Games is the hottest word. Last week, on June 24^th, the Joan Ganz Cooney Center launched the Games and Learning Publishing Council. It came at the end of the Games for Change week and the day after AMD Foundation’s Changing the Game Partner Summit. To put a fine point on it, one of the distinguished members of our new Council is Alex Games, Microsoft’s new Education Design Director. Alas, his pronunciation rhymes with llamas.

The Cooney Center’s Games and Learning Council is part of a larger project we are doing with E-Line Media, generously supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. We’ve convened a stellar group of leaders from various backgrounds: publishing (Pearson), academia (MIT and UW/Madison), industry (Microsoft, Activision, ESA), media (Education Week, Common Sense Media), on-the-ground practice (NYC Board of Ed, Texas High School Project, High Tech High), investment (Union Square Ventures, New Schools Venture Fund), as well as policy-makers and philanthropists who are looking on in an ex-officio capacity.  The Council’s mission is to conduct a national inquiry to “raise the sector” of games-based learning.

We’ve just begun the work of creating a sector analysis and market map of game-based learning initiatives, and formulating a new framework for understanding the dynamics of successful, scalable products and services. Over the course of the next year we will be publishing a series of analytics, proof-points, and papers that should prove useful for all of us interested in the potential of games (rhymes with names) to move the needle on kids’ learning.

*Edited January 16, 2013.

At Games for Change (G4C) last week, the audience was treated to a number of interesting discussions and keynotes surrounding current issues of video game play for learning and social change. Among the hot topics were of course the impending “Gamepocalypse” that will arguably come as a result of intense “Gamification,” but there was also measured discussion around how people are working to find out where “gamifying” is most helpful to learning and education, and plenty of evidence of exciting collaborations among those working to incite change with games.

The Gamepocalypse is an idea from G4C keynote speaker Jesse Schell positing that advances in technology will soon make all of life a game. He often suggests that this has already happened or is currently happening because of all of the uses and roles that games take in daily life. After attending an event like G4C where people from all of the world come together to share their experiences with gaming across contexts of schooling, community service, international aid, health care, city planning, and social media interactions and participants are as influential as the World Bank, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, and this year’s keynote speaker Vice President Al Gore, it may be difficult to argue with him. Games for Change celebrated its eighth festival this year, with an entire day devoted solely to games for learning.

Amidst this excitement around the potential and effectiveness of games however, the festival provided several voices calling for caution and sustainability when dealing with the adoption of games for change in learning environments. In a discussion around education and gaming, Jim Shelton, the US Department of Education Secretary of Innovation and Improvement, reminded the audience that we still have “a lot to learn about where ‘gamifying’ is most helpful.” Although Shelton pressed that we as a nation need to reinvent what we’ve been doing in education in America, he also held that a movement around games for learning calls for evidence-based policy and some very compelling success stories.

Luckily some of those nascent success stories were in attendance at the festival, as a number of small developers got the opportunity to share their games and contribute to the discussion of how to navigate the treacherous landscape of educational games. One such speaker was Dan White of Filament Games, to whom the Cooney Center awarded the National STEM Video Games prize this Spring for their health learning game “You Make Me Sick!” White described some of the barriers to educational game production, including the challenges of creating effective and fun designs, positive learning outcomes, meeting the demands of educators and publishers, working around tight budgets, struggling through a decentralized, noisy market, and helping parents assess quality. But, despite those barriers, he maintained that educational games are the new frontier and a valuable digital opportunity that educational content publishers and game developers are finally beginning to collaborate on.

Another group of developers got the chance to present their work to a panel of experts for feedback and constructive criticism. On the panel were Frank Lantz (NYU Game Center and Area/Code, now Zynga New York), Ken Perlin (G4Li – the Games for Learning Institute) and Connie Yowell (MacArthur Foundation) with Eric Zimmerman (NYU Game Center) serving as moderator. Games presented ranged from transmedia platforms to increase awareness of human trafficking, to a computer game to teach children about renewable energies through a robot named Ludwig, to gesture-based gaming to learn about nature. Developers across various stages of game production and release gained valuable perspectives on design, finding funding, determining appropriate audiences and distribution strategies. The conversations extended beyond the festival stage, and now that this year’s event is over, Games for Change is working to make many more resources available to people working is this field. I encourage those of you interested to stop by their site and find out more: http://www.gamesforchange.org/learn/.

*Photo from: http://www.playludwig.com/ 

Lots of people have asked us when speaker presentations from last month’s Leadership Forum would be available online. It’s taking us awhile to get the video edited down, but we are pleased to say that many of our speakers’ presentation slides are now available online. You can see them now on slideshare.net. If you’re wondering whether a speaker had a presentation or not, simply check out the agenda and concurrent panels on the Learning from Hollywood site; if we have the slides, we’ve added a little icon () next to his or her name.

We’ve got slides from Cooney Center Executive Director Michael Levine, Scholastic’s Chief Academic Officer Francie Levine, Fred Rogers Center Executive Director Rita Catalano, and Senior Fellow at FrameWorks Institute and Dean of UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs Frank Gilliam, among many others.

We’ll be adding to our Slideshare collection with new presentations from Cooney Center events. We hope that you’ll find them helpful as you reflect on talks that you’ve seen – or perhaps missed but wish you’d been able to attend.

If you have any questions or comments, please let us know below. We welcome your feedback!

According to research by the Kaiser Family Foundation, the typical American child — age 8 to 18 — spends no less than seven and a half hours a day engaged with media. According to research from Sesame Workshop and the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, younger children are also consuming media heavily — about 4 hours a day for the typical five year old. Television, cell phones, computers, etc. are not just part of these children’s lives — in a very real sense, these devices and their benefits (and pitfalls) are a focal point of their every day.

This is an opportunity for society — educators and entertainers alike — to come together to promote the important goals of proper child development, within a context of reaching children where they already are. But it will take a large-scale effort from many industries.

We know about the power of modern telecommunications. We experience it daily, constantly. Not only are children plugged in at almost all times, but adults are as well. Technology, alone, is quite astounding, able to accomplish things that previous generations would liken to magic.

But the magic of other industries — and generations — still holds today. One piece of alchemy? Storytelling. Characters, fictional and real, make up the framework for conversations and parables, forming bonds between people and ideas. A cartoon character named Homer Simpson gave us the word “d’oh,” now recognized as an actual word by the Oxford English Dictionary. The Force and Jedi knights and light sabers are all a figment of the imagination, but discussed as if real.

It should go without saying that we first come across character development and storytelling at a young age. And it is not just Elmo and Big Bird. The power of storytelling is among the most compelling ways to engage kids, beginning in early childhood. At the Joan Ganz Cooney Center’s recent forum on enlisting Hollywood in using media to educate children, we had a chance to learn from the brilliant work that was on display — from the remarkable contributions of animators like Don Hahn (Beauty and the Beast, Lion King) to Marcy Carsey (Cosby Show, Roseanne) to Doug Wick (Gladiators, Stuart Little) to Peter Guber (Mandalay Bay Entertainment) to the Story Pirates (a great troupe of improv artists who act out young children’s stories).

Hollywood is already putting its characters and stories on each and every device, especially as appointment viewing (e.g. “Tune in at 8 PM”) gives way to on-demand entertainment. The challenge before us is to enlist Hollywood’s wildly successful creators who regularly engage millions and millions through great storytelling into our efforts to make modern technology part and parcel of a child’s educational growth. We need to persuade the public of the enormous possibilities here in education, especially in light of the enormous challenges facing our nation’s classrooms. Recent research from Frameworks Institute shared at the Forum demonstrated a gap still remains — we are not doing a great job at explaining the value of digital technology as a positive transformation agent for all learners, young and old.

This is what makes events like the Cooney Center Forum so incredibly important. Gathering leaders from across sectors — technology, entertainment, academia, etc. — is the first step toward working together to break old habits and find new ways toward promoting reading, digital literacy, and a STEM curriculum. The action teams pieced together, now in seven cities, will ensure that the Forum’s momentum will continue forward. It’s an important start to accomplishing an important goal

We are honored to have a small part in leading the way.

Makeda Mays Green is the Director of Education and Research for Digital Media at Sesame Workshop. We were lucky to have her join us in LA for the Leadership Forum in May. She shares her thoughts on the event and some of her favorite takeaways.

The “Learning from Hollywood” forum was nothing short of amazing! It presented a rare opportunity to connect leaders from the entertainment industry with educational experts from around the country. Over the course of two days, rich ideas were born from thought-provoking conversation about ways to stimulate children’s learning. From the outset, there were challenges to be addressed and questions to be answered. The need for an education revolution was clear, and the potential for using storytelling to prompt critical thinking, convey information and encourage learning could not have been more evident.

As acknowledged in the forum’s opening remarks, children are frequently engaging with technology but their “diet” of media consumption can be enhanced by leveraging opportunities to educate while entertaining. To that end, participants were encouraged to create media that matters. As I listened to panel discussions by notables such as Henry Jenkins, Marcy Carsey and Don Hahn, I was reminded of the acute importance of developing quality content that has a lasting impact. Making good content involves telling great stories. And, telling great stories involves a sustained, concerted and collaborative effort between content and production teams.

This integrated approach has long been the philosophy of Joan Ganz Cooney and, thus, Sesame Workshop. The “Sesame Workshop Model” involves a collaborative effort between various teams — research, content, and production. While each team brings a different type of expertise to the table, no single department reaches its highest level of success without input from the other stakeholders. Everyone plays a critical role in stimulating the audience. If one piece of the puzzle is missing, then the final story is incomplete.

As a result of this conference, I began to think more critically about the types of stories my colleagues and I have the power to tell. Every day, through our work in digital media, linear television, home videos, outreach, and book publishing, we have the ability to tell stories that will positively impact the lives of children around the world. If we do our jobs and do them well, then we can continue to educate and inspire an entire generation of children. In turn, those children will be motivated to reach their highest potential and be empowered to tell their own stories – stories that highlight what they know, in addition to celebrating who they are.

Makeda Mays Green is the Director of Education and Research for Digital Media at Sesame Workshop. Makeda is responsible for developing content for various interactive platforms at Sesame Workshop including online, mobile devices, and video game consoles.  She supports the Workshop’s mission by  focusing and examining the potential of current and emerging digital media platforms to deliver quality educational material to children and families.

Al Gore doesn’t know THAT much about video games but who cares? He’s Al Gore, and he believes enough in their potential to have given the keynote speech today at the 8th Annual Games for Change conference at NYU where he pronounced, “Games are the new normal.” Gore is a warm and generous speaker and he gave plenty of credit where it was due, in particular to Bing Gordon, a partner at investment firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, as he laid out the 5 features of a successful game:

1. First impressions matter. You’ve got about 5 seconds to make a gamer feel smart, and to leave her with a good or better impression than she expected.
2. Gamers better be able to win, and win fast, if you want him coming back for more.
3. Your landing page is crucial. Make sure your graphics are first rate and your interface is intuitive.
4. Badges, points, and avatars matter — but not to the exclusion of that all important “fist-pumping moment” a gamer will show you when have a winner on your hands.
5. By a 3-1 ratio, games based on cooperation beat out games based on competition — which is “encouraging news,” Gore said, about gaming and social connectivity.

“We know play is important,” Gore said, “and we know we like to make social connections.” When you add those two things together you get an explosion — “and that’s a positive trend.”

Gore cited Zynga as an example of a public/private game partnership via Farmville‘s seed purchasing program, and gave nods to environmental games Trash Tycoon and Oceanopolis.

Perhaps his most authentic moment came when he talked about “gaming” An Inconvenient Truth (on an IOS platform–“my preference,” he noted, mentioning his status as advisory boards member for Apple.) Maybe Al Gore knows more than he lets on.

Last week, Zachary Levine shared his thoughts on the future of educational games after attending the E3 Expo in Los Angeles. Here is his report on the Games and Learning Summit and the highlights from the Expo.

The 2^nd annual Games and Learning Summit, organized by the Entertainment Software Association as a special dialogue session developed for the Electronic Entertainment Expo, included inspiring talks from several experts on the role digital games can play in advancing education. As several dozen leaders from industry, research, philanthropy and policy made their way into a conference room at the JW Marriot in Downtown Los Angeles, Mike Gallagher, President and CEO of ESA opened by stressing that the video game industry has been inspired by research on how games can promote both economic development through more high paying jobs as well as play a new role in aiding education and health.   Gallagher also shared some great stats on the growth of the industry saying that the amount of bandwidth used for the 3 days at the show is as much as an entire medium size city would use in a year. Additionally, this year, representatives from over 106 countries attended the show!

Gallagher cited the work of the Cooney Center (noting the influence of the report Game Changer) in creating momentum for the association’s work in this area and identified the strong work of foundations like MacArthur, Gates and the California Endowment. Michael Levine of the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, Michael Strautmanis,  an aide to President Barack Obama, Alan Gershenfeld of E-line Media, Connie Yowell of MacArthur Foundation, Zoran Popovic of the University of Washington and James Paul Gee of Arizona State University followed with brief statements about the role that games can play in intergenerational learning, new school-based assessments and professional development. They also expressed hopes for industry collaboration with education in the future.

Once the brief speeches were concluded, an open brainstorming session began. The agenda was to discuss whether electronic game leaders like EA, Disney and Sony would lend their expertise to educational game developers by providing mentors or releasing their own talented engineers to have a sabbatical working with government, non-profits or small game companies that wish to transform education. The meeting ended without any firm conclusions, but it was announced that University of Wisconsin Professor Constance Steinkuehler had accepted a special position as a White House Fellow to explore the ways in which games for education, health and civic engagement can become part of the national policy discussion.

The summit was designed as a medium to get ideas flowing. This objective was definitely accomplished and hopefully over the next several months many of the members at the summit will touch base and continue working together.

While the summit was occurring, the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) opened up for its first day. There were many announcements and demonstrations including Nintendo’s launch of the Wii U console.  This gaming system is equipped with a new tablet sized controller that has a microphone, camera, and speakers.  The controller can be used in two distinct ways: first, as a second screen to supplement gameplay on the TV, and second, as a means to solely play the game instead of using the TV. For example, this could be necessary if another household member wanted to watch something on the TV while someone else was still playing on the Wii.

Microsoft showcased a number of games for its groundbreaking Kinect system. One such game is called Once Upon a Monster, which was created by Nathan Martz and Warner Bros. for Sesame Workshop.  It will be released this coming Fall. The Kinect game, which uses the platforms’ special 3D motion capture technology and a number of other exciting features that will keep kids moving (important these days when too many children are lacking exercise) is intended for 3-6 year-olds, and received major attention from the assembled crowd at E3. The game is told creatively through a storybook adventure that allows parents to play along with their children. The story follows Cookie Monster, Elmo, and other Sesame Street characters as they interact with “misunderstood monsters.” One of the goals behind the game is to teach children to try to understand the monsters instead of fearing them. Children learn valuable ways to overcome their worries and to “not judge a book by its cover.”  That is definitely one important lesson learned in the game, and in my case a great metaphor for the entire E3 industry confab. There is no doubt that the expo is still for hard-core gamers, but games are now for everyone.

Other noteworthy announcements from the convention included Sony’s new PSP Vita, EA’s first combat series (Battlefield 3), Activision’s Modern Warfare 3, and Bioware’s Star Wars: The Old Republic.  I personally whiled away some time playing Madden 12, FIFA 12, and various driving games.

Looking for a creative way to engage young students with their summer reading? How about encouraging them to re-tell that story themselves via Toontastic, an iPad app that makes it easy to create and share cartoons? The Toontastic team wants to encourage summer readers to share their favorites, and have even lowered the price of the app to just 99 cents for the next three weeks! Andy Russell shares the scoop:

Ah Summer Break… a magical but all-too fleeting time of scraped knees, family roadtrips in overpacked minivans, and one-hit-wonders on the radio. It can be a salvation to students and teachers alike, but also a well-documented academic setback for many kids. Summer reading programs are a fantastic way to keep students engaged and challenged, but books are all-too-often put off till the last days of August — which, to our minds, sort of defeats the purpose.

In the spirit of kicking summer off on the right foot (insert pirate chuckle), the team at Launchpad Toys has created the Toontastic Summer ‘Tooning Story Contest. Say that three times fast — I dare ya! With this contest, kids can recreate their favorite summer reading books as cartoons using our iPad app, Toontastic, and submit their stories to ToonTube for the world to vote on. The winner of the Top ‘Toon award will receive their choice of our favorite LEGO playset or a $100 gift certificate to Amazon.com to pick out a few books of their own (or other fun stuff). Please check out our blog for more information on the contest.

Good luck, Playful Cartoon Creators! We can’t wait to see your favorite books come alive!

Andy Russell is an educational media producer and a co-founder of Launchpad Toys. Inspired by the movie BIG and a lifelong obsession with small brightly colored plastic bricks, Andy is a graduate of Learning Design programs at Stanford and Northwestern and has worked for companies like Hasbro and Sony PlayStation to design playful learning experiences for kids. 

… stays at App Camp?  I certainly hope not!  Because I was lucky enough to attend last month’s Dust or Magic Children’s App Design Institute, and the pure magic of this conference needs to be shared.

For the second year in a row, an intimate group interested in children’s apps came together for a three-day event that included presentations from designers, reviewers and other industry experts as well as demos and brainstorm sessions.  There is no way I can summarize this event in one short blog — particularly when much of the magic occurred in fireside, s’more-filled conversations that lasted well into the night.  But in case you didn’t attend, here are just a few key takeaways to ensure that what happened at App Camp doesn’t stay at App Camp.

The Magic

“Why is the touchscreen so magical? Because the finger becomes a magic wand.”
-Claire Green, President, Parents’ Choice Foundation; co-organizer, Sandbox Summit

I’ve got to start this blog by talking about the magic. The apps that are at the same time inspiring the field and inspiring the kids. Without even getting into the multitude of amazing stuff that was shown in demos, sidebar conversations, or square dances (don’t ask), the case studies alone presented enough magic to fill any magician’s hat.  Zinc Roe’s Stella and Sam apps have some of the most beautiful examples of simple instruction I’ve ever seen.  Oceanhouse Media has figured out how to marry good business and good quality with their Dr. Seuss eBooks.  SMULE’s Glee Karaoke enabled people from all over world to form one large choir singing “Lean on Me” to support those hurting in Japan.  Duck Duck Moose gave an advance showing of Musical Me!, and they have once again nailed it with the difficult match between child development and design.  Motion Math and Toontastic are making me think that we should all attend Stanford’s LDT program.  And if you really want your mind blown from a technological standpoint, check out Eric Rosenbaum’s Singing Fingers.

The Business

“Doesn’t it sound funny that $3.99 is at the high end of pricing?”
– Michel Kripalani, President, Oceanhouse Media

The spirit of Dust or Magic lies strongly in creating magic for children; however if the companies creating the magic can’t sustain their work, that magic will never make it into the hands of kids.  The elephant in the room seemed to be the question of how to make money in this space, and an informal poll by Scott Traylor (who, by the way, has posted videos of the event on his YouTube page — props to Scott for his consistent contributions to the field!) revealed that of ~40 iOS app developers in the room, only 10 have brought in money through the App Store and a mere 6 have recouped development costs.

Michel Kripalani talked about what has worked for Oceanhouse Media, licensors of the Dr. Seuss brand, who ship a new product every three weeks.  He emphasized the importance of having a suite of apps, and discussed how cross promotions have helped them get away from the discovery problem on the App Store. Business models need to continue being discussed, and we need to enable development of apps that are both magical and sustainable.

The Kids

” Apple is like a Swiss bank account for Tap Zoo.”
– Warren Buckleitner, Editor, Children’s Technology Review

Warren Buckleitner (the wonderful magician behind Dust or Magic) discussed what happens when good people make bad software in an excellent presentation called “Dust.”  I loved Warren’s ultimate recommendation, which was simply to make something that you would let your own child play with.  While I’m confident that everyone who was at App Camp, along with most of us in the space will follow that advice, unfortunately there are always going to be people who don’t.  The recent Smurfberry debacle highlights the need for children’s protection initiatives around in-app purchases, and thousands of apps are claiming to teach children about anything from arithmetic to astronomy with no standards of educational value to help parents, children and educators discern if the multitude of products in the marketplace live up to their educational claims. With apps like Tap Zoo and Smurf’s Village topping the charts, whether it is some sort of code of ethics, policy work or rating system, I do think there is a need for higher-level industry initiatives aimed at protecting kids as the app market for children continues to explode.

The Story

“Meaningful appearance of characters has been rare, but it’s starting to happen and it’s going to transform mobile.”
– Jesse Schell, CEO & Creative Director, Schell Games

Story and character were overarching themes at last month’s Cooney Center forum, and I was surprised to see these themes highly relevant at App Camp as well.  Jesse Schell, who shared his thoughts on technologies that are shaping the field, kicked off the importance of these elements in his keynote presentation.  Schell described innovations like facial expression tracking, emotion sensing, persistent databases (aka Mario knows me), and natural language understanding, all of which will allow people to better connect with story and character. Schell predicted that natural speech recognition will be the single greatest change in the history of video games, and compared this shift to the transformation from silent to sound in film.  Meaningful integration of story and character could be an influential force in children’s apps, as we all know the power of story and character with young audiences is immeasurable.

The Tips & Tricks

“I wonder what you’d look like with stripes, Fred?”
– Sam of Stella and Sam, via Jason Krogh, Founder/Director, zinc Roe

When you gather many of the greatest children’s app developers in one room, you are sure to pick up a few tips.  The one thing that seemed to come up again and again is the idea that simplicity is key, and it is difficult to achieve.  The above quote is a great example of how zinc Roe’s team put a lot of time into not having any instructions in their Stella and Sam Apps, but rather let the characters and story guide the child on what to do.  Toontastic’s Andy Russel similarly advised developers to get rid of as many UI elements as possible until only the necessities are on screen.  Developers have also found that ensuring there is no way to fail works very well, particularly amongst the younger demographics.  Duck Duck Moose’s Caroline Hu Flexer talked about how they make everything in their apps interactive, and allow children to level up at their own pace.  Finally, touching again on the point of story and character, don’t underestimate the importance of character.  As PBS’s Jennifer Wells acutely said, “Characters can be trusted guides to help kids with concepts they might be struggling with.”

The End

“Child development remains constant even as the context shifts wildly.”
– David Kleeman, President of the American Center for Children and Media

I end this blog with the above quote from David Kleeman, because in a world where we finger paint with sound and our avatars outlive us, it’s a simple point that we sometimes forget.  Kids are still kids, so let’s not forget our role as developers, researchers, reviewers, and parents in presenting them with magic and protecting them from dust.

Hope to see you all at App Camp 2012!

Photos by Warren Buckleitner

As an intern at the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, I was fortunate enough to attend the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) held on June 7-9. I was also able to partake in the 2^nd annual Games and Learning Summit on the morning of June 7^th, where a few dozen electronic industry leaders, top White House officials, philanthropic leaders from the Gates and MacArthur Foundations and academic experts such as James Paul Gee discussed the important role of game-based education in the rapidly growing world of digital technology. At the summit a few important questions were posed: Where exactly does education fit into the multimedia mix, and how can educational technology be created in an economically viable way for large electronic entertainment companies such as EA, Disney, and Sony?

After the summit, we were a given a tour of the new electronics products and platform innovations at the LA Convention Center where E3 was taking place. When I arrived I was amazed but overwhelmed; there were so many different games and electronic devices to look at and choose from. In fact, there were around 34,000 monitors for the 46,000 people that were there for the 3-day expo. Luckily we were on a guided tour so the overwhelming feeling soon subsided. We were first introduced to the EA booth where we were shown the newest video games, including Madden 12 and Battlefield 3. I was especially impressed to observe a number of army officers testing out and discussing Battlefield 3. I guess video games really are used to train our military!

Next, we visited Microsoft, where I had the honor of meeting Alex Kipman, the creator of Kinect, an innovative controller-free system on the Xbox 360 platform. He brilliantly explained how transformative the Kinect system is: it is able to read hand gestures, is personalized for each individual player, and can play multimedia content on demand instantaneously.

After leaving Microsoft, we visited a few more booths and were then encouraged to explore the rest of what the expo had to offer. As I spanned the almost five miles of carpeted floor, I observed thousands of gamers as they speedily and intensely traveled from one demo to the next. I always knew how much people relied on multimedia entertainment but observing it on such an intense level at E3 really allowed me to understand not only the power, but also the potential of the industry.  I began to wonder whether there could be this much excitement about educational games and whether gaming companies could create multimedia that would be fun, educational, and successfully sell on the marketplace.

In fact, as I continued to walk around the floor, I was surprised by how few educational games were on display. One game that caught my eye was Once Upon A Monster, which was created by Nathan Martz and Warner Bros. for Sesame Workshop. The game is aimed at 4-year-olds and is described as “an unforgettable and whimsical journey of discovery, learning, and fun.” Doesn’t that sound like the perfect mix for success?

In sum, the games and learning summit at the beginning of the week was definitely a nice push in the right direction. However, much work still needs to be done in order for educational multimedia to be viewed as engaging, effective in teaching children important skills, and a great business opportunity. If this is not accomplished, educational multimedia will cease to be seen as an important factor in the continually changing digital age.

Zachary Levine is an intern with the Joan Ganz Cooney Center this summer. He is a rising sophomore at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he is studying international relations. In summer 2010, he worked at E-line Media as a playtester for Gamestar Mechanic and during the Spring 2011 semester, he worked at the Morgridge Institute for Research as a playtester for a newly released iPad game called Virulent.

Photos by Zachary Levine