I’m so excited to bring you this interview with Sago Mini!  I’ve been a huge fan of their work since the early days of kids apps and after a chance to visit their offices in Toronto in the fall of 2015, I became even more impressed with the level of dedication they put into creating high-quality apps for the very youngest users.

I love how they create “digital toys” that focus on pure play rather than insisting that all of their apps must teach kids academic skills. All of their apps are intuitive enough for a two-year-old to use, but so engaging that even older kids (and adults) love to play them as well.  I’ve seen other companies try to copy their style but none come close to the polish or quality of the original.

Their most recent app release, “Puppy Preschool” does have some light educational content. As a bonus for readers of the Cooney Center blog, I asked Aaron Leighton if he could tell us why they decided to try this more ‘educational’ approach since it seems like a bit of a departure from the rest of their collection. Here’s his reply:

We consider all our apps to be educational in the sense that children learn best through play and experimentation, but once in awhile we do make an app that is more “traditionally educational”. Our first app like this was “Pet Cafe” which featured counting, shape matching and colours, and “Puppy Preschool” is a continuation of this more structured approach – but with cute dogs!

As to why, there’s no single reason, although I suppose some reasons could include wanting to accommodate parents who are looking for that more traditional education approach, while another reason might be to challenge ourselves creatively, as these types of apps are actually quite difficult to make engaging.

However, our primary goal remains for children to simply have fun playing with the characters and exploring the app instead of overtly forcing them to “learn” something. And if filling a wading pool full of wet puppies does help a kid learn to count, then that’s a bonus!

Listen to the episode to learn the secret to their success, how they came up with the idea for Forest Flyer and how old each of their animal characters are.  The App Fairy and the Bad App Fairy also make return appearances!

One of my favorite things about visiting their offices was seeing artist Aaron Leighton’s original sketchbooks filled with the artwork that is so familiar from their apps, and I’m excited to share some samples from those sketchbooks on the App Fairy website now.

On July 6, 2016, Niantic, Inc. released Pokémon GO, which quickly became one of the most popular mobile game apps in history. In this location-based mobile game, players use the GPS capabilities of their smartphones or tablets to navigate an avatar within a virtual world that is overlaid on top of the real world. As players move about in the real world, their avatar moves through the game world, and they can locate, capture, battle, and train virtual monsters called Pokémon—with names like Pikachu, Squirtle, and Jigglypuff—that they find “at” these real-world locations. Pokémon GO also has optional augmented reality features that use a mobile device’s camera so Pokémon appear on the screen as if they were physically in the same space. Thus, you can see a virtual monster named Bulbasaur sitting on a park bench or a Growlithe in front of the family dog on your walk. You can also find eggs and “incubate” them until they hatch additional monsters by earning steps while walking around.

The Royal Library Garden in Copenhagen full of families playing Pokémon GO together!

Pokémon GO became incredibly popular immediately, with over 500 million downloads in the first two months, and it seemed to attract adults and children alike. In fact, it quickly became clear that parents and their children were not only playing Pokémon GO individually, but were also playing the game together. While other similar location-based games exist commercially (e.g., Ingress), Pokémon GO is the first popularized mainstream location-based mobile game available for families to play together. In addition, the Pokémon franchise has been around since 1996, meaning that many of today’s parents first encountered the characters in this game when they were kids themselves—and many enjoy the nostalgia while sharing it with their own kids.

Co-author Julie playing Pokémon GO with her four-year-old daughter.

So why is Pokémon GO special when it comes to families and the games they play? Because games like this can change the way we think about “screen time.” Smartphones, tablets, and even smart watches are just about everywhere today, among adults, teens, and children. Screen time is a hot topic for families. Often the very concept of screen time causes worry and guilt for parents: “Is it okay to give my phone to my toddler for 15 minutes so I can drink my coffee in peace?” “This app is supposed to be educational, so that’s okay, right?” There is fear that too much time with screens is displacing “healthier,” more “educational,” or more “social” activities. However, as technology and digital media advance, some families are starting to understand how screen time can be active, educational, and social.

Simply put, not all types of screen time are the same. Passively watching TV alone is not the same as playing a fitness game with a sibling or video chatting with a grandparent. The Joan Ganz Cooney and LIFE centers have taught us that one way to understand this difference is  joint media engagement (JME), which refers to the experiences of people using media together and making meaningful connections. This includes viewing, playing, searching, reading, contributing, and creating with either digital or traditional media.

The options for how families can co-engage with new media are quickly evolving with the advent of newer technologies into mainstream culture. Pokémon GO represents another rapid change in how families can engage with technology together. When the game became a phenomenon last summer, it became clear to us that we could study parents’ perspectives on the game and how parents and children were playing the game together. We wanted to learn more about three main topics:

• The choices parents and families make on how to play the game
• Rules parents set about their children’s game use and why
• How parents might jointly engage in this type of gaming with their children

To answer these questions, we administered a qualitative survey to 67 parents (the majority from the U.S.) and conducted interviews with 20 parents in Seattle, Washington from late-July to mid-August 2016. We approached and interviewed all 20 interview participants in a large public space like Bellevue Downtown Park just outside of Seattle, where they were playing or watching their children play Pokémon GO. Finding participants was not difficult. Yet, running with parents and children to catch Charmander or Dratini during the interview was something we hadn’t experienced in any other user studies!

Other than catching a great variety of Pokémon, what did we find out? It turns out that, in addition to exercise and time outdoors, parents valued how play led to family bonding experiences. Playing together brought families closer, strengthening their common interests and sometimes transcending beyond the game itself. Pokémon became something a mom was able to talk to her usually not-so-talkative son about and something that made a daughter feel excited to hang out with her dad. This play also easily fit into their lives, either coinciding with other important activities like family dog walks or running errands, or becoming specifically planned family Pokémon GO time.

Here are a few favorite quotes from our interviews:

• “I love that this is a game we can play together as a family, and I often play a little during the day (alone) so we can talk about my progress at night. My daughter’s enthusiasm is turning me into a gamer!” (37-year old mother with 7-year old daughter)
• “We go out for long nightly walks as a family… We stop when we see Pokémon and they help to catch them. [The kids] get really excited to go out for walks, so I love taking them.” (31-year old mother with three year old daughter and one-year old child)
• “I grew up on this game. For them to also grow up on it, it’s like there’s that bond, and I learned that my kids can love something as much as I can. We can both be kids together.” (25-year old father, playing with 3-year-old son and 5-year old daughter)

Additionally, we observed that while parents sometimes had traditional concerns about gameplay, new concerns about safety in real-world environments also emerged. These concerns included worries about their children being harmed by strangers or even getting hurt by not looking while walking. Parents made rules and gameplay choices centered around these new concerns to ensure their children were safe. For example, parents reported always accompanying their children while playing, taking turns when playing, and staying in control of the mobile device during gameplay to make sure their children were not harmed in the physical environment.

Takeaways

So what can we as designers, researchers, and parents take away from this study? We hope it can help us begin to understand what makes Pokémon GO a successful digital media resource for joint engagement between parents and children, which can later aid in designing, studying, and co-playing these types of games with children.

First, we believe that Pokémon GO was successful for JME because it supports the six conditions that help families and children come together with digital media.

• Mutual engagement: Pokémon GO lets people of all ages participate equally. Children and parents can take turns catching Pokémon, or children can throw balls in the game while parents evolve characters.
• Dialogic inquiry: They asked questions to one another, learned about characters together, and talked about the locations where they were playing.
• Co-creation: Families can create a shared experience while playing Pokémon GO.
  In our research, parents and children learned about the game together and taught each other how to play.
• Boundary crossing: The game appeals to players of multiple generations.
  Parents who had played Pokémon as kids enjoyed sharing the new game with their own children, who in turn were often pleased to be able to correct their parents – no, that’s not an Abra, it’s a Sandshrew!
• Intention to develop: We found that all players were excited to level up.
  Parents and children alike played separately during the week and then shared their progress with one another.
• Focus on content, not control: Pokémon GO’s simple game mechanics allow people of all ages to engage in play. Parents and children were able to share control, walk, and interact with each other, and they did not have to rely on looking at the screen continuously to play.

Click to view this graphic as a PDF

Second, based on our research, there are other specific qualities about Pokémon GO that make it particularly encouraging for productive joint family media engagement. As a location-based mobile game, it hinges on players going outside, walking, and working in teams. Therefore, the game reconciles some of the issues parents have with screen time and fits well into the lives of families. For instance, parents and children went on “Pokéwalks” where they would all walk outside together while playing the game.

For our families, this led to new forms of learning, like about the neighborhood. As a 51-year-old mother of a 17-year-old son told us, “What I like about [the game] is that it points out some of the little things (signs or artwork) that I might normally miss. Like at [a nearby lake,] the benches that are PokéStops are marked with memorials. Most people overlook those–it’s kind of cool to stop and read them.”

Pokémon GO also facilitated families and children connecting and being social with other people outside of the family, sometimes in very large numbers. Because the game requires going outside and moving around, there is some incentive to interact with people that are not immediately involved in gameplay. A 43-year-old mother of a 16-year-old daughter found that, “In general other [Pokémon GO] players are quite nice and friendly.” A mother of a 10-year old boy explained that playing one night as her son worked with other players, “They were a team. It was really nice, you know, to open up those channels of communication.” However, we also found that this value conflicts with parental concerns about strangers. This tension highlights the importance of parents mediating their children’s screen time in this context in order for families to gain added benefits while mitigating potential dangers.

Finally, while Pokémon GO was not designed explicitly for co-use on a single device, it is effectively being used as such. We saw a lot of passing back and forth of a device. A 42-year-old mother and her 6- year-old son each got about five minutes each with the phone, passing it back and forth. Another 46-year-old mother who plays with her 7-year-old son said that they set a timer for five minutes each to ensure equal turns. Perhaps because the gameplay can be shared in many different ways, it was especially appealing to parents and children for JME. Some parents wanted to consistently play the game with (and without) their children. Other parents wanted to watch their children play and be their cheerleaders; and some wanted to help when their assistance was necessary. The fact that the roles were not prescriptive allowed different types of families to participate together.

Overall, perhaps it was the Pokémon themselves that initially on-boarded families to play, but the valuable experiences of and interactions within families existed and continued to exist beyond the actual content of the game. Ultimately, it wasn’t really about Pokémon. It was about the special bond and memories that families were able to create by playing together.

Without these other important elements, we think the game’s popularity for families would not have been sustained. We hope this work will inspire new study and design for families’ joint participation with new media.

If you’re a parent who wants to play Pokémon GO with your child, here are some of our tips:

• Safety first. Make sure you talk to your children about why it’s so important to pay attention to their environment when they play. If they are playing with friends, encourage them to take turns. No catching when crossing the street!
• Prepare your children for potential disappointment. They will get yet another Spearow from an egg. A Pikachu might run away. They may never see a single Lapras. A friend will get a Pichu and they won’t. Help them understand that those are exactly the reasons that make them so happy when good things happen in the game.
• There is something inherently “addictive” about collecting these creatures. Try to channel that in a positive way. Several people we talked to encouraged their children to do homework and chores, and rewarded them by having family playtime with Pokémon GO.
• Even young children can play Pokémon GO with you by participating in elements that are developmentally appropriate. While you take over the more difficult elements (like evolving Pokémon) and stay in control of the phone, younger children can do things like practice counting while they throw Poké Balls.
• Think about how you can play Pokémon GO together on one device by taking turns while playing. Set timers, give each player a number of chances to catch a Pokémon, or have each player take on particular actions (catching, battling, etc.).
• Spend time learning about Pokémon both with and without your child. Understand why your child is so excited to see a Snorlax or so disappointed that Chansey ran away. Be prepared to run with them to catch that Arcanine. Share those feelings!

This blog post is based on research completed by Kiley Sobel, Arpita Bhattacharya, Alexis Hiniker, Dr. Jin Ha Lee, Dr. Julie A. Kientz, and Dr. Jason C. Yip, all from the University of Washington. This work has been accepted for publication at the 2017 ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2017), a leading international conference on Human-Computer Interaction. The research publication can be accessed here.

Kiley Sobel is a Ph.D. candidate in Human Centered Design & Engineering at the University of Washington. She is also a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow. Kiley is interested in universal design, Interaction Design and Children, Child-Computer Interaction, and Assistive Technology. Her primary research is in understanding how interactive technology might help increase opportunities for children with diverse abilities and needs to equally, actively, and meaningfully participate in the same setting inclusively. She has done assistive technology research with Microsoft Research, worked as a teacher’s assistant in early childhood education classrooms, and worked as a behavioral therapist for children with autism.

This was originally published March 21, 2017 on the TEC Center blog and appears here with permission.

Katie Paciga, a Fred Rogers Center and TEC Center Early Career Research Fellow, and Mary Quest, a doctoral student and instructor at Erikson Institute, recently published a study on e-book reading with young children. The full citation of the research article is included below and is available for download here. Here, they share several research-based tips to consider as you plan for e-reading experiences with toddlers and preschoolers.

Support for Annie, 2 years, 5 months

1. Sit in close proximity to your child as you co-engage in e-reading experiences.

• The close proximity, and your shared gaze and attention that come with proximity, work to build bonds between caregiver and child.

2. Try placing the tablet on a stable surface when reading e-books with toddlers or preschoolers, rather than on the child’s lap.

• When the device is on the child’s lap, the child may struggle to stabilize the device. This could impact the child’s overall experience with the text.

3. Read e-books multiple times with your child.

• This could allow the texts to become a “favorite book” of your child’s.
• Utilize the menu features during the first e-reading experience to read the book yourself to your child, as opposed to letting the device narrate the text.

4. Remind children that they sometimes need to wait (i.e., inhibit behavior) for the e-book, or application, in order to interact with the interactives/clickables.

• Young children may also require prompting to activate (i.e., activate behavior) the interactives/clickables.

Support for Charlie, 4 years, 5 months

5. For both selecting and sharing an e-book, consider the child’s developmental level and the child as an individual, including their particular interests.

• Adjust the way you respond to better co-regulate the e-book experience. Two-year-olds may not read through an entire board book from cover to cover, so consider brief interactions with smaller portions of e-books to be acceptable e-reading experiences for them.
• Utilize affirmations, questions, and verbal and physical prompts (e.g., pointing) to build on the child’s developmental strengths and interests.

Research Citation

Paciga, K. A., & Quest, M. (2017). It’s Hard to Wait: Effortful control and story understanding in adult-supported e-book reading across the early years. Journal of Literacy and Technology, 18(1), 35-79.

Dr. Katie Paciga is an Assistant Professor of Education at Columbia College Chicago and is the first ever Early Career Research Fellow of the TEC Center at the Erikson Institute and the Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning and Media at Saint Vincent College (with generous funding from the Grable Foundation). She holds a PhD in Literacy, Language, and Culture (University of Illinois at Chicago, 2011) and is a licensed elementary school educator as well. Her teaching and research interests focus on the social, emotional, cultural, and cognitive bases for language and literacy development, with a focus on the ways in which educational policies, human interaction, individual interests, printed media (i.e., children’s literature) and interactive media (i.e., web- and app-based games and tools) contribute to language and literacy teaching and learning.

Mary Quest is a PhD student at Erikson Institute and currently teaches human development courses there.  She also works on the Town Square IL family child care website. Mary is a founding member of Cultivating the Early Years, a network for progressive early childhood educators and she has provided professional development and workshops for teachers, parents, professionals and students. Mary taught full time in the early childhood teacher preparation program at Columbia College Chicago. Prior to that, she taught preschool and kindergarten for 12 years. She has also been adjunct faculty at Triton College in River Grove, Illinois; Concordia University Chicago; and Pacific Oaks College.

Episode two of the App Fairy podcast features an interview with app maker Wolfgang Schmitz of the app company Ahoiii. The Ahoiii apps feature an endearing sailor in blue and white stripes named Fiete. I first encountered Fiete in Ahoiii’s advent-calendar-esque Fiete Christmas app when I bought it for my family, and was soon charmed by the its high quality and whimsical artwork. I was delighted to discover that there was a whole series of apps about this little sailor, covering early learner subjects like math, logic, and more. In addition to having beautiful illustrations, the Ahoiii apps always bring something new to the world of digital media for kids.  

Listen to the podcast to find out where Fiete got his name, how the artwork for each app is created, and even whether Fiete has a pet. This episode also introduces two new surprise characters to the App Fairy show. Be sure to listen all the way to the end for an extra surprise!  

When you’ve finished listening to the podcast, check out appfairy.org to see photos of Wolfgang and the rest of the Ahoiii staff, images of their artistic process, and to download some incredible PDF activities—including a set of memory cards that exactly match the ones that Fiete uses in the app Fiete Match!

Update: Read an edited transcript of this interview here.

Carissa Christner works as a Youth Services Librarian in Madison, Wisconsin which she likes much better than her first job in high school, working at a theme park. She and her two young children love to test out new apps together, read books and go for walks in the woods. She blogs about her library adventures at librarymakers.blogspot.com. Check out the App Fairy website and follow along on Twitter at @appfairy.

Our third and final installment of the “Reframing the Digital Divide” infographic series presents details about the disproportionate connectivity and access challenges that lower-income families face, particularly those of Hispanic origin headed by immigrant parents, when compared with higher-income families. Almost half (44%) of immigrant Hispanic parents never use computers, and 66% of immigrant Hispanic parents have less trusted sources of support for learning about technology than parents in other groups. Despite these challenges, immigrant Hispanic parents are most likely to prioritize purchasing technology to support their children’s education and to report that their children use devices more for educational purposes.

View the complete infographic (click here for a Spanish-language version) to learn more about how to support immigrant parents with less access to technology in achieving their goal of making educational technology more accessible to their children.

Click to view full infographic. 

Click to view in Spanish.

A few years ago, the Cooney Center released Family Time with Apps and Apps en familia, a guide that shares tips for parents and caregivers on finding and using apps to develop stronger connections and learning opportunities with young children.

Now available for libraries and community organizations: A printable brochure of Family Time with Apps or Apps en familia.

The original e-book, which is available for free on the iBook store in both English and Spanish, received a particularly enthusiastic response from librarians around the country, who urged us to create a shorter form, bilingual version of the electronic publication they could share with the families they worked with. Now, thanks to a partnership with Abriendo Puertas and Common Sense Latino, and with generous support from the Foundation for Child Development and the Heising-Simons Foundation, we are pleased to share a printable brochure that highlights tips for parents as well as recommended apps. Abriendo Puertas will also be using these brochures in their parent training curriculum later this year.

The brochures are available as free downloads in both English and Spanish here. If you are a librarian or educator, we invite you to download and print as many of these brochures as your community would like. Feel free to share the videos below with your networks as well to accompany the brochures.

Finally, please let us know if they are helpful to you! We are very interested in your feedback.

Everyone knows that books have authors and artwork is made by artists, but have you ever stopped to think about the people working behind the scenes to create some of the best children’s apps? Allow me to introduce you to some of today’s cutting edge media creators in my new podcast, App Fairy ! For the past several years, I’ve been using apps in my library programs and during that time, I’ve had many opportunities to e-mail questions to various app developers. I’ve discovered that, unlike most authors who must be contacted through an agent, many times when I contact app developers, I receive a direct response from the same person who actually made the app! I thought that maybe others would like to get to know them a little better too, just like I have through these e-mail conversations, and so, with the help of the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, I’ve created this podcast series to do just that.

Each App Fairy episode will include a “meet the author” style interview and maybe even a few questions from kids. You’ll get a better idea of what really goes into creating a great app, plus I’ll include research-based tips about using apps with kids.

The pilot episode, released this week, features an interview with Anne Glick, creator of the app, One Globe Kids. This interview was originally recorded in April 2016 and although it’s taken a little time to get the podcast running, I think you’ll love hearing about how Anne decided to create One Globe Kids and the amazing research that supports her app. You can also find an abbreviated transcript of the episode here.

Be sure to check out the website at appfairy.org, where you’ll be able to listen to every episode. There you can also find photos from the app developers, download free printable activity sheets, and  maybe even watch a short video of the App Fairy herself interviewing app makers on location. You can also submit questions, feedback, or recommendations of your favorite app makers to the App Fairy through the website. The podcast can also be found on YouTube.

This series was created with parents and librarians in mind, but I hope kids might enjoy listening as well. I’d love to know what you think! Please consider writing a review to help more people discover the App Fairy.

Carissa Christner works as a Youth Services Librarian in Madison, Wisconsin which she likes much better than her first job in high school, working at a theme park. She and her two young children love to test out new apps together, read books and go for walks in the woods. She blogs about her library adventures at librarymakers.blogspot.com. Check out the App Fairy website and follow along on Twitter at @appfairy.

Visit the STEM from the START website at www.stemfromthestart.org

A few years back, I was talking with a friend, a science specialist from the local elementary school, about the state of science education in the early grades.  Her assessment could be summed up in two words: not good.

She explained that early elementary teachers were in a serious bind when it comes to science.  By and large, teachers for this age group have limited backgrounds in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) and, because there is so much pressure to meet basic reading and math requirements, they have little or no time to prep inspiring lessons.

Even I could do the math: lack of background + lack of prep time = lack of confidence and creativity when teaching STEM subjects.  The impact: by the time students reach fourth grade, a full 1/3 of students have already decided that STEM doesn’t interest them, a decision most will carry forward through the rest of their academic careers.^[1]

Since teaching elementary anything isn’t something I do, I filed “Early Elementary STEM Dilemma” in my mental directory under “Problems I Couldn’t Possibly Fix”.  But educational media is something I do, and I started wondering whether there might be a way to use media to help teachers engage students in STEM.

I first learned of the power of media to engage and influence a young audience while working on the PBS children’s show, Reading Rainbow.  My job was to co-write the theme song and about 40 other songs for the show, one small part of the media smorgasbord the show used to draw kids into reading.  Judging from the number of 20- and 30-somethings who tell me that Reading Rainbow was responsible for turning them into serious book-aholics, I’d say: “Mission accomplished.”

I started envisioning a “Reading Rainbow for STEM”, something that would use every trick in the media book to get kids excited about learning STEM.  I passed the idea by an entrepreneurial friend of mine, Tom McCarron, who, somewhat to my surprise, gave it an enthusiastic thumbs up.  We formed a company, Learniverse Media, brought on some partners, and scraped enough money together to do a pilot lesson.

Quazar, Neutrina, and Fluxx are Quinks (Quizzical Thinkers from Space)

Since cartoon characters are the biggest attractors for kids in the early elementary age range, the first media “trick” we decided on was animation.  I came up with a premise involving three insatiably curious aliens called Quinks (Quizzical Thinkers from Space) who have come to our planet to explore Earth’s science secrets.  What I liked most about this storyline was the way it echoed the experience of children this age, who are themselves tiny explorers, experiencing the world for the first time.

The show uses a combination of video footage with animation

Next, we decided to composite the animated characters into live footage.  This would allow the Quinks to interact with real people, like Willow, a smart, friendly earth-girl who guides them in their explorations, and with actual scientists and engineers who show the Quinks how the science they are learning can be applied to solve real world problems.

This approach would also allow the Quinks to learn about science and STEM in real world environments as opposed to animated ones. (If there was ever a subject that should be taught in the real world, it is science!)

But, unlike Reading Rainbow, our media presentation would have to go beyond engagement to teach detailed science content, something educational TV is not all that good at.  First, there is the passivity of the viewer. While kids learn by taking in information, they also learn by doing.  This is especially true in areas like science and engineering where inquiry, skill-building, and problem solving are a big part of the equation. Second, information presented in any kind of video format is going by way too fast for the average child to absorb and retain.

Video technology, of course, has come a long way since the Reading Rainbow days.  Teachers can download the lessons onto their PC’s and present them in the classroom using digital projectors or smart boards. This makes it possible to weave  teacher-guided activities breaks into the fabric of each narrative, solving the “passive viewer” conundrum.  The activities, which are carefully laid out in the accompanying teachers guide, run the gamut of science inquiry and practice with extensions into technology, engineering and math.

Taking breaks from the story also solved the “absorb and retain” problem by keeping the narrative segments short and giving young minds a “comprehension pause” to think about and consolidate what they are learning.

Initial testing in classrooms in New Hampshire indicated just how well this integration of “view” and “do” works.  Here’s what we found:

• Students engaged deeply with the lessons —even students with special needs.
• Comprehension/retention levels were high.

And, because the animated adventure structures the lesson and illustrates the key concepts being covered, teachers found the lessons quick to prep and easy to deliver.

Which brings us to the present.  The project is now called STEM from the START, and we are partnered with our local PBS affiliate, New Hampshire Public Television, to  promote it as well as raise money for ongoing production.  Our website, www.stemfromthestart.org, went live in January 2017, so teachers, homeschooling parents and aftercare givers can now stream or download the lessons and accompanying teacher guides.  And, since we wanted all schools to have access no matter what their economic circumstances, all STEM from the START materials are, and will continue to be, available at no cost.

Giving teachers the tools they need to get our littlest learners engaged and excited about science and STEM is going to be a long and challenging process, and I’m not planning to move “Early Elementary STEM Dilemma” over to my “Problems I Actually Fixed” file anytime soon.

But so far so good.

Dennis Neil Kleinman was part of the original team behind the long-running PBS kids show Reading Rainbow, and that experience triggered a lifelong interest in using media to make challenging content more accessible.  His work as a writer and producer has been featured on The Disney Channel, PBS, The Learning Channel, History Channel, Showtime, A&E and Nat Geo.  He is currently Executive Producer of STEM from the START.

For more information about STEM from the START, contact Georgia Maguire at georgia@stemfromthestart.org or follow @STEMfromSTART on Twitter and on YouTube.

^[1] “STEM Education — It’s Elementary”,  U.S. News & World Report, August 29, 2011.