It’s not every day you get an invitation to The White House.

(I’ll admit it: I’m definitely going to put my invitation in an acid-free, archival album for my children and grandchildren to see.)

Elisabeth McClure at the White House Early Learning STEM Symposium

So it was an absolute honor to be able to attend last week’s Early STEM Learning Symposium at The White House (STEM: Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math). But this experience had particular personal significance for me. I attended graduate school at Georgetown University’s Department of Psychology, a department that trains graduate students to apply their developmental research to public policy issues, and while I was there I developed a complex appreciation for policy. I often speculated, both in and out of the classroom, about how my research could theoretically affect public policy, and as a local resident I often visited the National Mall, the monuments, and of course The White House—but always from the outside of the fence.

Last week I got to pass through the gates (and some remarkable security checks) and go into the Eisenhower Office Building, part of the White House complex. As I stepped into the building, suddenly all my theoretical speculation became reality: for the first time, I was directly part of the policy conversation on early learning. I passed by the Indian Treaty Room, where the Bretton Woods agreements and the United Nations Charter were signed, and into the symposium event space, where Secretary of Education John B. King, Jr., and Roberto Rodriguez, Deputy Assistant to the President for Education, provided opening remarks on the importance of early STEM learning. If you were there, you might have heard some of the following, and truly astonishing, facts:

Did you know that early math skills are a better predictor of high school achievement than early reading skills and that gains in early math skills also transfer to gains in executive function? More and more research is now showing that STEM is actually about developing a way of thinking, not just about specific content knowledge, and that exercising these thinking skills is important for many aspects of learning and development.

Did you know that income-related disparities in STEM (particularly science) abilities are present already in kindergarten? If we want to reduce income inequalities and seed fruitful STEM trajectories for America’s children, we have to start early.

Eminent speakers throughout the day – researchers, funders, and developers – emphasized this repeatedly: Start early. Start early. Start early! I know it probably sounds strange at first: STEM, for most of us adults, conjures up images of our own science and math education, and it probably looked like sitting still at a desk, memorizing facts by rote or following the steps of a chemistry experiment. In fact, as Susan Bales of the Frameworks Institute described in her talk at the White House, many people think STEM is for older kids, particularly for those who display a propensity for STEM, and that it is in direct opposition to playful learning: it’s not for everyone, and certainly not for preschoolers.

But the renowned experts who attended and spoke at the symposium described a different picture. Josh Sparrow, for example, spoke about how children are born scientists: babies, just hours after birth, experiment with cause and effect as they realize that putting their own thumbs in their mouths makes them feel better; toddlers push their sippy cups off the edge of their high chairs over and over and over again to test the limits of gravity; and preschoolers are eager to understand why their clothes no longer fit (life sciences) and are obsessed with the fair distribution of communal snacks (math). The research is clear: very young children are prepared and eager to participate in early STEM activities, and their natural curiosity can be encouraged in developmentally appropriate, playful ways. As The White House tip sheets put it:

For young children, we focus on STEM through exploration, play and building curiosity about the world and the way things work. STEM learning is important for everyone and can happen anytime, anywhere. The real-life skills that people develop when learning STEM help make everyone better problem-solvers and learners.

Yet, persistently, young children—especially those who are low-income, of racial minorities, or are girls—are not getting the rich STEM experiences they need early in life. And, overwhelmingly, teachers are not prepared, equipped, or supported to integrate these experiences into their classrooms.

Michael Levine at the White House Early STEM Learning Symposium

So what do we do about it? The symposium gave us the information we needed, but now we need an action plan. In addition to the new commitments that were made by the Obama Administration and the remarkable symposium participants, I believe there is a strong need, as Michael Levine said at the event, to take these diverse commitments, these individual rose gardens, and unite them into amber waves of grain. We cannot all act independently—we researchers, policy makers, funding organizations, and teachers—or we risk working past and sometimes even against one another. We need to put our heads together and solve these challenges as one. That’s why the Joan Ganz Cooney Center and New America are convening leaders from each of these areas, many of whom attended the White House symposium last week, in Washington, DC, on May 31 through June 1, to follow up on the meeting and commit to united action. There we will systematically lay out the barriers we face in research, policy, and practice, and collaborate with leading experts to design a national action agenda for early STEM learning.

Where are the napkins?

So, at the end of the day, what did I take away from this White House event (Other than a handful of treasured napkins marked with the Seal of the President of the United States)? I walked away with a deeper drive to help all children gain access to the STEM experiences that will help them grow and succeed in life. Beyond the great personal honor of being able to attend a symposium at The White House, the event confirmed to me what an important issue early STEM learning is and how privileged I am to work on it at such a pivotal time. I’m looking forward to reporting back soon on the action agenda we devise this summer!

It seems like the older I get, the more time I spend with Lego bricks. Sure, I say that I buy the kits for my kids, but I’m always sitting on the floor next to them within minutes of opening the box. What’s more, the grown up part of me is impressed with the company’s business practices and fascinated by the way in which the brick itself has become such an iconic symbol all around the world.

From a business perspective, consider that the Lego Group has had jaw-dropping success lately—25.2% revenue increase last year (from around $4.34 billion in 2014 to $5.44 billion in 2015). That’s quite an achievement for a company that seemed to be right on the verge of collapse just over a decade ago. Their 2003 annual report reads like a eulogy. But 12 years later, in 2015, they’re quick to point to “exceptional growth” even “on top of a particularly strong 2014 that was aided by the successful LEGO Movie.”

Furthermore, the brand is beloved, both as nostalgic legacy artifact and as the toy market frontrunner at a time when the kids and play market is being colonized by tablets, smartphones and video game consoles. But Lego thrives in both the tangible and digital markets. They’ve got a boatload of successful role-playing video game titles and the new NFC-enabled Dimensions line. Somehow, they’ve sustained the popularity of a product that’s just about as physical as things get, even within in a virtual space.

Of course, my best metric of what kids love to play has nothing to do with the market. It comes from observing my own children. And my eight-year-old son enjoys building with Lego bricks so much that he recently listed every under-utilized video game in his collection on eBay and used the cash to buy the newest Millennium Falcon set. He then spent a week rushing home to assemble it each day after school. Now it joins his Dr. Who Lego Tardis and Back to the Future Lego DeLorean on epic imaginary adventures across our living room rug.

Needless to say, each year in April, when I kiss him goodbye before heading off to Lego’s headquarters in Billund, Denmark, he thinks I’m the coolest dad ever. This year, he was also just a little bit envious, wishing I’d take him along. No wonder; when I show him the Legoland Conference Center’s giant sculptures via our daily Skype video calls, or when he sees the snapshots of my colleagues and me huddled around tables, building with bricks, he imagines that my week away must be all about Lego products. It’s not. I’m there to attend the Lego Foundation’s annual Idea Conference.

In fact, despite the ubiquitous presence of building bricks, the Idea Conference has very little to do with Lego products. Instead, it brings educators, thought leaders, influencers, and policymakers together. The Lego Foundation owns 25% of the Lego Group and shares a mission with the toy company: “to inspire and develop the builders of tomorrow.” The foundation fulfills the mission through programs and research that promote and encourage play, creativity, and children’s development. The Idea Conference is their annual event at which partners, beneficiaries, and friends—as well as representatives from like-minded organizations—engage in a multi-day conversation about playful learning and global education reform.

If you’ve ever been to a professional conference, you know that every host says that they plan to facilitate “a conversation.” Usually, that means something that looks a lot more like a series of performances: the majority of attendees will sit in rows while keynote speakers and panelists talk at them. It’s not exactly “a conversation.” Alternatively, when the Lego Foundation says they want to facilitate a conversation, expect to see folks spending most of their time huddled in groups, sleeves rolled high, digging into a topic creatively, whimsically, and often while playing with bricks.

It makes sense. After all, it would be disingenuous to host a conference that claims to promote a shift away from the sage-on-the-stage paradigm of learning but still depends upon precisely those habitual conventions that plague most schools. But as obvious as that may seem, it remains just as rare to see an education reform conference willing to risk moving toward a more playful and participatory structure as it is to find a school that’s really willing to adopt something substantially different at an institutional level.

It brings to mind the late-great Brazilian educator Paolo Freire, whose work is so influential that many schools around the world are named for him. He once explained why he departed from what he called “the banking model of education” (where a teacher attempts to deposit knowledge into the student). Immediately after speaking to a group of adults, his wife criticized the pedagogy of his presentation. Freire describes her reaction: “‘Look, Paulo, it does not work like this.’ And I asked her: ‘what did I do? I spoke serious about serious things.’ She said, ‘Yes, of course. All you said is right, but did you ask them whether they were interested in listening to you speak about that? You gave the answers and the questions.’” Freire ultimately wrote the classic book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, and argued for teachers-as-facilitators rather than teacher-as-experts.

Nowadays, Freire’s perspective is shared by most progressive educators, albeit without the politically subversive edge. And this is precisely what’s embodied and modeled in almost everything that happens at the Lego Idea Conference. This year’s theme was “What is Quality Learning?” And the answer, expressed in general terms, is “playful learning.” Mitch Resnick (creator of Scratch and director of MIT Medial Lab’s Lifelong Kindergarten Research Group) answered the question nicely when he suggested that quality learning requires facilitated opportunities for the four P’s: play, projects, passion, and peers.

Play involves having the freedom to explore and experiment within a set of limited boundaries—what Dutch cultural historian Johan Huizinga called “The Magic Circle.”  Projects provide opportunities for hands-on immersive experiences. Passion has to do with engagement, fun, and inspiration. And with peers, students not only learn to connect, but also how to articulate, translate, and communicate content among different individuals and diverse contexts.

Sure, playful learning is convincing on an abstract level, but what happens when you take into consideration a plethora of different cultural, geographical, and economic contexts from around the globe? How do we make it work on an infrastructural level? How do we implement and encourage playful curricula, which incorporate Resnick’s four Ps, in scalable ways? How do we make sure it reaches the 38% of worldwide children who are not learning basic literacy and numeracy? Recognizing the importance of those questions, Lego Foundation included delegates from six different countries—the USA, Denmark, Mexico, South Africa, Philippines, and Kenya—who began the conference by sharing the unique strengths, challenges, and concerns of their particular school systems.

Country-specific working groups stayed focused throughout the two-day conference (I worked on the Philippines). On the first day, each group explored, reflected, and brainstormed. Some cohorts were joined by that country’s education minister, others included high-level administrators and teachers. On day two, each group came up with “actionable and measurable models” for change. For example, the USA group suggested that adding just 10 minutes a day of student-led curricula could be a small but powerful paradigm shift. They called it “the power of 10.” Finally, we all considered ways in which to bring the models to scale.

In between these working sessions, we all came together in plenary sessions. Some of these featured education researchers like Jack Shonkoff, Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, and Pasi Sahlberg. Others announced new Lego Foundation initiatives, like their partnership with Sesame Workshop to bring more playful learning to South Africa, and the new PlayFutures Community—an ambitious project that will connect people from all disciplines who are involved in playful learning. Toward the end of the conference, Rebecca Winthrop, director of the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institute, announced the new report, Millions Learning: Scaling Up Quality Education in Developing Countries.

As always, Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen and Thomas Kirk Kristiansen (grandson and great-grandson of Ole Kirk Christiansen, the founder of Lego) were present throughout. They presented the annual Lego Prize, which has been “awarded to individuals or organizations that have made an outstanding contribution to the lives of children” since 1985. This year, the award went to Pasi Sahlberg, author of Finnish Lessons 2.0: What can the world learn from educational change in Finland. They also presented gift boxes, which include six bricks, and define the “Lego Idea,” to all the attendees. Read the definition in the photo below; it is the best way I can think of to conclude this post…

Olivia Thomas and Mark German from E-Line Media line up outside the White House with everything that they’ll need to set up Olivia’s table.

I don’t quite know when it hit me. Maybe it was when the man in black let me through the gates. Maybe it was when I walked past parking spaces that were reserved for people anyone would recognize. Maybe it was when I was standing at the threshold of a large white house with no escort except for my chaperone. But it wasn’t just a white house. It was the White House. My pass card? A video game.

It was the day before the White House Science Fair. The thirty students chosen to exhibit their projects at the White House were about to be allowed inside to set up their displays. I was one of those thirty, and as my chaperone and I stepped inside for a first glimpse of the White House, we lugged posters, laptops and other materials. White House staff directed us down hallways and up a staircase to the Red Room; very red, as its name implies, lined with furniture and rugs from another age, and hung with paintings of presidents straight out of the pages of my favorite history books. I took a moment to look out the window, where the Washington Monument was framed by the well-groomed White House lawn. There were two other girls setting up displays in the room, one with a project about a concrete additive and the other with an original app that could diagnose pulmonary illnesses. I was immediately humbled to be among so many amazing scientists and innovators.

All set up and ready for the big day!

My video game, “Colorless,” is an adventurous puzzle about colors that requires critical thinking and careful observation, and was one of the winners of the National STEM Video Game Challenge this past year. I created it using Gamestar Mechanic, which is easily my favorite game design tool. Something about being able to lace Gamestar’s solidly-working components together in a flexible platform with practically endless possibilities had me hooked as soon as I discovered it. It was through the first STEM Challenge that I discovered Gamestar Mechanic, so I was extra excited when I actually won this year. I thought that winning the STEM Challenge was the culmination of all my years of game design as a student, but it turns out that there was still one more stop left on my high school game design journey, and a pretty incredible one at that. This time my passion for video game design had whisked me quite unawares to the White House.

And now I was actually there, setting up a table to display my video game. We put up posters, and made sure that laptops and everything else that tomorrow’s rush of visitors would need to see and play my game was ready. As soon as we were done and I had answered some questions from the media, things began to quiet down, so I slipped away and wandered around the White House a bit. The ornate rooms where history had been made time and time again were now filled with displays detailing amazing projects and students chatting in animated tones. Never had I seen such an incredible setting for a science fair, or such an incredible science fair for that matter! Eventually everyone started to leave, and I headed back to my hotel. The set-up day was an incredible experience in of itself, but the actual event hadn’t even begun yet!

The “Supergirls,” a troop of Girl Scout Daisies from Eastern Oklahoma, check out Olivia’s game.

The White House was quiet when I entered it the next day. It seemed like a very familiar place after yesterday. I was alone this time; only the presenting students were allowed in. We were given lunch in the Diplomatic Room, where the president greets the Queen of England, the Pope, and any other heads of state that might happen to be in town. Then the event began.

People were already filtering in when I got back to my display, and soon the White House was filled with voices. I met so many incredible people that day, from the director of STEM at the U.S. Department of Education to a representative from Disney Interactive. There was even a group of Girls Scouts dressed up as superheroes (alumni of last year’s fair) who all wanted to play my game.

President Obama addresses the participants of the 2016 White House Science Fair.

The culmination came when all of the participants attended an informal talk from President Obama, took a picture with him, and then got to shake his hand one-by-one. Then we all filed into a large ballroom for a more formal speech. My favorite part was when the President mentioned that many of the framers of our country were scientists and inventors, including Thomas Jefferson (whose birthday it was, coincidentally). That brave and curious spirit that was with us at the birth of our country was alive and well at the White House that day, and to be a part of it is an experience that I will never forget. I never thought that my passion for designing video games would take me anywhere nearly as amazing as this. A huge thank you to the Cooney Center and E-Line Media for being the catalysts of a dream that I never imagined would actually come true!

Olivia Thomas won the High School Gamestar Mechanic category in the 2015 National STEM Video Game Challenge.

Image from PEEP and the Big Wide World

In many ways, the audience for PEEP and the Big Wide World is what you might expect. Every day, thousands of preschoolers, parents, and educators log on to this award-winning public media project to explore math and science—by watching videos, playing games, and finding hands-on activities they can explore in their own homes and neighborhoods. But PEEP’s audience is unique in one important way: more than 20% of PEEP’s users are Spanish-speaking. This wasn’t always the case. The growth of the program’s Spanish-speaking audience was a result of a deliberate campaign on the part of PEEP’s creators to reach out and connect with Hispanic children, who make up 25% of children under the age of 5 in the United States (U.S. Census, 2015), yet are consistently underserved when it comes to math and science programming.

What is PEEP?

Funded by the National Science Foundation, PEEP is a television series and website that stars a wide-eyed chicken named Peep, a robin (Chirp), and an irascible, endearing duck (Quack)—all of whom live in a large urban park, a place of endless wonder, adventure, and mystery. Animated stories highlight specific science or math concepts, and accompanying live-action videos depict real kids playing and experimenting with these concepts. Games and apps further reinforce the science and math ideas. Extensive materials for educators (curricular and professional development resources) support PEEP’s use in preschool classrooms and family childcare settings.

Gaining traction among Hispanic audiences

PEEP first attracted the attention of Hispanic families in the US when Spanish-language episodes began airing across the country through a partnership with V-Me, a Spanish-language, public television programming service. We posted a selection of these videos, along with translated hands-on science activities for families, to the PEEP website. Over time, we found that traffic to the several of the Spanish-language pages was nearly double that to the corresponding pages in English. This was the first concrete evidence we had that there was a real need for Spanish-language preschool science resources—and that PEEP could help fill it.

Digging into the issue, PEEP producers became aware of research showing that Latino children often lag behind non-Latino children on academic achievement tests. We learned that although parents can play a critical role in encouraging and supporting children’s science learning, many Hispanic and Latino parents are unsure how to support children’s science exploration. Language issues can post a major barrier – according to a 2013 Pew Hispanic Center report, only 68% of Hispanics in the US report that they speak English proficiently.

Motivated by this research, and inspired by the positive response to our existing Spanish-language resources, PEEP’s producers have taken many steps over the past several years to engage more deeply with Spanish-speaking families. Funded by the National Science Foundation, this work includes:

• Translating PEEP’s title and logo—the program is now known in Spanish as El Mundo Divertido de Peep.
• Debuting a new animated character, Splendid Bird from Paradise, who speaks a mix of English and Spanish and models how to make a home in a new place.
• Featuring native Spanish-speaking parents in PEEP’s live-action videos.
• Relaunching our website as a completely bilingual site, with all materials available in both English and Spanish, designed so that users can switch between languages whenever they desire.
• Identifying and consulting with a native Spanish-speaking science advisor.
• Launching an outreach initiative designed to evaluate best practices when engaging Latino families in informal science education. This included working with five model communities: San Antonio, Phoenix, Raleigh-Durham, Yakima Valley (WA), and Salt Lake City, in which the public television station and its partners hosted PEEP family events, trained preschool educators, and disseminated materials. Events were designed to coincide with El Dia de los Niños, a national day of celebration of Latino children.
• Reaching out to a new audience of family child care educators—people who care for children in their own homes—and creating curricular and professional development resources in both English and Spanish. (According to the National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies, almost half of Latino children under six are in some type of non-parental care on a weekly basis.)
• Connecting with partners who serve Spanish-speaking audiences and promoting the use of PEEP’s resources among their members. These include AVANCE, Head Start (particularly their Abriendo Puertas and Migrant/Seasonal programs), National Association for Family Child Care, Center for Advancement of Hispanics in Science and Engineering, National Association of Bilingual Educators, and the Aprendiendo Juntos Council.
• Establishing a Spanish-language YouTube channel and Facebook page, staffed by a native Spanish speaker.
• Raising awareness of PEEP’s resources among Spanish-speaking families by launching a promotional campaign with Latina bloggers.

Results

Immediately after the re-launch of the PEEP website as a fully bilingual site, we noticed a surge in the number of visitors to the Spanish-language pages. Today, a little over a year later, more than one-fifth of PEEP’s total visitors are Spanish-speaking. Our Spanish-language YouTube channel has also grown significantly, with subscribers up 81% from 2014-2015. In addition, Hispanic families have been vocal about their enthusiasm for PEEP: comments on social media over the last year include Me gusta Peep, Chrip y Quack! Quack esta un pato loco! (I like Peep, Chirp, and Quack! Quack is a crazy duck!) and En casa nos encanta esta caricatura y que buenas ideas el combinarlo con el aprendizaje. (At home, we love this cartoon and the good ideas that it combines with learning.)

Most gratifying, summative evaluation suggests that Spanish-speaking children are learning from their interactions with PEEP. While previous evaluations had shown that PEEP helps children learn science and math, we had not assessed its impact specifically on Spanish-speaking families until this year. A recent summative evaluation conducted by Concord Evaluation Group with 200 Spanish-speaking families found that children who used PEEP were more likely than children who did not use PEEP to increase their math and science knowledge, interest, and curiosity. Additionally, 99% of children said they would watch/play with PEEP again. The same study showed that Spanish-speaking parents who used PEEP resources were significantly more likely than parents who did not use PEEP to find enjoyment exploring science with their children, improve their knowledge of how to help their children learn science concepts, and believe that it is their role to help their children learn science and math. Furthermore, 100% of parents reported that they would let their child watch/play with PEEP again.

New directions

PEEP is thrilled with the results of our efforts to reach Hispanic children and families—and our work is not yet done. We have several proposals in the works to expand both our library of Spanish-language media resources, and our outreach efforts to engage Spanish-speaking children, including efforts to target diverse, low-income parents participating in home visiting programs. Our ultimate goal is to bring PEEP’s brand of science and math learning—along with its lovable characters and gentle humor—to as many Spanish- and English-speaking families as possible.

• PEEP and the Big Wide World
• El Mundo Divertido de Peep
• English YouTube Channel
• Spanish YouTube Channel
• View the full report by the Concord Evaluation Group

Jessica Rueter Andrews is the Project Director for PEEP and the Big Wide World.

Olivia Thomas at the 2016 White House Science Fair

We’re thrilled that Olivia Thomas, who won last year’s 2015 National STEM Video Game Challenge in the High School Gamestar Mechanic category, is attending this year’s White House Science Fair.

This is the sixth and final Science Fair of President Obama’s Administration, with more than 130 students representing 30 states who have won a broad range of (STEM) science, technology, engineering, and math competitions.

This is an incredible honor both for Olivia and the STEM Challenge, which was inspired by President Obama’s Educate to Innovate Campaign. All of us at the Cooney Center and E-Line Media are proud of our young designers for using STEM skills to create their own original video games.

According to the judges of STEM Challenge:

Olivia’s game, Colorless, blew us away thanks to sharp level design and a very clever game mechanic. By taking advantage of a quirk in Gamestar Mechanic’s programming that allows you to “overlap” one sprite on top of another (something that you are ordinarily not allowed to do), Colorless trains the player to associate colors with different abilities, and then challenges the player later on by taking the color away. While the story itself is very straightforward, the game’s setting and level design are brilliantly built around this narrative, and in turn, the narrative helps drive the mechanics. Overall, with its well-crafted design, an engaging, ever-rising, but always fair difficulty curve, and, of course, the unique gameplay concept that takes “It’s not a Bug, It’s a Feature!” and runs with it, Colorless clearly earned the title of Grand Prize Winner in the STEM 14-15 Video Game Challenge.

You can play Olivia’s winning game, Colorless, on the Gamestar Mechanic website.

Tune in at 1pm today, April 13, for a livestream of the White House Science Fair.

Follow the National STEM Video Game Challenge on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram!

In their recent report, Opportunity for All?, media and policy expert Victoria Rideout and Rutgers University scholar Vikki Katz explored the current uses of digital technologies to help promote educational opportunities for all through a national survey of nearly 1,200 low-income parents of school-age children and in-person interviews with lower-income, Hispanic families in three communities located in Arizona, California, and Colorado.

We compiled a scannable, shareable infographic to illustrate some of their key findings.

Download the infographic

Photo: La Boite a Pitons

For several years now, children’s literature has been venturing step by step into the digital field, with all the creative force and originality that the domain has shown itself capable of. Beyond the simple digitalization of content in PDF or E-pub format, many producers (Nosy Crow, Tank & Bear, Camera Lucida, Atomic Antelope, and Moobot Studio, to name just a few) are embarking today into digital storytelling and using it to its full potential. The development of immersive environments, auditory and visual adjuncts, interactive features; animation; integrated mini-games, transmedia conceptualization, geolocation, chronolocation, augmented reality, linked objects, and interactive installations are now opening up a whole range of possibilities for narrative construction. And the potential for exploration is still great: tablets that make it possible to create texture, interactive fabrics, virtual reality, 3D printing… These are just a few of the hundreds of innovations that could integrate themselves into the construction of a digital story.

The development of this type of project, still at a very organic stage, is turning the creative process, both individual and collaborative, on its head. The various players involved (authors, illustrators, publishers, as well as narrative architects, designers, developers, musicians, animators and others) are gradually starting to identify the components and boundaries of their respective roles, learning to work within group dynamics and with collaborators that were unknown to them in their earlier productions. To be able to bring forward a coherent work and a relevant narrative structure, each of these players must not only deal with other creators but must also anticipate in advance the potential of technology and the impact of integrating it into the story. With the constant back and forth on content elements between the various areas of expertise, the creative timeline becomes more blurred, the teams become bigger and more collaborative, and the work structure becomes more complex. New roles also emerge: the narrative architect, in particular, is essential to the consistency of the experience, assuming a place at the center of the creative process, a role previously reserved for the author.

In the realm of children’s literature, the work is perhaps even more complex: the age, level of understanding and literacy skills of the intended audience influence the design of the narrative structure and often require bringing in another range of collaborators from the education field. Producers-publishers, creators and researchers must work together to ensure that the proposed features, story structure and navigational aids, among others, are suitable for use by young readers.

Implementing this type of project draws on the three basic multimodal media literacy skills: information skills, aimed at using effective search strategies and analyzing, organizing and critiquing information sources; technical skills, focused on learning how to operate and use technology tools; and multimodal skills, dealing with the ability to read and communicate by effectively combining at least two methods such as writing (textual means), image (visual means), audio (sound means) and movement (kinetic means, using a click or tactile interaction) on varied media (Lebrun, Lacelle & Boutin, 2012).

Photo: La Boite a Pitons

As the media environment in which we are evolving becomes more and more complex and multimodal, it seems vital today to equip children with tools to help them decode and produce such messages in order to become enlightened and critical adults, able to inform themselves properly and create on their own. This is where analyzing and documenting creative processes especially become an issue: by integrating creative activities inspired by those working in the field into the curricula, from narrative design to final composition, we will help them acquire skills in an environment in which very few tools are available.

The series of apps for tablets developed by La boîte à pitons, Fonfon interactive, in collaboration with publisher of children’s books Fonfon and the Akufen studio, with the pedagogical input of education specialists of the Université du Québec à Montréal, fits directly into this thinking. Each app offers not only a multimodal interactive book that associates visuals, text, animation, sound effects and optional readalong pre-recorded narration but also, and especially, a creative platform that allows young users to create their own book of a dozen pages by drawing on a bank of visuals taken from the book (decors, characters and objects), recording their voice and adding their own text. By remaining within a known and limited context (the visual world of the book that they have just read), the children are guided in using various media and, as part of a collective process, creating in a collaborative and structured way.

After several weeks of testing, we are thrilled with what we have been able to observe. As the testing progresses, the methods are naturally refined: the story’s characters and major milestones define themselves collectively early on, rather than during the creative process; the creative timeline defines itself; teams form based on the creative roles (author, narrator, designer, publisher), the reader’s experience is anticipated; and the technological barriers (maximum number of characters, recording time limit) are used to produce a coherent construction.

Every day we learn something new from our observations. We are convinced more than ever that children will acquire the skills they need to evolve in today’s multimedia world through “doing.”

One story at a time!

Prune Lieutier is a co-founder and the development director of La boîte à pitons, a young Montreal-based company that designs, develops and markets interactive digital experiences that entertain and enrich young audiences, their parents, and their teachers. She’s also a PhD student at the University of Québec in Montréal focusing on new models of creation involved in digital children’s books and their possible adaptation in pedagogical contexts.

“So, can you tell me what some of your favorite shows are?”

As a researcher on the Families and Media Project, I had the opportunity to talk to several children about their media use. I sat in 8-year-old Lina’s kitchen as she tried to answer my questions, though it was clear she would rather enjoy her plate of macaroni and cheese in peace.

She told me that because her family did not currently have cable, she spent most of her time watching Curious George and Ninja Turtles DVDs. However, when she visits  friends and cousins, she is able to watch popular shows on Nickelodeon and the Disney Channel.

Out of my own curiosity, I asked her who some of her favorite characters were, and if she had any favorite characters who looked like her. “Who look like me?” She turned her eyes up to the ceiling, thinking long and hard about a character who might have her long brown ponytail, tanned skin, and dark eyes. After pondering for a while, she shrugged, a bit disappointed, and said, “I don’t know. I can’t really think of one.

While this may not seem like a huge deal, especially since Lina does admire other characters who do not necessarily look like her, having a diverse range of characters in the media that children interact with is extremely important. It’s not just about “doing the right thing” or creating products that actually reflect the U.S. population (in which Hispanics are estimated to make up 30% of the population by 2050). Research has shown that media play an important role in shaping self-concept and identity (Ward, 2004) and that there is great potential for children to learn from characters whom they perceive are like them (Fisch & Truglio, 2000).

For these reasons, I was very excited to help write the Cooney Center report, Diverse Families and Media: Using Research to Inspire Design. The report, meant to inspire producers, designers, and educators to create thoughtful and inclusive products and programs for children and their families, features ethnographic case-based design challenges drawn from the research done by Families and Media Project members.

The report ultimately led me to an extremely passionate group called Diversity in Apps, a multi-sector group of app designers, media producers, researchers, and educators who care deeply about making the children’s digital media space one in which children of all backgrounds can see themselves reflected in the activities that they interact with daily. I met the group at their kickoff event which they hosted along with the Children’s Media Association. The event featured a panel of experts on the subject of diversity in media, including Liza Conrad (Hopscotch), David Grandison Jr. (Startup Entrepreneur), Darrell Robertson (Carroll County Public Library), Kika Gilbert (Tiny Bop), Kevin Clark (George Mason), and Amy Kraft (Monkey Bar Collective).

In 2010, Sesame Workshop’s “I Love My Hair” became a viral sensation among because of its positive message.

At the event, I was struck by the enthusiasm of the Diversity in Apps co-founders, Kabir Seth (Storied Myth) and Sandhya Nankani (Literary Safari). In addition, the knowledge of the panel and the takeaways from the discussion were highly valuable. For example, panelists suggested thinking about issues of diversity early on in the process—even as early as hiring decisions—as well as making sure that production and design teams deeply engage with the communities they are designing for in the spirit of “Don’t make it about us without us.” I knew immediately that I wanted to be a part of this community, and help to contribute to a more diverse digital space for children.

After collaborating with the group for a few months, I can say that this consortium is one that truly “walks the diversity talk,” putting their knowledge and experience to action. Diversity in Apps is currently thinking about an overall strategy for tackling gaps in inclusion not only in apps, but across all children’s digital content. In addition, they are taking the idea of the Diverse Families and Media guide a step further by creating a detailed framework for children’s media producers that will include tips for creating a more diverse media environment. This framework will take the somewhat elusive, broad idea of diversity and turn it into action items for producers through checklists, timelines, and infographics for leaders to share with their creative teams. Once this framework is released, children’s media creators will have step-by-step guidelines from the beginning to the end of their production processes, and children like Lina will be able to list not just one, but many characters who look like them and whom they admire.

A Call to Action
If you are someone who cares deeply about providing children with ample opportunities to engage with media that not only teaches them, but accurately and bountifully represents them, there are ways for you to get involved as well!

• Go to www.diversityinapps.com to learn more about the team, download presentations, and listen to the podcast.
• Click the “Join Us” tab to subscribe to the newsletter, and to inform the team whether you’d like to get involved via leadership or volunteer positions. You can also sign up for the newsletter here.
• Follow Diversity in Apps on Twitter, Facebook, and Soundcloud
• Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes

Almost every child in the United States plays video games—91% of children ages 2-17, according to NPD. But how many kids make their own video games? I could not find any reliable statistics.

Nowadays, one barely needs to write a line of code in order to build a video game because there are so many platforms that make the process simple. Gamestar Mechanic, Unity, GameMaker, and Scratch are probably the most popular. Each one involves a different amount of complexity and engineering proficiency. They are all accessible to pre-teens, tweens and teens.

Gaming is getting “meta.” When kids play, it is no longer simply a question of immersion—how lost can one become, how engrossed in the game-world? There’s a certain level of objective critical distance that rarely existed among my friends when we consumed the 1980’s media that was ubiquitous in our lives.

Photo: Jordan Shapiro

My seven- and nine-year-old sons regularly impress me with discussions about art-design, mechanics, controls, etc. Perhaps it is because they have spent hours watching Stampy build things on Minecraft. Maybe it is because they now tinker within the ecosystem of Scrap Mechanic. It could be because we regularly listen to Emily Reese’s excellent Top Score podcast about the music of video games.

Whatever the reason, my kids understand that games are designed, produced and assembled. They perceive their digital media to be fabricated artifacts requiring interpretation and analysis. What’s more: when my kids dream of the future, the older one says he’ll program games based on the characters and drawings his younger brother creates. It sure is cute. Also, it demonstrates that from their perspective, games are not just something you play, but also something you make. Games are not only interactive, but also creative.

This is why my kids were excited, last year, when Nintendo made the jump to more options for creative game-play. They released Pokémon Art Academy, an underrated 3DS title that teaches drawing through guided tutorials featuring Pokémon characters. The game implicitly tells kids that they might one day create their own digital media franchises.

Soon after, Nintendo also released Super Mario Maker for the Wii U. I can hardly call this title a game: it is more like an app or a platform. Using Super Mario Maker, players build their own levels of the iconic Super Mario Bros. game. Then, they share those levels publicly for others to play. My kids and I love to play Super Mario Maker together. It gets all of us using our STEM skills as we think algorithmically, envisioning the way players will navigate through our creations.

Recently, Nintendo collaborated with the San Francisco Public Library to host a public event all about video game level design. It was an afternoon of hands-on workshops “inspired by a nationwide push for more computer science education and digital learning for children.” Working individually and in groups, kids and their parents used Super Mario Maker with the help of coaches, teachers, and experts from Nintendo.

Long before games about making games hit the mainstream, however, the National STEM Video Game Challenge hosted its first competition. Middle school and high school students in the U.S submitted their own game-world creations, competing for prizes like software and cash. Nearly 4,000 middle and high school youth participated in the 2014-15 STEM Challenge.

The fifth annual National STEM Video Game Challenge is now underway. Organized by the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop, E-Line Media, and founding sponsor the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), the National STEM Video Game challenge aims “to motivate interest in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) among youth by transforming their natural passions for playing video games into designing and creating their own.” This year, the National Geographic Society (along with its supporting sponsors the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and the Grable Foundation) is included among the sponsors.

Middle school and high school students in the U.S. have until August 15 to submit an entry. They can use any game creation platform they want. In fact, they can even submit a written game design document. And if your child knows nothing about designing games, you may consider attending one of the STEM Challenge game design and mentoring workshops. They will be held in 20 different U.S. cities. Professional game designers will provide the kind of coaching and mentoring your kids will need to get started.

I have written about the STEM Challenge a few times in past years. And I’ve explained that making games is a fantastic example of project-based learning, helping kids master academic content in context while simultaneously developing advanced metacognitive skills. Game design achieves a pedagogical trifecta. It includes a content component, an affective/experiential component, and a metacognitive component. Whenever these three things intersect, quality learning takes place.

In my own classroom, I strive to create activities where the content is not only delivered from teacher to student, but also experienced in a felt, embodied way. I want to make sure there’s an emotional component—a sense of immersion into the material. But that alone is not enough. My time in the classroom has taught me that there should also be a metacognitive aspect—an opportunity for students to actively reflect on the experience itself, to analyze and identify the ways in which an activity was designed to influence their thinking.

Whenever children are playing video games, they are already learning to understand the details of a complex system. They see how components interact with one another in contextualized ways. They are immersed in an affective experience. Things get really interesting, however, when you add the metacognitive piece, when kids consider the design decisions that lead to the production of the game.

When they create their own games, children learn to see the game world as an environment full of fabricated artifacts that beg for intentional interpretation and mindful analysis, not just quick action and interaction. Hopefully, soon they’ll see the life world in the same way—as a landscape that becomes richer, more thought-provoking, and more meaningful through the application of critical thinking and STEM skills.

We are excited to launch the 2016 National STEM Video Game Challenge, a competition that transforms student passions for game play into a pathway towards gaining core STEM problem solving skills… all while designing their own video games! Students are invited to create playable games on any platform or to create game design documents outlining their video game idea.

At the STEM Challenge, we believe that the process of designing and making games itself creates a wonderful opportunity for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) learning. For the STEM Challenge, you can make your game about anything you want: whether or not it is a STEM subject or is designed to be a “learning” or “educational” game. Our research suggests that through creating a game, students’ change their attitudes towards STEM and also gain the key problem-solving skills necessary for success in any STEM career pathway—an understanding of systems thinking, an appreciation for the iterative design process, enhanced ability to work in teams, and self-motivation.

This year the STEM Challenge is placing special emphasis on that pathways piece…

So, you want to design a game… how do you start?

So, you’ve designed a game… what comes next?

So, you want to support a budding game designer… how can you help?

To answer these questions (and more) we’ve made a few changes to help students, educators, and game-design professionals better connect to the competition and stay engaged throughout the process.

1. New Prize Stream

This year National Geographic is sponsoring a new prize stream called Nat Geo Explore that invites students to create games and design documents about innovation and their inspirations. Winners will have their games and game design documents featured on the National Geographic Education website, which reaches more than 1 million visitors a month.

We believe that students express themselves, their learning, and their inspiration through the games they create. This new prize category encourages students to share their passion for the natural world and how things work by tapping into their curiosity and desire to learn more through exploration. We are thrilled to work with National Geographic to help students use games to connect with the things they are passionate about and explore what might be next on their STEM pathway.

2. Sustainability

This year, to build self-sustaining game design educational programs around the country, we are delighted to welcome back supporting sponsors The Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and The Grable Foundation. With their support, we are establishing programs in museums, libraries, and after-school centers across the country to teach students how to design games, and to train local venue staff to support STEM engagement even after the STEM Challenge submission period closes.

Through this new train-the-trainer model, we plan to empower educators to support students through the entire game creation process and to help connect games to the rest of their learning. If you would like more information on how to mentor or establish a game design workshop, or would be interested in hosting the STEM Challenge on our regional tour, please contact us.

3. Game Design Pipeline

For the first time this year, the STEM Challenge will extend into the summer months. We hope that excitement around creating games can prevent summer slump as students begin to see themselves as game creators instead of simply consumers. This allows us to partner with summer camps and summer learning initiatives and to also engage students digitally through both face-to-face and online resources, webinars, and workshops.

Using resources provided by our founding sponsor, the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), over the course of the STEM Challenge, we will be sharing new resources to engage students and educators. These new tools will help with developing high-quality games, emphasize the importance of game design for connected learning, and connect individuals with both STEM and game design educational and professional communities.

Through a series of online videos, digital resources, and educational toolkits, we hope to move the needle on students’ educational pathway. To stay connected with these exciting updates, be sure to follow our social media accounts. This year we’ve launched an Instagram account, in addition to our Twitter and Facebook pages.

Stay tuned for exciting updates from the road!