Olivia Thomas, 17, is a 21st century learner. We got to spend some time with this self-directed and self-motivated creative thinker at the National STEM Video Game Challenge winners weekend in Pittsburgh, and were impressed by her drive to chase the opportunities she wants and the generous spirit that pays those opportunities back to younger students.

When we asked Olivia how she started designing games, she recalled a rainy day car ride with her dad: “I want to make a video game,” she announced. Although her parents were taken by surprise because she didn’t actually play many games, they encouraged her to go for it. With the help of a supportive tech teacher, she began exploring tools like Scratch and Alex. Olivia knew she needed the stories and design to come first, before she could begin programming (which she now enjoys). In this way, she echoes some of the core STEM Challenge beliefs, that game design can be used to teach the systems thinking that allows you pursue STEM careers.

For Olivia, designing a game is a lot like telling an interactive story and she says that she creates games to help her express the stories she’s mulling over. While she’s aware that “people tend to align game design more with the science/math way of thinking,” she aims to put the A in STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and math). “I view it as an art; I tell stories and express myself artistically through my games. Through my love of writing and the written word I’ve learned about the creative process, which I apply when designing. The stories I tell through my games are influenced by literature and history.”

Olivia notes that she prefers games with less action and more story, even though they aren’t the most popular. However, she aims to challenge the notion that games have to be full of action to be popular because “I make games I want to play. That excitement and passion shows through in what I create and makes my games better! If you would want to play it, then you should definitely make it.”

While not a very avid gameplayer herself, she says she has learned a lot about the types of games she wanted to create by playing the popular Nancy Drew games by HeR interactive. These games blend mystery, adventure, problem solving … and a lot of practical information. While her family jokes about her “everything-I-know-I-learned-from-Nancy-Drew” attitude, she credits these games with helping her identify what she dreams of creating. ”I would love to design educational games that put the fun and engagement aspect on an equal level of importance with the actual educational content; educational games that people would want to play not because they are educational, but because they are fun!” She knows that not everyone loves learning like she does, but she finds the act of discovery so exciting that she wants to bring it to other students.

Olivia shares her passions with other students not just through the games that she creates but through working with her church and school. Olivia volunteers as the music and skit leader at her Vacation Bible School in Meridian, Idaho. She also attends the gifted program of a virtual school, which affords her opportunities to mentor students in technology. For Olivia, teaching and mentoring makes learning even more fun.“I have a thing for teaching [other students],” she says.  “It helps me learn and lets me try out a bunch of different things.” Olivia even went to a teacher conference to train teachers in how to motivate technical students. Attending her virtual school offers the flexibility to pursue these unique hobbies. She emphasizes that the ability to learn at her own pace has helped her seize new opportunities and passions.

These skills and her unique outlook on gameplay helped Olivia create Colorless, the 2014-15 National STEM Video Game Challenge winner for Best High School Gamestar Mechanic game. The game begins with a simple landscape with floating islands and a few blue blocks scattered around. Olivia assigned different functions to different colored blocks, and eventually removed the colors so players would have to figure out the blocks’ functions using some other indicator that they should have observed previously. Olivia created this puzzle experience after looking through some of her abandoned ideas in Gamestar Mechanic and putting together landscapes she’d previously designed. She encourages students not to delete games they don’t finish because sometimes you might later get a new idea that brings them to life.

Olivia Thomas rings the opening gong at the beginning of Schell Games Demo Day.

While celebrating the STEM Challenge in Pittsburgh, Olivia took advantage of the opportunity to learn from professional game designers and get their feedback. In fact, during our tour of Schell Games, Olivia was the only student with the confidence to ask the tour guide questions. It was immediately clear that she applied the gutsy self-directed learning that made her a winner in every situation. And, it paid off! Olivia got to ring the ceremonial gong that marks the start of demo day.

For Olivia, that experience was “SO AMAZING!” She loved hearing from professionals and says she identified with Jesse Schell’s advice, “Just do what you’re passionate about, and it will work out.”

That may be tough for Olivia, who has more passions than one can count—from tech to music to games to writing—but it seems clear that she has the drive to chase them all down.

Televisions, touchscreens, and smartphones are now almost ubiquitous in homes. Many young children are watching, listening to, or interacting with two to three hours of screen media per day. In the latest installment of the Ideas Lunch series at the Governance Lab, a Brooklyn-based action research lab focused on the use of new technology to govern better, the Cooney Center’s Michael Levine explained that rather than portending the death of reading, devices, apps, and tools can help children learn by fostering a conversation with kids about what they are seeing.

In his talk, Levine discussed his new book Tap, Click, Read: Growing Readers in a World of Screen (and other Cooney Center publications), in which he and co-author Lisa Guernsey of New America lay out the contours and landscape of what they call “Readialand,” a place where adults have the tools and know-how to make digital media a more positive force for childhood literacy-building. In Readialand, digital media advance childhood literacy by talking with and providing feedback to children.

Levine argued that for parents and children to be able to emigrate from the “digital wild West” of a world with over 100,000 apps currently labeled “educational” to Readialand with its successful uses of technology for learning,  it will be essential to get away from focusing on how much time students spend with media, and instead figure out how to improve the quality and effectiveness of that media engagement.

“Do I think there’s a better way of thinking through the balance of which media works best for which kids under which circumstances? Yes. We need to get away from screen time as a construct,” he maintained. The reading skills of American children have increased a mere four points in the last 25 years, which Levine calls a “quiet crisis.” Since other countries are racing ahead, especially in science and math, “flatlining is in a sense the same as doing worse,” according to Levine. While racial performance gaps have narrowed slightly since 1969 and two-thirds of American children are not reading proficiently and half of children from low-income families are not even able to hit the lower level of “basic” on reading tests, something must be done. That “something” is not bemoaning how much time kids spend online but using technology in ways that tap into its potential to encourage conversation between kids, parents, and caregivers, between kids and other kids, and between kids and the tools themselves.

To support innovation in the educational technology marketplace, Levine also identified three areas ripe for policy innovation to support making digital media a more effective force for improving educational outcomes:

• Improving Broadband Quality and Access: Internet Service Providers have worked hard to expand Internet access in low-income and marginalized communities, but problems of speed and consistent affordability remain. Simply making the connections available is not enough to ensure children have access to cutting-edge educational media: quality and affordability are both crucial.

• Diversity and Inclusion: When schools give families low-cost tech technologies in immigrant communities, but parents’ concerns about surveillance and privacy are not adequately addressed, the children might end up not using the tools available. This is an example of how digital education innovators must tailor their services to the needs of particular communities.  Relatedly, the Cooney Center recently published two studies on children’s use of educational media among the Latino population, and how to promote digital equity for America’s Latino families.

• Training: Parent engagement and well-trained teachers are both essential if digital media will be able to deliver on its potential. Levine called for a “new digital age of teacher training” to ensure that teachers learn how best to select digital media — with robust curricula based on sound research — for their classrooms and guide their students in using them. Among other goals, the Joan Ganz Center’s blueprint for 21st century teacher training calls for the creation of a national Digital Teachers Corps by 2020.

Just as Sesame Street and other high quality television programs have been talking to and learning with children for decades (and thereby, according to one study, have helped to advance early childhood education as much as Head Start), there is little doubt that in a new era of tools, apps, and games, readia offer the potential to improve how children learn.

Follow Michael Levine on Twitter @mlevine_jcc. Follow the Joan Ganz Cooney Center @CooneyCenter.

Bibliography of Key Readings:

• Tap, Click, Read: Growing Readers in a World of Screens, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass & Pfeiffer Imprints, Wiley, September 2015.
• “Connecting to learn: promoting digital equity for america’s hispanic families.” The Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop, Winter 2015
• “Aprendiendo en casa: media as a resource for learning among hispanic-latino families.” The Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop, Winter 2015.
• The Sesame Street Effect, The Atlantic, June 17, 2015

Funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and Google.org, the Governance Lab strives to improve people’s lives by changing how we govern. The GovLab designs and tests technology, policy and strategies for fostering more open and collaborative approaches to strengthen the ability of people and institutions to work together to solve problems, make decisions, resolve conflict and govern themselves more effectively and legitimately. Follow the GovLab on Twitter at @TheGovLab.

Allison Mishkin with Will Jordan-Cooley and Kevin Miklasz from BrainPOP

The 11th annual Games+Learning+Society Conference brought together game designers, educators, researchers, funders, academics, cultural institutions, and everyone in between (…and yes… there are even more individuals interested in learning games). This diverse collective sparked debate around issues facing games and learning and the future of this growing field, and, fittingly, this was the first year games were turned away from the showcase. This year’s conference marked a key shift in its history—no longer was the event focused on the need to take games’ seriously. The industry has matured, and instead the conversation was focused on the ecosystem surrounding learning games: data, diversity, and how to use games.

D is for Data

The cultural buzz around data (and big data) extended into this year’s conference. Games offer new opportunities to collect data on play habits and to assess student learning. Many panels tried to make sense of the troves of data being collected. Constance Steinkuehler argued that before we can make generalizations from data, we must contextualize in-game data collecting behaviors within a broader learning ecosystem. Her team uses a three-pronged approach to better contextualize data-patterns: observing play patterns, giving a pre/post test to formally assess learning, and recording all conversations that happen during game play. Given the costs associated with this endeavor, another option was offered in a poster presented by BrainPOP staff (myself included): analyze all possible metrics using A/B testing to determine which are statistically significant and meaningful to students.

Data conversations also pivoted from how to analyze data into how to use it. After all, what good is data if it can’t drive teaching and learning? During his fireside chat, Kurt Squire, director of Games+Learning+Society, emphasized this need but argued that the many questions about data sharing have lead to many disparate solutions. These solutions were all on display.  GlassLab presented ADAGE, their framework for identifying salient data and using that information to support teaching. They cited how the tool even helped museums decide when to interact with visitors. Meanwhile, GLS Showcase games like Splattershmup try visualizing data to help students understand their own progress, motivating implicit learning.

The many data-providing games and interfaces showcased all heeded Steinkuehler’s warning: Getting great data NEEDS to be secondary to the student experience….otherwise you can’t get good data.

Diversity (the other D)

In the shadow of #Gamergate, diversity panels organized around two themes: a) what is it like to be a woman in games, and b) how can we attract underrepresented audiences to them.

Brenda Romero offered a thoughtful keynote around her experiences working in the industry at a time when offices had no female restrooms. While she lamented the sexism she encountered, both before and after #Gamegate, she ended on an uplifting note: her daughter wants to be just like Mommy and has had a much easier time. However, her daughter gets confused whenever she encounters gendered toys, which, as a girl who likes building things, is very often.

Research insights and outreach strategies were shared to help diversify who plays and makes games. Rabindra Ratan discussed his finding that women perform better in games when they play male avatars. This comes from stereotype threat—in this case, that women aren’t good at games. He also expanded his research on avatar customization to caution that designers must think about the images they project when creating inclusive learning games. In her keynote, Nichole Pinkard discussed how the Digital Youth Network, a city-wide program in Chicago, uses stories and narration to drive interest in STEM and make game creation feel relevant to girls’ lives. These and other diversity panels shared tips and tricks designers and program directors can use to interest under-represented minorities in STEM, but it was clear that work was not done.

Games in Context

The games showcased throughout the conference were of high production and educational quality—this prompted a shift in focus from how to make a learning game towards how to use a learning game.

To that end, many panels focused on how to situate learning games to optimize their outcome. Building on the Cooney Center’s research, researchers at TERC explored how mediation supports transfer of knowledge from the game into the classroom. Unsurprisingly, they found that most students need human interaction to encourage learning, but some saw marginal increases when the game scaffolded and prompted learning moments.

Supporting that need for human interaction, Jessica Millstone hosted a panel on how teachers currently use games and strategies for game-based learning.  She argued that teachers need to get involved in the game to better communicate learning outcomes and motivate the students. Not only should teachers ask questions about games, families should as well!

In a fireside chat between Elisabeth Gee and Emily Haverton, the duo shared their experiences supporting families gaming together. Gee noted that moms who may be  intimidated by their children’s games can be empowered if they’re provided questions  that scaffold the experience, like “What are you doing there?” or “Why do you like that part?” She also cited how role-playing games, like the Sims, can be played by families to better understand one another.

These were just three of the many exciting findings around games in context, professional development, and family use.

Given the caliber of the showcase games and research panels, great fun was had by all attendees. Taking advantage of Wisconsin’s natural charm, ice cream was provided throughout the conference, making for a legendairy week in Madison!

Family Time with Apps: A Guide to Using Apps with Your Kids is a free interactive guide for parents and caregivers. The book, which is available for free in the iBook store, features comic strips that parents and children can enjoy together, as well as tips on selecting apps that can help turn screen time into family time. We are thrilled to have Stuart Dredge, a journalist and children’s app reviewer, share his thoughts on how the right apps can put some powerful tools in the hands of budding young creative artists. 

I’ve been thinking a lot about “screen time” recently, but not in the usual sense of when to switch off the TV or iPad and send my square-eyed sons out into the garden to kick a football into our ever-patient neighbors’ back garden.

No, screen time in the sense that most screens are used differently at different times. For my children, the main television screen was very much a passive experience until last year: they sat back on the sofa and watched shows to chill out.

Playing Minecraft on tablets and phones. Flickr / Vy Vu

Then they discovered Skylanders and Minecraft, and woke up to the idea that the TV screen could be interactive. But then they also discovered the world of Minecraft videos on YouTube, which could be beamed onto the television screen via a games console.

They watch and play—either way, creepers and zombies are involved. And the same dynamic applies to the smaller tablet screens in their lives. They understand already that these devices are just as good for lean-back watching as they are lean-forward playing. But they are also great for creating.

There is no parenting manual that can really show you how to make your child creative, other than to make the tools available (crayons, paints, instruments) and hope that at some point, they’ll move beyond redecorating the walls and hitting guitar strings randomly while shouting–although actually, the latter description covers the technique of many of my favorite bands over the years.

Flickr / Zach Frailey

When I talk to other parents, I pick up a concern that tablets and apps aren’t fueling kids’ creativity in the same way that physical materials can–a notion that I politely disagree with. There is a fertile well of apps available for iOS and Android devices that encourage children’s creative instincts.

Some come from the most famous brands, such as Disney’s Mickey’s Magical Arts World–where children create a character that can then be digitally inserted into old Disney clips – and the Story Theater collection of apps that are essentially digital puppet-shows.

Adventure Time Game Wizard turns the popular Cartoon Network show into an all-action game – but the real fun comes from its feature turning children into game designers, creating levels on-screen or even on-paper to play and share.

Other apps come from new names in the children’s apps space. Toca Boca’s playful apps spark all kinds of young synapses, from remixing a song in Toca Band to reshaping coiffures in the Toca Hair Salon apps. The open-ended play of apps like Toca Town also leaves space for children to dream up their own narratives for what they’re seeing on-screen.

This is one of the under-appreciated aspects of this new world. There are many great apps that nudge children with creative tasks, but also many that present them with a set of characters and environments, and leave the plot to them.

Kids are natural storytellers. My sons’ earnest explanation that an alien had swooped down and overhead-kicked their ball over the fence was Oscar-worthy–and some of my favorite apps encourage that skill.

There are also apps that could spark the next generations of filmmakers and musicians, from video apps like Sesame Street Video Maker, Curious Words and TeleStory to music creation tools like Disco Fingers and Toc and Roll.

Children with access to a tablet or (parent’s) smartphone in 2015 have access to the kind of tools that only professional filmmakers and musicians could dream of using just a couple of decades ago. My eight-year-old is already tinkering with Apple’s GarageBand and learning to tap things a little less randomly–albeit still with plenty of shouting.

Here in the UK–although also elsewhere in the world–there’s a lot of talk about kids and coding at the moment. In England, computer programming is now on the national curriculum for children as young as five, with a corresponding interest in tools that can make it a friendly experience for them.

Apps have a role here too, from the coding lessons of Tynker to the open-ended creative environment of ScratchJr – via the ‘code your own killer robots’ of Hakitzu Elite.

All these and more play into a wider realization that coding itself is a creative discipline–an art, not just a science. Seeing children telling stories with code, as well as with words and pictures–and increasingly, with all three–is going to be fascinating to watch over the next few years.

With that futurology cap on, think about 3D printing too, and the potential for children to be create things on-screen that can then become physical objects. Apps like Blokify and My Little Monster are early experimenters in that space, but more will follow. Children as toymakers, as well as storytellers. It’s going to be a fascinating few years.

Stuart Dredge is a UK-based journalist covering consumer tech, digital media and children’s technology. He mainly writes for the Guardian and Observer, as well as music industry publication Music Ally. He is also the co-founder of Apps Playground, a site covering children’s apps for iOS and Android. He is also a father of two and – as many children’s app developers have discovered – the world’s most disorganized emailer.