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, a graduate researcher at the […]
Monthly Archives: March 2014
Björn Jeffrey on Why Toca Boca Won’t Be Selling to Schools
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 sweet spot building consumer-facing apps […]
Games for Change 2014
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 they are producing. In our […]
Video: Michael Levine on Advancing Learning in a Digital Age
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 200 people. Watch the video […]
Why Should You Apply for the Joan Ganz Cooney Center Research Fellowship?
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 in applying. Here are just a […]
Creating Games to Develop Life Skills Through Imaginative Play
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 life skills: skills that help […]
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 was able to relax and […]
Panel Highlights Uneasy Relationship Between Learning Games, Research
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
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 research at The New York […]
Girls and Boys Come Out to Play: Beyond to Make Digital Games for All
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 cumulative effect is anything but […]