From “Yes, and… a design thinking bootcamp” workshop led by the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford, aka “the d.school.” Anna Ly was one of the coaches, along with representatives from IDEO, National Geographic, d.school and Frog Design.

Following Jessica Millstone’s adventure at SXSWEdu, I had the opportunity to attend SXSW Interactive (SXSWi), which united 27,000 individuals hailing from a variety of industries including advertising, gaming, journalism, and aerospace (!). This crowd is extremely diverse compared to when SXSW first started as a music festival and even to several years before, which focused more on software and application development. Not only did the attendees vary, but so did the hundreds of compelling sessions, workshops, keynotes, and networking events that flooded everyone’s calendar from March 8-12. Emerging from the pandemonium that so aptly defined this year’s SXSW interactive were the following trends…

…From the Gaming Expo:

1. Beyond Digital:  With the recent success of Skylanders, conversations were buzzing with questions about how to make the gaming experience go beyond digital. Rex Crowle, the lead designer of Media Molecule, discussed how to build a world one can actually feel  through a digital papercraft adventure called Tearaway. The touchy-feely experiences leverage Playstation Vita’s front touchscreen and rear touch pads. Mike North, the CTO at Nukotoys, talked about the future of play and how toys will play a part, especially when the #1 most requested toy by kids this past year was the iPad. Unsurprisingly, he discussed Skylanders, and how there is a new delivery model: “Toys-as-a-service.” This model consists of a customizable app, and an accompanying physical toy that can also be tweaked easily.
2. Games for Good:  A common theme throughout the sessions was how games can be used beyond just entertainment. The Gaming Expo made a smooth transition from SXSWEdu with several sessions discussing games in the classroom. One panel, How to Start a Game Company Incubator in a School, mapped out exactly how one school, Pflugerville ISD, built a curriculum that taught their students how to start their own game design companies. Katie Salen, Paul Toprac, and Warren Spector discussed the importance of learning arts for 21st century success with one panelist even claiming “Video Games is [sic] the last best hope for a liberal education!” Other exciting mash-ups include fitness and gaming and teaching civics through gaming.
3. Social Gaming:   Gaming is no longer about the lone ranger. These days social gaming is capturing the market. The discussion skewed towards online social interaction with an emphasis on multiplayer experiences and sharing content. Even the build of the console is becoming more interactive and collaborative —the new PS4 features a share button that you can click to share your screen or score with your network. Naturally, Minecraft was a part of the conversation with several panelists noting it is a “social revolution”  (Games R Art) and “designed to be viral” (Indie Gaming: Why Publishers Must Evolve or Die).
4. Disruption of Traditional Models: Old traditional models won’t work in this day and age. Appropriately, there was a session Indie Gaming: Why Publishers Must Evolve or Die in which  panelists stressed that we’re at that point in the cycle where the public is frustrated with the current publishing processes dominated by the big names, thus encouraging others to do things differently. One of the disruptors was Ouya, a $99 Android based game console that took Kickstarter by storm, raising more than $8 million. During their keynote, the founder talked in detail about revitalizing TV gaming, and how any Ouya owner can be a developer. With the rise of app stores, it’ll be interesting to see how the model plays out in the TV space.

…And overall for SXSW Interactive

1. 

   LEGO guy lounges in front of the gaming expo at SXSW.

   Maker movement: For a conference that usually focuses on software applications, this year was quite exciting to see hardware in the limelight. Makerbot’s Bre Pettis, the opening speaker,  made it clear that he believes 3D printing will take global manufacturing by storm by dramatically reducing costs to iteratively build hardware. Beyond the current community of creators that upload thousands of their designs on Thingiverse, Pettis proposed that a 3D printer should be in every classroom to help students learn STEM principles. The maker theme was pervasive throughout the week with the second annual SXSW Create 2013 housing a tent full of inventive organizations like Tech Shop, MIT Media Lab and Instructables showing off their innovative tools and methods.

2. The power of the crowd:  Crowdfunding was a hot topic, especially with different indie companies like Ouya proving that social strength really can move things forward. Minecraft again fell into this category with panelists talking about its socially driven success despite a limited budget. There were also several lively sessions around how social websites like Reddit can drive the market, jump start social campaigns, and even influence product development.
3. With power comes responsibility: On the flip side, despite the crowd being able to enact change, there is also the possibility for social media to enact something negative. One session, Bullying: Social Media as a Problem & Solution juxtaposed the upsides and downsides of social media.
4. Walking in someone else’s shoes: Although SXSWi wasn’t directed towards one particular industry, panelists and SXSWi goers alike expressed the importance of stepping outside of your focus to gain a peripheral view. In The New Serendipity, Joi Ito suggested going to something unfamiliar and figuring out how could it be used differently for one’s own field. Given that many of the education panels were at a beginner’s level, it might be fitting to take on this perspective for future conferences.
5. To infinity and beyond!  A common conclusion from the conference was that there wasn’t a particular breakthrough app. Rather, SXSWi gave a glimpse into what technology could look like in the future. Thousands crowded Elon Musk’s (of SpaceX, PayPal, Tesla fame) keynote where he talked about the future of space travel and reusable rockets. He even touched upon education, and how it should be more like video games. According to Mashable, Google Glass (the eyewear computing device) took up an impressive 21% of the brand conversations at SXSWi. Question is, amongst this entire futuristic buzz, what will become the next big thing…?

If you didn’t have the opportunity to go to SXSW Interactive, don’t fret! You can listen to the keynote sessions and some of the other sessions on the SXSW website. Just go to the list of sessions, select the ones you’re interested in, click on “more detail” and click on the recording link. You can also go on twitter and search #sxsw, #sxswi, #sxsw2013, #sxswedu and read through the accounts that live tweeted sessions.

Christina Hinton and Anna Ly, 2012-13 Cooney Center Fellows

Interested in applying for a fellowship at the Joan Ganz Cooney Center? Former fellows Christina Hinton and Anna Ly have the scoop. Here they answer some frequently asked questions about the program and provide a tour of our office space at Sesame Workshop! And see a special message by our Executive Director Michael Levine below.

We are accepting 2016-2017 fellowship applications now through April 4, 2016.

What is special about the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop?

Christina: When television was a new technology, Joan Ganz Cooney came up with the revolutionary idea to use television to support children’s learning – and Sesame Street was born.  Sesame Street has since made a tremendous impact on the lives of children, and is now bringing critical lessons in literacy and numeracy, emotional wellbeing, health and wellness, and respect and understanding to children in over 150 countries. The Joan Ganz Cooney Center is a research and innovation lab that follows in the footsteps of this endeavor to use current new technologies, such as social networking forums and video games, to support children’s learning in innovative ways.

Why did you choose to apply to the fellowship?

Anna: While in graduate school, I knew I wanted to go back into the technology and digital media space as well as work with children. The Joan Ganz Cooney Center is the perfect merger of the two, given that its entire focus is advancing children’s learning through digital media. Furthermore it was born from Sesame Workshop, which is where educational television and media really started. The fellowship is also flexible in the way that I could pursue different areas of interest.  I can join projects that I am excited about and carve out skillsets that I want to develop since the Cooney Center has multiple initiatives (Games and Learning, Literacy by 10, and Learning Together) and various projects including the Games and Learning Publishing Council.

Christina: I am inspired by the mission of the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop, as well as the organization’s striking capacity for innovation. The Cooney Center is working on cutting-edge digital technologies that directly support children’s learning. For example, in response to President Obama’s “Educate to Innovate” campaign to improve education in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), the Cooney Center is working with some of the world’s leading video game designers and academics to develop an innovative video game that teaches children mathematics.

Name something that you love about working here as a fellow.

Anna: The Cooney Center is full of extremely smart and very connected people that I learn from every single day. Since we are an innovation and research lab, we are always working with other groups outside of the Cooney Center and discovering what is at the leading edge of education and technology. A day doesn’t go by when I hear about an exciting partnership, project or conversation. Also, since our team is small, you also get to know whom you’re working with pretty well.

Christina: The colleagues! They are all incredibly bright and creative. I am learning so much from each of the colleagues that I work with, ranging from leadership principles, to analytic frameworks, to design processes for innovation. All of my colleagues here are also very caring people who are dedicated to supporting children’s learning. I am so grateful to work with such a special group of people.

What skills and strengths are you learning and building upon that will help you in the future?

Anna: Since I work on both research and industry initiatives, I am building upon multiple sets of skills. Within research, I am learning beyond my graduate education about children’s and families’ media use, educational technology, research methods, and child education. From my industry initiatives, I have been able to work on partnership development and communications design as well as better understand how a media group and innovation lab (which is much smaller than all of the other Fortune 100 companies I’ve worked at before) runs!

Can you say something about what it’s like working with the JGCC team as mentors?

Anna: As mentioned earlier, the team is full of extremely knowledgeable and connected individuals. It is a privilege to work alongside teammates like Michael and Lori, who are well known in the children’s educational technology realm. I can openly talk to them about my career path and get suggestions on how to further my knowledge. Our team is very open about sharing information whether its articles, books, contacts, meetings, etc. This practice is extremely important to me, and it makes me feel included.

Why do you think someone who is considering applying to the fellowship should apply?

Anna: If you’re considering applying, just apply! The interview process itself was uplifting since it allowed me to talk to the team and better understand what groups like the Cooney Center and Sesame Workshop are looking for in employees.

Do you have any advice for people who are applying? Key things to know when you’re applying to be a fellow/when you are a fellow?

Anna: First and foremost, know what we’re working on! Our research is free to download, and a lot of our current initiatives are posted up on the blog or under the initiatives tab on the website. Reach out to people who have worked at the Cooney Center before (like me!) and ask questions. Let us know how your background would fit within our work, how would it supplement / support / fill in the gaps!

Flickr/Vauvau

Last December, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced the results of its two-year review of the Children’s Online Privacy Protections Act (COPPA), including a series of amendments and rule changes aimed at updating the Act in light of recent technological and social developments. This was the first time COPPA had been revised since it was first introduced in 1998, and given all the new devices, industry practices and trends in children’s online behaviour (including social networking) that have emerged over the past fourteen years, an update was, in many ways, long overdue. After two years of gathering input from industry members, hosting a review roundtable in June 2010, and soliciting public comments (70 of which were ultimately filed, many by members of the media and web industries), the changes were not introduced without their share of controversy and a fair amount of debate. A key example of the former was Commissioner Ohlhausen’s well documented vote against the amendment, and the inclusion of a published statement of dissent that appears alongside the updates on the FTC website. Nonetheless, FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz has stated that, “I am confident that the amendments to the COPPA Rule strike the right balance between protecting innovation that will provide rich and engaging content for children, and ensuring that parents are informed and involved in their children’s online activities.”

To give a bit of background for anyone unfamiliar with the act, the COPPA Rule came into effect in 1998 when Congress first passed the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. The Rule requires that operators of websites or online services directed to or knowingly used by children under the age of 13 years follow a number of special steps aimed at protecting children’s privacy, specifically around how children’s “personal information” (name, address, email, etc.) is handled. For instance, a child’s personal information must never be made publically available, which means that their name, address and such can’t appear anywhere on the site. The operator must notify the parents of the child’s use of the site and secure the parent’s verifiable consent before collecting, using, or disclosing any of the child’s personal information. They also have to keep that information secure once collecting, provide details to parents about the type of information collected upon request, and refrain from making disclosure of excessive amounts of personal information a condition for participation. The FTC is also in charge of enforcing compliance, and failure to follow the COPPA rule can result in law enforcement actions and fines of up to $11,000 per violation.

While COPPA was originally envisioned as a way to prevent direct marketers from soliciting and exploiting children’s personal information, it has since evolved into a much more complex piece of legislation (see Montgomery, 2007). Some scholars argue, for instance, that the Rule has had a number of unintended consequences, including closing off vast swaths of the Internet from younger children, as banning users under the age of 13 can be perceived as easier and more cost effective than attempting to tackle COPPA compliance. For instance, social networking forums that allow younger children have to take a number of additional steps to make sure the users themselves follow COPPA rules. Since COPPA prohibits the public display of children’s personal information, any chat functions or user postings have to be heavily monitored or designed to filter out any information that could potentially be linked back to the child’s location or identity. This in turn raises important questions about the extent to which kids’ freedom of speech is being curbed in the process.

Other scholars and critics have argued that the Rules’ definition of what counts as “personal” information is too narrow, while others have argued that the requirements for parental consent are problematic (either too stringent or not adequately enforced). Debates around how information is shared with third parties also erupted over the years, as information flows and embedded apps became increasingly prevalent. And, as time wore on, critics from both sides of these debates began to question whether a Rule written in the late 1990s—the early years of the Internet, before smart phones and Facebook—could remain relevant in the face of so many new technologies, trends and social norms.

While the new amendments don’t address all of these criticisms, they do address quite a few. They include:

• Expanding the list of protected personal information to include geolocation information, photos and videos;
• Offering operators a streamlined, voluntary and transparent approval process for securing parental consent;
• Closing one of the previous loopholes that had emerged that allowed child-directed apps and websites to permit third parties to collect personal information from children (e.g. through plug-ins) without parental notice and consent (in some cases requiring that the third parties also comply with COPPA);
• Extending protection to cover “persistent identifiers” which can be used to recognize a specific user over time and across different websites (e.g. IP addresses, mobile device IDs);
• Strengthening the protection of data once it’s been collected, how it’s shared and with whom;
• Requiring that operators adopt reasonable procedures for both retaining and deleting data;
• Strengthening the FTC’s oversight of self-regulatory safe harbor programs.

Arguably, the most significant changes are those aimed at bringing the Act up to date. In particular, expanding the Rule’s purview to include pictures and check-ins fills an important gap—one that was only becoming more noticeable as using smart phones and posting pictures to social networking forums become increasingly popular online activities among users in general (even though there is currently little research on how prevalent such activities actually are among kids under the age of 13). Another key innovation is the inclusion of persistent identifiers, which are becoming increasingly prevalent and significance with the emergence of apps and how mainstream advanced data analysis software has become.

On the other hand, the amendments don’t (and perhaps can’t) address issues of access. It is quite possible that sites and operators will continue banning kids instead of attempting COPPA compliance, while sites that do allow kids will opt to place heavy restrictions on their interactions to prevent them from divulging personal info. Related to this is the growing awareness of parents and operators that kids don’t always follow the rules when it comes to age restrictions and bans. For example, we’ve all seen the many news stories about younger kids using Facebook. Simon Milner, director of policy for Facebook UK and Ireland, was recently quoted in The Guardian saying:

“I am very well aware of the research that a lot of 11 and 12-year-olds and younger have Facebook accounts and lie about their age [during the online signup process] … and that in some cases parents actively help.”

While it is still too soon to see what affect the COPPA amendments will have on the children’s digital landscape, there is much to suggest that there are new debates and tensions ahead, as norms continue to shift (e.g. with some parents actively helping their children to bypass age restrictions) and kids participating in more and more aspects of online life. A key thing to remember as we move forward, however, is that despite its critics and limitations, COPPA continues to serve as a rare, globally significant, and widely respected prototype in children’s privacy protection.

Sara M. Grimes is Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Information, and Associate Director of the Semaphore Lab, both at the University of Toronto. She teaches and researches in children’s media and literature, digital games, social media and play. Sara’s current research explores the legal and cultural dimensions of children’s user-generated content within networked games. She recently co-authored Kids Online with Dr. Deborah Fields, a report produced for the Joan Ganz Cooney Center examining the current literature on kids and social networking forums that identifies key areas for future research and dialogue.

Fun at SXSWEdu

Like many people attending the jam-packed SXSWedu event in Austin, TX last week, I found that so much information was exchanged that I had to divide it all into categories.  At the end of four days of conference sessions, informal meet-ups and parties, product launches, and personal introductions, a few trends emerged. So with no further ado—here are the Top 5 topics of conversation at SXSWedu related to our research and teacher development work here at the Joan Ganz Cooney Center.

1. Data – Student data, teacher data, school data, useful data … seemingly every other sentence uttered at SXSWedu contained the word “data.”  Not coincidentally, the winner of this year’s LAUNCHedu competition was Clever, a company that helps educational apps integrate with existing student information systems. The tool helps developers sync their apps with school data systems and allows teachers to link data streams across the different tools they use.  While many of the entrepreneurs I spoke with touted the valuable data that their new tools were compiling, no one presented an innovative plan for helping teachers figure out what to do with all this data!
2. Ecosystems– On a brighter note, a popular phase I heard from entrepreneurs, investors, and teachers to describe the school and home learning landscape was “ecosystem.”  The more forward-thinking entrepreneurs working in educational technology today are thinking about the fluid relationship between formal and informal learning, the expanding group of stakeholders in the wider educational environment, and how everyone can work together to make great products that improve learning opportunities for all students.
3. Personalized learning – From the first sessions on game-based learning on Monday to Bill Gate’s keynote on the last day of the conference, a commitment to personalized learning initiatives was evident.  Providing anywhere/anytime access and self-directed pathways to core curriculum and supplemental educational materials (often bridging the home and school learning environments) is where many creative educators and entrepreneurs are focused right now.
4. Marketing and selling education apps straight to teachers— A particularly interesting trend that emerged throughout the conference is a tendency for developers to bypass legacy school purchasing systems, and target teachers directly with their free or low-cost apps and games.  Helping this along are new “curation apps” that guide teachers and parents towards high-quality programs.  The development of a set of trusted voices (such as Common Sense Media,YogiPlay, and newcomer KinderTown) to alert teachers to promising new apps for their students is still a wide-open category, one that the Cooney Center will no doubt be tracking very carefully.
5. Makers & DIY Education—With a dedicated, Lego-filled “Makerspace” at the convention center this year, SXSWedu 2013 had significant contingency of DIY-Education people attending sessions and gathering at meet-ups to discuss disruption in the education space.  DIY curriculum, certification, and alternative paths to higher education were the most popular topics on this front, as well as coding academies and video game design competitions such as Cooney Center’s STEM Video Game Design Challenge.
6. Honorable mention:  Tablet-based Learning— With Amplify’s announcement of a new dedicated tablet and mobile curriculum (including newly developed learning games in all subject areas!) for schools, it became clear that tablet-based learning is fast becoming a viable option for schools to adopt.   While it’s hard to find apps and games that can be used on both tablets and desktop/laptop computers to bridge this transition, Amplify’s investment in this space this could drive rapid integration of mobile devices in all educational environments and tip the scales away from web-based product development for schools.

Recently in one day, I witnessed two expert panels discussing critical issues for our educational system: the first one was on implementing the Common Core for English-language learners, the second was on how games offer an exciting new frontier for student learning and engagement. In the morning, I listened in to an Alliance for Excellent Education panel including Stanford professor Kenji Hakuta and Carrie Heath Phillips, director of Common Core implementation at the Council of Chief State School Officers. That evening, I went to Stanford to hear a panel on Education’s Digital Future that included professors James Paul Gee of Arizona State and Constance Steinkuehler of Wisconsin.

I was struck by how neither community of experts mentioned the other, but how these two “movements” urgently need to work together. They need each other.  Twenty-first century implementation of the Common Core State Standards should strive for a much higher level of student engagement and choice. The best learning games can help accomplish this, whether it’s learning about proteins through Fold It, algebra with Dragon Box, programming and game design via GameStar Mechanic, or science, math, health and social studies with BrainPop.

And the games community needs to demonstrate how interest-driven and collaborative learning can accomplish the goals of the Common Core. Importantly, we should recognize that the Common Core Standards in language arts and math are outcomes, not subject areas, and that there should be multiple paths to achieving the higher and deeper Standards through, for instance, project-based learning, experiences in nature, integration of the arts, and the fast-moving world of games and simulations.

Dr. Steinkuehler described a finding from one of her studies, showing that adolescent boys often read above grade-level when playing games, where the text is written at the 12th-grade level, but average two grades below on standardized tests of their reading. How could this be? Her interpretation is that boys are highly motivated to read text in the context of games. But they are unmotivated­–flat out bored­–by the texts they are required to read in class or analyze on tests. One boy told her that his teacher’s approach taught The Diary of Anne Frank by having one student stand in front of the class and read aloud while others followed along in the book. He said, in an honest response to this form of mind-control: “I’d rather stand in the corner and hop on one foot.” Dr. Steinkuehler added, “So would I.”

A key to achieving higher levels of student learning, whether through the Common Core or any other hoped-for reform, is something our school system has generally ignored: student choice.  Our schools operate as an educational oligarchy where a small group of adults decides what, where, and how millions of children and teens will learn. This power has been tightly held, with adults fearing a loss of control if students are allowed greater choice and voice in their own educations. Some historians of education might note that this fear stems from a centuries-old belief in child-rearing that untamed children need discipline, not independent thinking.

If the Holy Grail of every educational reform, including the Common Core, is to raise a nation of readers, especially in this age when entire libraries are now at our students’ fingertips, isn’t the path to a love of reading illuminated by giving students more choice over what they read and when they read it? As Maya Angelou once wrote, “Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him.” I wonder whether Ms. Angelou would now include games and graphic novels. And whether the paths taken by those liberated readers might at some point travel through The Diary of Anne Frank, To Kill A Mockingbird, or other classics.

I asked the Stanford panel about whether games could be integrated with the Common Core. Dr. Steinkuehler sounded an optimistic note. She said that if games can demonstrate their effectiveness in the Common Core, they will have a national market, improving their chances for distribution, profitability, and future development. Dr. Gee was more pessimistic, that “standards mixed with punitive accountability are toxic and will undermine those standards.” It reminded me of one of my favorite jokes: Question: What’s the difference between the optimist and the pessimist? Answer: The pessimist has more data. And Dr. Gee has history on his side.

Can that history of resistance to games and other learning technologies be changed? Whether games are creatively used to support Common Core standards is up to all of us to advance this burgeoning field of learning games, conduct research on their outcomes, and advocate “games that work” to the many stakeholders involved. I’m reminded of Alan Kay’s prescription: “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”

Related links:

• View “Building on the Common Core State Standards to Improve Learning for English Language Learners” (archived video or audio)
• Read more about the Gaming to Learn Forum

Milton Chen is chairman of the Games & Learning Publishing Council at the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop and the Panasonic Foundation, and a senior fellow at The George Lucas Educational Foundation.

Video game artist Lisette Titre took some time to answer questions from the STEM Challenge community recently. Check out her responses to aspiring game designers in this video.

Thank you, Lisette!

Lisette Titre has been a digital artist for over twelve years. As a digital modeler,
she takes data from scanned images, concept art, and photographs and creates beautiful 3-D digital sculptures. She her artistic skills include special effects, environment modeling, and texture painting. In addition, she has also managed teams of artists in
China, Australia, Canada, and India. Lisette has contributed to some of EA’s highest profile games, including Tiger Woods Golf, The Simpsons, Dante’s Inferno, and Zombie Apocalypse 2. Her most recent release is Dance Central 3 co-developed with Harmonix.

Photo by Matt Beard

Today we are thrilled to release a new report, T is for Transmedia: Learning through Transmedia Play. This report, which we have co-authored along with Erin Reilly, and which begins with an introduction by Henry Jenkins, is the product of a year-long collaboration between the Cooney Center and the Annenberg Innovation Lab at the University of Southern California.

Transmedia is an idea that has evolved over the past decade to describe the complex relationships that exist between media texts, media producers, and media audiences who actively and resourcefully engage with characters, plots, and events.  Transmedia storytelling, as our collaborator Henry Jenkins has put forward, is a way for audiences and producers to shape media content and negotiate meanings across multiple platforms, with each unique element contributing to a fuller story world.  We, along with other scholars, media producers, and educators, see great potential in transmedia for supporting learning and literacy development.

In this research, we looked carefully at numerous children’s media properties, play spaces, and play and performance-based programs to tease out the characteristics of transmedia that seem to best foster learning. From Harry Potter to Project Lamp, Story Pirates to Minecraft, we surveyed numerous opportunities for transmedia play currently available, focusing on those designed for children between the ages of 5 and 11. One of the key characteristics we observed in our review of transmedia experiences is the existence of rich story worlds that encourage reading across media and digging deeply into narratives and topics of interest.

T is for Transmedia is our attempt to summarize, synthesize, and spark discussions about children learning through their engagement with transmedia.  As media producers increasingly look to transmedia as part of a strategy for incorporating new media into new and existing properties and as educators look ever more to new media as a site for meaningful learning opportunities, we suggest ways in which transmedia can be a resource for learning in various contexts, including schools, expanded learning programs, and at home.  We promote the idea of “transmedia play” as a way of thinking about children’s experimentation with, expression through, and participation in a transmedia experience that acknowledges their cultural engagement, respects their thoughts and feelings, and builds up and upon 21st century literacies.

While it is clear that transmedia is a regular part of many children’s media ecologies—and, to a growing extent, their learning ecologies—this report is the first to document the characteristics of transmedia play and to consider its role in children’s education beginning in preschool. We hope that the research we present in T is for Transmedia will spark cross-sector, interdisciplinary conversations about the pedagogical promise of transmedia play and welcome your feedback on the report!

Rhys, 10, is an aspiring game designer in Texas who uses Gamestar Mechanic to create worlds to play in. He talks about the importance of stories and creating challenges to engage players.

Thanks to Edutopia and PBS for sharing this video from the upcoming documentary Is School Enough? More videos in the Web series (on Edutopia) and an hour-long broadcast special (on PBS) to come in Fall 2013.

Scratch makes it easy to create games using programming blocks that snap together, in the spirit of LEGO bricks. You can customize your Scratch projects by drawing or importing your own images and sounds. Since Scratch was released in 2007, more than a million kids (age 8 and up) have used it to create games, animations, simulations, and many other kinds of programs.

Here are a few examples of cool games that young people have created with Scratch — including a past winner of the STEM Video Game challenge (and a Scratch Team favorite), Alien of My Own.

Scratchers have made platformers, chess simulators, strategy games, and role-playing games, to name only a few. Many have shared their games on the Scratch website—an online community where people upload Scratch projects, give and get constructive feedback, and teach one another.

So if you want to learn how to do something with Scratch—like keep score, or make a side-scrolling platformer—there are plenty of examples on the website to help you get started. The code for each of the 3.1 million projects on the Scratch website is freely available. If you get stuck, you can post a question and a link to your project in our discussion forum, and other members of the Scratch community will provide advice and suggestions.

Scratch On!

This post was contributed by Amos Blanton and Natalie Rusk, members of the Scratch Team.

Today we are living in a world where our lives are being shaped in fundamental ways by the products of science and their application in technology. For millions of youth, videogames are a big part of some of their earliest and up-close encounters with advanced technologies that incorporate computer simulations, visualization, communication, and digital art among other things.

Playing videogames is gaining increased recognition as a valuable educational activity both within formal (in-school), and informal (out-of-school) settings. Research studies have and continue to show that videogame play can promote active, participatory learning, where youth get to continuously problem-solve, use evidence to test hypotheses of system dynamics, and think critically through deep and many times highly complex subject matter.

Recently, a very important phenomenon taking place in the game industry is the emergence of game models that place user-generated content at the center of play. Technologies that allow players not only to play games that have been created by others, but that allow them to create their own add yet another level of depth and power to the playful learning that takes place in digital games. Over the last decade, a growing number of scholars (including the author) have conducted research showing how these technologies can allow teachers to bring games into curricula in effective and scalable ways by incorporating them into subject matter in ways that appropriately fit the format, style and scope of their classes. In addition, curricula centered on teaching students using a structured process of game creation can allow them to contextualize STEM problems and concepts in deeper ways by connecting their own gaming knowledge to language, practices, and ideas that can develop background knowledge for STEM domains.

Kodu Gamelab is a game creation tool that since its release in 2009 has brought together many UGC innovations to empower youth to create their own games. First, it is a 3D sandbox where creators can sculpt a virtual world by adding and removing geographical features such as mountains, valleys and water bodies. Second, it provides a simple visual drag and drop interface that lets creators populate their world with characters and objects with programmable behaviors, these behaviors include aspects of physics simulation such as moving at certain speeds or reacting to forces in specific ways. Third, the “brain’ of every object is constructed through rules constructed using a visual, tile-based programming language that makes it easy for youth to understand the abstraction of different rules by connecting the meaning of each command to a visible effect in the play world. Fourth, creators can share their games with a growing community of Kodu players worldwide, as well as download and remix what other players create at www.kodugamelab.com. In the community site, teachers and students can also find a rich collection of educational materials to use with Kodu in their classroom.

Since its inception, the design of Kodu has shared the same spirit that drives the National STEM Videogame Design challenge: to allow learners of as broad range of ages as possible to see how much fun STEM can be when it is used to create play. A rapidly growing number of teachers and students all over the world are using Kodu as part of their curricula in as diverse contexts as math, natural science, and even social science and the humanities. Recently, the Learning Games Network released the Studio K curriculum, a freely accessible curriculum part of an innovative project to make it simpler for teachers to harness the playful learning power of Kodu in their own activities. We are very excited and pleased to see the growing role that Kodu is playing in the challenge, and look forward to seeing the awesome STEM creations that participants will bring to the world!

Alex Games Ph.D. is a Learning & Engagement Scientist at Microsoft driving a program of innovative technology innovations for learning, with the goal of improving employee readiness. Previously he was education design director at Microsoft Studios, leading the playful learning initiative to develop groundbreaking educational experiences infused with play for Xbox and Kinect. He has been an academic researcher, a game designer, software engineer and educator, and over the last decade his focus has been on harnessing the psychological, motivational, and social aspects that make games and game creation powerful learning environments to engage learners with STEM content, and sustain their engagement as they develop expertise. His educational design credits include Kinect Sesame Street TV, Kinect National Geographic TV, Kodu Gamelab, and Gamestar Mechanic. He is the author of numerous research articles and book chapters, and his work has been featured in journals such as  Learning, Media and Technology, ACM Computers in Entertainment, and E-Learning.