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Monthly Archives: March 2014

Research, Games, and Impact, Oh My!

by Anna Ly
March 26, 2014

This year, I had the great privilege to attend the Digital Media and Learning Conference in Boston, Massachusetts, where I had organized a panel called “Creating Youth Builders – Promoting a New Game Design Ecosystem to Engage Hard-to-Reach Youth in Learning.” The heavy hitters on the panel included Jennifer Groff, …

Tags: conference, dml, game design, national stem video game challenge, youth

Björn Jeffrey on Why Toca Boca Won’t Be Selling to Schools

by Lee Banville
March 21, 2014

This post originally appeared on gamesandlearning.org. Toca Boca has emerged as one of the most significant kids producer in the mobile app space. The Swedish-based company has about two dozen apps that have been downloaded 65 million times — and those are paid downloads. The company has found a …

Games for Change 2014

by Administrator
March 19, 2014

We’re thrilled to be working with our good friends at Games for Change this year as a content partner for the 11th annual Games for Change Festival. We’re particularly proud of the two panels that we’ve curated for Thursday, April 24, featuring some incredible speakers highlighting the innovative work that …

Tags: games for change

Michael Levine at the Hourglass Foundation

Video: Michael Levine on Advancing Learning in a Digital Age

by Administrator
March 18, 2014

Last week Cooney Center Executive Director Michael Levine spoke at “Advancing Learning in the Digital Age,” a forum hosted by the Hourglass Foundation in Lancaster, PA. He spoke about the increasingly prominent role of digital technology in the lives and education of young children before an audience of more than …

Why Should You Apply for the Joan Ganz Cooney Center Research Fellowship?

by Jason Yip, PhD
March 17, 2014

Editor’s Note: Want to join the Joan Ganz Cooney Center team? Apply to be the 2016-2017 Cooney Center Fellow! We are accepting fellowship applications now through April 4, 2016. Former Cooney Center Research Fellow Jason Yip opens up and shares his experiences and offers advice for those who are interested …

Tags: academia, colleagues, fellows, fellowship, research

Creating Games to Develop Life Skills Through Imaginative Play

by Thijs Bosma
March 13, 2014

Last month, here at TribePlay, we celebrated the two-year anniversary of Dr. Panda games. Since its initial release, the Dr. Panda series has expanded to over 14 educational games for kids. Dr. Panda games are uncommon in the sense that they do not focus on math and languages, but on …

Tags: apps, developers, educational apps, imagination, mobile apps, play

Top 5 GOOD things about SXSWedu 2014

March 10, 2014

This year the Cooney Center attended SXSWedu in full force, with three separate opportunities to share our work on how teachers, researchers, game developers, and investors are bringing true games-based learning to K-12 classrooms. After presenting with Allisyn Levy of BrainPOP and Julie Evans of Project Tomorrow on Monday, I …

Tags: brainpop, developers, games, games and learning, sxswedu

Girls and Boys Come Out to Play: Beyond to Make Digital Games for All

by Lital Marom
March 7, 2014

The poets of the early eighteenth century saw it as clearly as we do: “slugs, snails and puppy dog tails” delight all kids equally. But on International Womens’ Day 300 years later, despite all our advancements, “sugar and spice and everything nice” persists as our overwhelming message to girls—and the …

Panel Highlights Uneasy Relationship Between Learning Games, Research

by Lee Banville
March 5, 2014

There are research reports that highlight the efficacy of games as assessment tools, studies that show certain games can help students suffering from dyslexia and market analyses of the projected overseas learning games market. But how much of this research actually makes it into games you find in the App Store remains a mystery.

Exploring New Technologies and Learning Envirionments at the New York Hall of Science

by Jason Yip, PhD
March 3, 2014

One of the great opportunities I’ve had here at the Cooney Center is being able to meet a diverse group of people from academia, industry, and non-profits that really cares about the question, “How can digital media help children learn?” I’ve recently had the privilege of sharing my work and …