph.D. | December 2009 | View Bio

Forty years of Sesame Street research has consistently demonstrated greater learning benefits when children co-view an educational television program, compared to viewing alone. Might benefits also accrue when adults and children use educational games together? On July 30, 2009, the Game Innovation Lab at the University of Southern California, the University of Michigan School of Education and Learning Sciences, and the Cooney Center, with the support of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, convened a workshop in which experts in cognition, developmental psychology, educational technology, and game design discussed and developed strategies to use intergenerational play to accelerate learning for children who are struggling to master literacy skills in the primary grades. Dr. Cynthia Chiong has compiled findings from the workshop in the report, Can Video Games Promote Intergenerational Play & Literacy Learning? The report shares the latest research on adult-child play patterns with both digital and analog games and research-based design principles for creating intergenerational play patterns that help children learn in a variety of scenarios and settings.

Read the workshop participant mini-papers

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iLearn: A Content Analysis of the iTunes App Store's Education Section

by Carly Shuler, Ed.M. | November 2009 | View Bio |  (1)

With more than 1 billion apps downloaded from Apple's App Store, and major children's entertainment companies diving into this market en masse, it is important to consider the role that apps may play in children's learning. While numerous mainstream news and industry sources have started to provide anecdotal descriptions of what is available for children in the iTunes App store, none have done a careful analysis with a focus on educational content. This short paper, authored by Carly Shuler, is a content analysis of the education section of the iTunes App Store. It seeks to provide an up-to-date, reliable, and unbiased analysis and to act as a benchmark for change as the iTunes App Store continues to grow and evolve.

• View related article in The Boston Globe

• Download: FOSI presentation

• Download: mLearn presentation

** Using iLearn as a benchmark, the Joan Ganz Cooney Center undertook a further examination of the Education category within iTunes’ app store- iLearn II: An Analysis of the Education Category on Apple's App Store - released January 2012 and updating the findings through 2011.**

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White Paper: The Digital Promise: Transforming Learning with Innovative Uses of Technology

by Jeanne Wellings et al. | October 2009 | View Bio

The Joan Ganz Cooney Center and Apple present a white paper on literacy and learning in a new media age. Authored by Jeanne Wellings and Michael H. Levine, this paper describes how investment in technology tools, network access, professional development, and new personalized curricula can help schools address each of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act's (AARA) four reform goals and simultaneously modernize to meet the needs of 21st century learners. Innovative examples and related resources are offered on how technology can be used to promote literacy and to engage struggling learners.

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