On June 8th, the National Center for Family Literacy (NCFL), the Joan Ganz Cooney Center (JGCC) and the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) convened more than 50 of the nation’s leading scholars, practitioners, and policy-makers to discuss the state of our knowledge of the role and implications of digital technologies in the lives of Hispanic-Latino families.

As a graduate student intern at the Cooney Center, I helped conduct a literature review and write a corresponding background paper for the Hispanic-Latino Families and Digital Technologies Forum, and also attended the event which was held at PNC Place in Washington, DC.  Many questions and needs were voiced and discussed throughout the day.  The discussion was rich, included many diverse perspectives, and helped set an agenda which has the potential to move the needle on research, practice, resources, and policy with regards to Hispanic-Latino families and digital technologies in the US.

In this series of three blog posts, I will parse some of the most powerful threads from the day’s rich discussions, beginning by addressing digital literacy as the new basic form of literacy and the intricacies and challenges of achieving personalized learning while maintaining high quality content. The second posting will discuss the complexity of shifting a deficit model of thinking and communicating as it relates to Hispanic-Latino families and their rich cultural heritage. In my final blog posting I will describe some of the issues with current research methods in studying and conceptualizing Hispanic-Latino families and the possibilities of digital media for learning, with particular focus on the potential for new forms of user-centered research to disrupt more traditional methods.

In post one I begin with commentary regarding a key re-definition of gaps in literacy, access, and equality.

Knowledge is Power: Digital Literacy as a New Basic Literacy

Monica Lozano of impreMedia kicked off the forum with a presentation on “Transforming Latino communities through digital literacy,” which proved a compelling start to the day’s proceedings. Where once there existed an access gap now exists a participation gap. More and more Hispanic-Latino families have access to digital technologies at home, in schools or in community and shared locations, but not all families yet have the knowledge and capacity to interpret and harness the potential of these technologies. Monica noted that the digital divide is now a digital literacy divide—increased equity in access surfaces issues of equity in understanding. In her considerations of shifting models of education, and the push for increased personalization, self-centered learning, and access, Monica was spot on: digital literacy not only facilitates these educational transformations but will be a key component of both the delivery of new education and also the content of education, so we must assist in the understanding of these materials.

Throughout the day, participants on the panels delved further into topics introduced in Monica’s presentation—including perceptions of community engagement in various fields, the complexities and beauty of Hispanic-Latino culture and the socio-cultural context of the family, and feasible changes in policies and research that will help drive the field forward. Particularly striking were calls–heard from numerous panelists, across various fields—for maintaining a standard of high quality digital content and instruction as part of the new, essential world of personalized learning.

Monica Lozano, CEO of impreMedia, discusses her company’s ongoing initiatives to boost digital literacy and connect Hispanic-Latino families to quality media content:

Watch-dogs of Quality: Pushing Personalization in the Era of Common Core

The opportunities for using technology to provide personalized learning experiences were emphasized consistently throughout the forum. Diane August from American Institutes for Research articulately brought the strength of a bilingual education and parent-child learning bonds to the forefront of our discussion and mentioned the potential for digital versions of text in boosting the feasibility of bilingual learning for Spanish-dominant students. Karen Cator of the US Department of Education noted that many wonderful online learning opportunities exist to assist differentiated learning and the need for parent guidance of children engaging in these opportunities. Even though sites like Khan Academy will not replace teachers, they do open up possibilities for having online, personalized “explainers,” as she referred to them.

And, that is certainly a start. However, Cator also acknowledged the expenses and challenges associated with implementation of personalized education. In the midst of an educational and cultural movement towards self-centered learning, how can we balance the need for both personalization and increased access? Cator mentioned that the US Department of Education is striving towards universal access to information, with a goal of implementing full broadband coverage in 98% of the United States within the next four years – certainly a great start in ensuring equal access, but ensuring quality is a more complex issue.

While many people are working to digitize textbooks and create online, shared curricula, and other educational content, the question of how to make these sources of information credible places of learning looms. With the prevalence of digital tools and idealized schools of the future that aim to integrate these tools, how do we make sure that teachers can still comply with the Common Core Standards and that parents can support their children to meet these standards? Also imperative is ensuring that some measure of quality for learning materials and dissemination of those materials still exists. A crucial and challenging charge is to constantly work to align the proliferation of new media learning materials with quality, well-tested, and honed modes of instruction and evaluation. Robert Torres of the Gates Foundation said that the researchers, policy-makers and practitioners gathered in the room need to be the “watch dogs” of quality.

However, an essential piece of ensuring quality involves understanding the communities, families, and children we are serving. Before we can create well-honed, personalized learning curricula and opportunities in general, we must pay attention to the intricacies of Hispanic-Latino families, their histories, various means of communicating, giving particular attention to the looming question – how and when and why do they really use the technologies they use?  My second posting will focus on the forum discussions regarding the need to re-frame our research, practice, and policy approaches such that they do not come from a “deficit” perspective, but rather place Hispanic-Latino families within their unique socio-cultural context.

Our friends at the Pearson Foundation have just launched Five Things I’ve Learned, a new website that shares the personal insights of education leaders who are working to improve learning for students, both inside and outside the classroom.

The site launched this week with 54 educators, thought leaders, and innovators who are shaping the face of education today, including the Cooney Center’s Executive DirectorMichael H. Levine, who reminds us that relationships matter; that families matter; and that it’s important for all youth to think globally and master digital competencies in order to succeed in the 21st century. Read all about his “five things” here — and spread the word!

Five Things I’ve Learned aims to add new voices weekly, “with the goal of extending the dialogue around what works for young people, teachers and the school systems and community organizations that support them.” Take a few minutes to browse the site—its elegant navigation allows users to browse by contributors, or by insights such as “family and community,” “global and local learning,” and “policy and practice,” just to name a few. We think you will enjoy browsing these thoughtful notes as much as we have.

Until last year, I had a strong appreciation for Muppets, but limited knowledge of the role of children’s media in the 21st century. I was purely of the first generation of ‘Streeters — the generation whose episodes now come with a parental warning.  But in March 2011, everything changed.  While staying with my nephews in Maadi, a neighborhood of Cairo, Egypt, for a few months, I got a first-hand glimpse into  some of the affordances of digital tablets and the way kids learn and play.

I quickly learned there is a new generation of mothers out there: the Digital Moms who have, on hand and on demand, various media devices for their children’s recreation and education.  According to a study released by Razorfish and Cafemom, Digital Moms are gaining in the mainstream: an estimated 84 percent of U.S. moms are online and using gadgets. In November 2011, the New York Times reported that more parents preferred paper books to e-readers.  Fastforward to Mother’s Day 2012 and it is a completely different picture. A staggering amount of the mothers polled on the site Techbargain.com — 91 percent — would rather receive an iPad than flowers.  The survey did not discuss use, so we won’t know for certain whether the want is for the affordances to the whole family, or the ability to read 50 Shades of Grey wherever they are.

In our house in Maadi, all iPads and iPhones (apparently, we are a Mac family) were primed with apps and videos for my nephews (this also led to the fun of explaining to dates later on why I had a bunch of “Mommy Apps” on my phone.) My sister-in-law used her iPad, along with old and new episodes of Sesame Street and the Electric Company  (and full disclosure, some of Disney’s Little Einstein and Nickelodeon shows as well), to entertain and educate her sons, then ages 2 and 5. The videos not only provided the educational content they are renowned for, but also connected the boys to the U.S., allowing them to have some common ground with American friends when they return.

The 5-year-old instantly identified with Elmo and Abby and all the children like himself who are learning reading, writing, and arithmetic. His younger brother reacted to “Ses!!!!!” on a much more visceral level. The characters were the same, even though he was now living in a completely different world. Cookie Monster, he explained, eats American food when he watches the U.S. version and Egyptian food when he watches Alam Simsim (the Arabic version ofSesame Street which he and I watched to help us learn Arabic). The tablet helped keep him aligned with both his own-but-far-away home and learn about the new culture he was currently living in.

“Digital media has the power to play a positive role in [children’s lives] and provide unique, entertaining and educational experiences,” notes  Cooney Center digital industry expert Carly Shuler.

As Digital Moms increase in the mainstream, so does their children’s access to digital media and emerging technology.  Yep, it’s the pass-back effect again. This effect is rampant in the U.S. — our market is the third largest digital market after India (2) and China (1), with 105.8 percent of the population mobile subscribers.  As  Shuler establishes in iLearn II, almost 50 percent of the apps in Apple’s education vertical are geared at education elementary and primary school children.  With women controlling “$12 trillion of the overall $18.4 trillion in global consumer spending,” these app designers are targeting an influential market segment willing to purchase apps for children.  The greater exposure to 21st century skills families have, the more their children benefit in terms of formal and informal education.

A close friend told me that she uses her iPad stealthily as a reward system.  While her two sons, ages 3 and 6, can “read” by themselves on the gadget, she interacts over chess or games as a reward.  “I see these skills — navigating the content, being interested in my use and how [the iPad] works as crucial to what they will need to be successful as adults,” she told me. “That is, until the interest in how it works leads to them looking at the insides.”  And in my family, we had a 2-year-old who could distinguish between a single (talking) bacterium and many bacteria (a topic I apparently missed in school), and a 5-year-old greatly interested in how things work.

So props in the successful integration of digital media go to the Digital Moms out there (with recognition to non traditional care givers and fathers, most of my observances were of moms interacting), who are increasingly exposing children, and very young children, to tablets and e-readers, fostering important 21st century skills and an increase in interest in STEM topics.

My nephew and sister-in-law recently skyped to say how much they were enjoying playing Electric Racer together — a game designed to be played by parent and child while fostering the child’s reading and spelling skills.  Like my friend, my sister-in-law uses this game is used as a reward or treat. Digital media has allowed moms to incorporate informal learning a lot more seamlessly into a daily regime. It has also allowed for the generation of moms, who now cough into their fist when asked their age, to overcome the STEM chasm from education in the 1970s to now. A little time with digital media, and my sister-in-law and I had expanded our knowledge base exponentially — we could now answer why planets rotate, how volcanoes work, teach the electric slide to five year olds (he was convinced it was not a dance but how electricity traveled; I maintain this dance is a life skill of its own) and even construct a very popular baking powder volcano.

Digital media allows parents and children to replicate, enhance and extend the pleasure of reading a traditional book together.  Shuler shows that as characters cross mediums, so does the learning. “I love The Monster at The End of this Book, as we can read the eBook on the iPad and then can also read the traditional book.”  Additionally, because of Paula’s age, Shuler and Paula are engaged in a lot of the new co-viewing, on iPads and iPhones.  “[Paula] can certainly play with traditional toys alone (like big Legos or food play), but at this point digital media is a together activity,” she said. “Plus, she is very interested in testing what can float these days, and I don’t want my iPad to end up in the toilet!” 

Last month, we released the results of our first QuickStudy on e-books. This report, “Teacher Attitude about Digital Games in the Classroom,” was inspired by the continued growth of e-readers — the Kindles, Nooks, and iPads that are almost ubiquitous now — and the exploding popularity of e-books for children.

At the Cooney Center, we study how children’s learning is impacted by the technologies that surround them. There’s no doubt that kids are drawn to digital media — we’ve all seen toddlers who are not just mesmerized by iPhones and iPads, but able to navigate these devices expertly enough todownload their own apps (to the chagrin of their parents). Our own research has shown that the number of apps claiming to be “educational” has continued to climb to astronomical heights within the iTunes store in the five years since the iPhone was introduced (see ILearn II).

We couldn’t help but notice that e-books have been heralded as a new way of increasing literacy among young children. Fueled by growing interest from parents, publishers have embraced the format, and developers have begun creating e-books that are as lively and interactive as games. We were inspired too, in part, by articles in the press that point towards a sort of backlash among parents who are choosing to stick to traditional printbooks for their children, even if they are avid users of digital devices themselves. Parents have been quoted citing the tactile nature of print books and the “cuddle factor” as a reason to stick to bound books. So we set out to compare, contrast, observe, and ask questions about the ways adults and children engage with traditional print books, as well as basic or enhanced (more dynamic) e-books.

None of us are surprised that our humble little report has made such a splash. We knew we were being provocative when we titled our report “Print Books vs. E-books”, so we haven’t been shocked by headlines that sought to polarize a debate, as if reading print vs. e-books is a choice between “good” or “bad” (“Enhanced ebooks are bad for children finds American study,” shouted the Guardian.) But what these headline writers may not have understood was that this particular study didn’t seek to raise one medium over another, or even attempt to get at the question of whether parents or children prefer one format over another.

At the Cooney Center, one of our major lines of inquiry is focused around intergenerational learning and play. Over the past few decades, researchers have documented that children whose parents watch programs like Sesame Street with them, and talk about what is happening on screen while they are co-viewing the shows together, learn more than children who watch television without adult engagement. This understanding has led to even more research into early childhood development and learning to create children’s programming that is not just entertaining, but has the potential to teach young children whose time in front of the television is scaffolded by adults who talk about what they are seeing.

The new co–viewing involves parents and children engaging with digital media across more platforms — so in this vein, the goal of this study was to measure levels of engagement — between parent and child, and with the book itself. What kinds of interactions take place between parent and child when they are reading a print book, versus an e-book? How do they talk about the story and illustrations? Are there facets about the tactile experience of reading — turning the pages, or pressing buttons that are perhaps similar across platforms, or are they unique to each medium? And do the children remember the details of the story as well across different formats? How much do they learn as they read print books compared to e-books?

The findings of our study may not strike some readers as a complete surprise. It may seem evident, as some writers have pointed out, that e-books with bells and whistles like animations and games may be distracting to young readers. But the point of undertaking such research is not to underscore the obvious or to promote one medium over another. As Lisa Guernsey, author of Screen Time and director of the Early Education Initiative at the New America Foundation writes, we can make all sorts of assumptions about technology and how it might impact young children’s development — but until there is more research that actually digs into these issues, we simply don‘t have the evidence to confirm these assertions.

Our goal at the Cooney Center is to foster a productive dialogue about digital media and our kids. We developed the QuickStudy format as a way of rapidly investigating a research issue that we are interested in pursuing — quickly and inexpensively. For this particular study, our sample size is modest, and perhaps not as diverse as we would have liked. But it opens a window on the conversation, and we hope that it will inspire other researchers to jump in and conduct even larger-scale investigations. In turn, authors, developers, and publishers will be able to take advantage of this growing body of research to design their books to achieve purposeful engagement between adults and children co-readers; and parents, who only want the best for their children, will be inspired to think even more carefully about the types of interactions they are likely to have with a text across different media.

Presentation at Games for Change 2012: Wednesday,June 20 at 12:10 pm, Tishman Auditorium at NYU Law School

Join Jessica Millstone of the Joan Ganz Cooney Center and Allisyn Levy of BrainPOP for a presentation and panel discussion that highlight teachers’ candid attitudes and beliefs about the use of video games in their classrooms from a serious of video case studies featuring K-8 teachers in a diverse set of school environments, as well as present findings from out national survey of tech-savvy teachers on their use of digital games in the classroom.

Learn more about the
“>teacher survey and case studies here, and check out a Q&A with Jessica Millstone about this exciting project.

For the second year in a row, I packed my necessities and headed into the wilderness for the Canadian May long weekend.

OK … well by necessities, I mean my iPad, and by the wilderness, I mean the stunning Asilomar Conference Grounds in Pacific Grove, California.  Yup, that’s right, another App Camp has come and gone.

When I get back from App Camp, the first response I usually get from people is usually “That’s awesome!”  And then they follow with, “What’s an App Camp?”  The positive connotation that the name of this unique conference conjures is probably pretty accurate.  This is an extremely casual (hoodies encouraged), small (limited to 100 seats) conference for developers and others in the children’s app space to brainstorm about the potential of children’s interactive media.

Probably the most unique thing about App Camp is the open nature in which developers are encouraged to share what they are working on, and in many cases even open themselves up to reviews and critiques from the audience.  It was amazing to see both leading and new developers being extremely candid in sharing their ingredients for success and lessons learned. But who says developers get to have all the fun?  I had the chance to sit on the State of the App panel, as well as share our latest research results in what was definitely my most fun presentation yet.

As I said in my blog about last year’s event, 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 weren’t lucky enough to attend, here are just a few key themes that seemed to thread throughout the conference, and are sure to continue shaping the year ahead in the world of kids and apps.

The Kids App Space is Big Business

Probably the greatest change in the past year has been a significant shift in the amount of investment and capital flowing into the space. Large companies, heavily funded ventures, and major kids brands are starting to play seriously in this market. This is a good thing, but also presents a challenge. The bar has been raised in terms of quality and innovation, but there is a lot more noise.  Gone are the days where you can be a tiny shop that solely focuses on product. Successful Toca Boca talked about their version of the 80/20 rule, in which they estimate 20% of work before launch and the remaining 80% after — both in terms of development or marketing.  This is a smart way to think about it, and probably fairly different from the approach most developers take.

Discovery in a Noisy Market

Discovery is fundamentally important, and the most effective methods of being found—by being charted or featured—are somewhat out of the developer’s control.  As a number of the leading developers noted, getting featured by Apple is a bonus, not a strategy.  There is still a lot of confusion amongst parents around discovery and selection of apps, and many seem to experience what has been called ‘app overload’.  Word of mouth, general media, reviews and App Store rankings are all extremely important, and developers need to know how to place their content in a noisy market. Numerous parties are working on this issue, and systems that help with curation and filtering would be a huge asset to everyone.

Intergenerational Interaction

I spent the week before App Camp at Toronto’s InPlay, and was pleasantly surprised to see a focus on parents and children interacting together around digital media.  Sure enough, this theme seemed to emerge at App Camp as well, making me think that people are finally starting to think very seriously about how we can use these new media experiences to bring people together.  This is one of our core focuses here at the Cooney Center, which lies strongly in our roots at Sesame Workshop.  In the 1980s, communications researchers discovered that children whose parents talked aboutSesame Street as they watched learned more from the show.  On the opening night of App Camp, Barbara Chamberlin posed the question, “How do we encourage dialogue between parents and kids?” as one of three grand challenges in app design.  I strongly encourage all developers to think about this, and be sure to check out our New Coviewing report for some ideas.

The School Market

Because I work for an organization that focuses on education, I was excited that the topic of the school market emerged as a theme throughout the conference.  As Lorraine Akemann of Moms with Apps pointed out, “When a child’s teacher comes to a parent and says, ‘This app could help your child with this problem they are having’ — that is going to be a major shift.”  E-book leader Ocean House Media has seen a huge boost this year from the school market, and agreed that while the school market may be a difficult place to focus your entire business on at this point, they view it as an important ancillary.

The Apps

Theo Gray of Touch Press gave an inspiring presentation about the magic that goes into a truly wonderful App.  He reminded us that “A good programmer is every bit a genius and an artist as a good illustrator or author.” Seeing some amazing stuff at this year’s App Camp drove that point home.

And the best part about App Camp is that instead of leaving with bug bites and a sunburn, you leave with a must-download list.  Here is my top 10 list… enjoy!

°   Bugs & Buttons by Little Bit Studio

°   LetterSchool by Borreal

°   OSMOS by Hemisphere Games

°   Numberlys by Moonbot Studios

°   Princess Fairy Tale Maker by Duck Duck Moose

°   Toca Train by Toca Boca

°   Math Doodles by Carstens Studios

°   Write My Name by Injini

°   Dr. Seuss Band by Oceanhouse Media

°   Monster Physics by Dan Russell-Pinson

Earlier this spring, the Communication, Computing, and Technology in Education Program at Columbia University Teachers College held theEducational Technology Conference to bring together emerging scholars working in the field of educational technology. The two-day event featured themes of learning with mobile technologies, social media and games as well as focused discussions about designing instructional media to reach and empower diverse learners. Guest speakers included Andrew Gardner of BrainPOP and a group of educators from Quest to Learn, the innovative “game school” for digital kids here in New York City.  However, a major highlight of the conference was the keynote address from our very own Lori Takeuchi, Director of Research at the Joan Ganz Cooney Center.

Lori Takeuchi at the Teachers College Educational Technology Conference – May 19-20. Photo by Wan Park.

Lori described the multi-level impact of the Joan Ganz Cooney Center using an ecological perspective of how children learn and develop. In our dynamic, networked, digital, global society (depending on which buzz words you prefer) children no longer learn solely from experiences in the classroom or the home. Rather, children are provided with a variety of opportunities to learn, both introspectively and from those around them, across nested levels of interactions that can be termed micro, meso, exo, and macro (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). This framework, originally conceived in the 1970s by Cornell developmental psychologist Urie Bronfenbrenner, has been adapted by the Center to explain digital lives as well. For example, where in the past a child would be shaped by experiences and interactions in community centers or on soccer teams, they are now additionally participating in virtual worlds and on social networks.

The Cooney Center’s work targets each level of the ecological framework. Whether through creating experiences for families to engage in at home likeStoryVisit, collaborating with groups in the community like the Boys and Girls Club’s Club Tech or the New York Hall of Science, generatingreports to effect policy as well as the research and development of new products or even at the national level with the National STEM Video Game Challenge, the Center is working to benefit children’s learning across the various contexts of their lives.

To highlight some of the most recent research being done, Lori gave those at the conference a sneak preview by sharing findings from the e-book QuickReport (now available online).  Taking recent trends in reading from screens into account, the study (comprised of three different phases) examined how e-books are effecting, or will effect in the future, how children learn how to read. Looking again to the different contexts of children’s lives, the studies revolved around experiences of kids reading books with their parents, the process of families selecting books and e-books to read, and parents’ practices, perceptions and opinions of reading with e-books. The conference audience responded enthusiastically to the research, generating many questions and ideas for expansion in the future as the event continued.

Dr. Idit Harel Caperton, President and Founder of the World Wide Workshop, is passionate about getting more young girls and women excited about becoming leaders in STEM-related fields.This piece originally appeared in the Huffington Post and is reprinted here with permission. This is the second of two posts about integrating more women in the gaming industry: read the first post here. In this piece, she focuses on how to get girls and young women the support they need to dive into computer-related fields.

You may ask: Why is increasing girls participation in computing from a young age is so important? At the NCWIT Summit last month, we discussed three key reasons:

• Improving technical innovation on a national level (by including the other 50%);
• Reducing social inequalities (by ensuring that girls become able to pursue the 1.4 million well-paying computing-related jobs available by 2018);
• Ensuring a competitive workforce (because failing to capitalize on girls’ and women’s talent threatens productivity, innovation and global competitiveness). (more…)

The 9th Annual Games for Change Festival is less than two weeks away! We are thrilled that our own Research Consultant Jessica Millstone and BrainPOP’s Senior Director, Educators Experience, Allisyn Levy, will present the findings of the first national survey on teacher attitudes towards games in the classroom. Their presentation will take place on Wednesday, June 20 at 12:10 in the Tishman Auditorium at NYU. Jeff Ramos of Games for Change took this opportunity to ask her a few questions about the research and its implications for teacher training. 

Games for Change: We often see organizations compiling their own independent research to further the understanding of their niche and the community they serve. For the presentation you’re going to give at the Games for Change Festival in June, you partnered with the educational game designers, BrainPOP. What unique things they did bring to the table through this partnership?

Jessica Millstone: I’m really glad you asked this question, because our collaboration with BrainPOP has been among the most rewarding parts of doing this research. As a teacher and a teacher educator (preparing teachers for their work in the classroom), I only knew about BrainPOP’s beautiful and informative videos on a wide array of subject areas.  I didn’t know they were investing so heavily in digital games for learning. My research partner (and co-presenter at Games for Change) Allisyn Levy is the Director of Educator Experience at BrainPOP and is one of the leaders there in getting teachers to recognize the powerful qualities of games for learning, and her particular expertise finding and working with teachers who use digital games was invaluable to this project.

Interactive and game-based learning presents a host of challenges, and your research aimed to pin some of them down. From your research, what were some of the major issues you’ve found when this type of learning enters the home or a classroom setting?

I’ve helped schools and teachers use technology in the classroom for almost 15 years now, and while the technologies have evolved enormously, schools have not. It’s a real challenge for teachers working in a traditional school environment to change their practice and make use of all the exciting tools available. One thing that is a particularly stubborn challenge is the entrenched culture around professional development—teachers and administrators still aren’t that comfortable (or have the necessary time/resources) with taking charge of their own learning, especially when it comes to technology and digital games. One of the interesting findings of the Joan Ganz Cooney/BrainPOP national survey “Teacher Attitudes and Perspectives on Using Digital Games in the Classroom” was that teachers first learned about using digital games in the classroom through a traditional, on-site PD session, but in order to continue their learning they needed to turn to their peers or self-study to improve their practice. I believe that this kinds of self-directed professional development is going to be a key component towards getting digital games integrated into teaching & learning in a meaningful, consistent way.

As our society becomes more technologically advanced, the effects are seen everywhere. In what ways have you seen technology alter the classroom?

Technology itself doesn’t change the content most teachers deliver to their students, but its use demands that teachers and students engage with that content in new, interactive ways. It’s a huge opportunity for teachers to re-think the kinds of activities and assignments they create, so their students have a chance to show their new knowledge in a variety of ways. A well-made digital game is a particularly good assessment of knowledge-in order to play a game you need to know all the required content, and you also need to learn a good strategy for using that knowledge. Great teachers have always used games (and the new technologies of the day, really!) so now we are looking at the evolution from analog game play/design to digital game play/design in the classroom.

A large part of your presentation focuses on in-depth research into world of teachers. How did you conduct such a large-scale survey?

Our survey builds on two recently-released surveys about teacher perspectives on using technology in the classroom that were commissioned by the Gates Foundation and PBS. In both of those surveys, teachers identified games as one of the technologies they use in their classrooms, and we wanted to drill down into that group of teachers a bit and hear about their comfort level and frequency of use, and also their observations on how using digital games affects their students and classroom overall. We worked closely with a quantitative research company called VeraQuest to conduct the survey (they also did the aforementioned PBS survey so they have great experience surveying educators) and compile a preliminary data analysis, and at the Cooney Center we are still pulling interesting findings out of all the responses we got from these 500 teachers who took the survey!

What were you hoping to learn with data you were gathering?

This is really a first-of-its-kind survey.  One of our primary objectives was to gather baseline metrics on teacher’s use of digital games and some of their observations so that the Cooney Center and other researchers can track this usage over time. But above all, we wanted to hear directly from teachers about how using digital games can change the way they teach and the way their students learn-and not just academic achievement, but also social / developmental learning.  Promising findings include the high percentage of teachers who see that using digital games help re-engage their lower-performing students in learning, as well as help them personalize instruction and better assess those students. That is a huge boon to all teachers because every classroom has a range of learners, and many teachers struggle to meet their various needs. This survey shows that digital games can address that issue.

You’ve done something unique in that part of your data reflected on the personal and emotional feedback of your teachers. Why was this so important?

I’ve found through my work with early-career teachers at Bank Street College of Education that a teacher’s personal and emotional reaction to using technology has a huge impact on how they bring (or refuse to bring) technology into the classroom. Through the interviews for this research project, I wanted to see if a teacher’s personal use of video games (current, or memories of their own childhood/schooling) had an influence on whether they brought games into the classroom.  Based on our case studies, it seems like teachers who identify as gamers are more likely to feel comfortable adapting commercial games (such as Minecraft or some of the video game design programs like Kodu or Gamemaker) into their curriculum. Teachers who are comfortable using analog games (like board or card games) might stick with educational games that are developed specifically for classroom use. But this is a finding we’d like to explore more deeply in our next survey so we can look at a larger sample of teachers.

Registration for the Games for Change Festival ends Friday, June 8, so be sure to sign up now! And use the code “cooney” to save 10% off the fee. See you there!

This year’s National STEM Video Game Challenge was a record-breaking event for the Cooney Center and our partners at E-Line Media. With more categories and subcategories than ever before, we counted more than 3,700 entries from middle and high school students and nearly 100 within the adult categories from all over the country.

The student winners—28 from 11 states and the District of Columbia—were honored at the Celebration for Success at the Smithsonian American Art Museum last Monday. The youth winners will each receive AMD-based laptops, game design software packages, and other tools to support their skill development. Each winner’s sponsoring organization will receive cash prizes and educational software. A total of $80,000 in prizes was awarded to the winners and their sponsoring organizations. Read more about the youth prize winners here.

It was a challenge to narrow down the winning entries to the collegiate and educator categories, but in the end, we awarded five prizes.  The winners were invited to demo their games at the Atlantic‘s Technologies in Education Forum, where they were presented their awards by Tom Kalil of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Each team received a prize of $10,000 and will continue to receive mentorship and guidance from the challenge partners and sponsors for their winning game. Read more about the Atlantic Forum here.

From left: Mark Supal, Levi Miller, Tom Kalil, Alex Kampf, Kevin Scirtchfield, Ryan Wehnau, and Martin Esterman

The collegiate category was open to both undergraduate and graduate students.

Speedy MathTrain, developed by Levi Miller, Stephen Shaefer, Alex Kampf, and Stephen Zabrecky, a team from Purdue University, won the prize for the PBS KIDS stream that challenged participants to develop educational games for children ages 4-8 that focus on specific math skills. Using a math framework created by PBS KIDS’ Read to Learn, the team created an interactive app that makes memorizing multiplication and division tables an animated game.

Cosmic Chain the Math Game, created by Ryan Wehnau from the College of the Redwoods received the prize for the Middle School stream of the category. Cosmic Chain the Math Game is an aesthetic math-puzzler, designed to strengthen the player’s mathematical intelligence, skills, and confidence. Players link values together to build chains and crunch numbers.

This year marked the first time that we invited professional educators—the very people who know youth and the way they learn the best—to design games for youth (grades pre-K through 12) that teach key STEM concepts and/or foster an interest in STEM subject areas.

The PBS KIDS stream prize went to Addition Blocks, created by a Martin Esterman, a middle school teacher from Marietta, Georgia.  AdditionBlocks is a simple, fun, and challenging digital-learning game that reinforces basic addition skills to improve recall speed and accuracy.

The Middle School prize was awarded to Mark Supal, an educator from Warren, Michigan, for his game Energy Tycoon.  Supal’s game incorporates scientific and engineering practices from the physical, earth/space, and engineering fields, challenging players to create energy with renewable technologies in an efficient and cost effective manner in order to power homes and create a sustainable community.

 Kevin Scirtchfield, a veteran public high school teacher in Fresno, California, was named the winner of the High School prize for his game. Alge-Bingo was created to help Algebra I students (and younger) to develop their equation-solving skills by way of 13 progressively more difficult levels of equations built inside of a Bingo game.

You can see demos of these winning games in action on YouTube: view the collegiate and educator winners and youth prize winners here. Congratulations to all of our winners in all categories! We look forward to following your work.

Many thanks to all of our sponsors: AMD Foundation, Entertainment Software Association, Xbox 360, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting-PBS KIDS Ready To Learn initiative. And we couldn’t have gotten the word out without our outreach partners at the American Association of School Librarians, American Library Association, Boys & Girls Clubs of America, BrainPOP, George Lucas Educational Foundation, Girl Scouts of the USA, International Game Developers Association, and One Economy.
Read more about the STEM Challenge on the White House OSTP Blog.