Sarah Vaala was a Cooney Center Research Fellow from 2011-2012, and the author of Aprendiendo Juntos (Learning Together): Synthesis of a cross-sectorial convening on Hispanic-Latino families and digital technologies. 

Sarah Vaala and Murray in 2013

My husband and kids know that the metal Elmo water bottle in our kitchen cabinet is off-limits. “You’d better ask Sarah before you use that,” I have heard my husband caution grandparents and other visitors. The paint is nicked and it’s a little dented after 12 years, but when I see it, my mind goes back to my first day as a Research Fellow at the Joan Ganz Cooney Center. The Elmo bottle was waiting on my desk, and Lori Takeuchi, Michael Levine, and Catherine Jhee were waiting to show me the ropes and help me launch one of the most exciting and enriching years of my life. Coming right out of a PhD program, I was used to the academic approach: a slow, plodding pace of research, a writing style that prioritized scientific jargon, complicated analytical models, and statistical significance. I learned quickly that the staff at the Cooney Center is small but mighty. They dive in quick—investigating new topics, designing nimble studies, connecting and convening stakeholders, and writing and disseminating research-driven insights (always with an eye on practical value). It’s a good thing I had that Elmo bottle to stay hydrated, because it was a busy year! 

Students from High Point University presented their research on tweens and unboxing videos to the Cooney Center in 2021.

Though I have ended up back in academia, now an Assistant Professor of Strategic Communication at High Point University, I developed skills and knowledge during that year as a Cooney Center Research Fellow that continue to infuse my work. My teaching is richer for all the on-the-ground examples I can draw on and firsthand exposure to the children’s media industry. (My office is a lot more fun for students to visit as well, adorned with international Sesame Street toys). My former and current colleagues at the Cooney Center have instilled in me a little extra focus on the potential impact of my research and a deeper desire to share useful findings with on-the-ground stakeholders, beyond academic conferences and journals.

Most directly, I am proud to carry forward the Cooney Center’s legacy of mentoring young people interested in children’s media research and production. I direct the Cooney Center Research Scholars program at HPU, through which five students work with me each academic year on a research project regarding children’s engagement and learning with media. The opportunity to present our findings to the folks at the Cooney Center and other figures in the world of children’s media gives students a deeper sense of purpose for the work. They also develop an appreciation that there are organizations and individuals across multiple sectors carrying on Joan Ganz Cooney’s mission of putting in the work to ensure children’s access to high-quality educational media. And of course, I give each new undergraduate research scholar a Sesame Street water bottle on their first day.

Dr. Sarah Vaala is an Assistant professor of Strategic Communication at High Point University.  Her research focuses on health and learning implications of media in the lives of youth and families, as well as the ways that families and caregivers make decisions about media use. At HPU, Dr. Vaala teaches courses in research methods and health communication within the Strategic Communication undergraduate and masters programs and the Communication and Business Leadership program. She strives to teach her students the research tools at their disposal for answering intriguing and practical questions, and that “there is nothing more practical than a good theory” (Kurt Lewin).

Jessica Millstone was an Education Fellow from 2011-2014, where she honed her expertise in edtech and game-based learning.

Jessica Millstone with Grover

I first learned about the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at a pivotal moment in both my life and career. After years of working in K-12 schools and cultural institutions as a technology integration specialist, I had just invested in an advanced master’s degree from Bank Street College of Education and also gave birth to my second child (who is turning 12 next month!) – and found myself ready for my next professional adventure. While at Bank Street, I completed an independent research project exploring the use of video games for learning, and I luckily learned about the Cooney Center + Gates Foundation Games and Learning Publishing Council, which I was invited to join as an educational research fellow. Participating in this project was incredibly rewarding; not only did I have a chance to lead research and produce a multi-part video series celebrating innovative teachers who utilize digital games for learning, but I also was introduced to industry leaders who shared my passion for using kid’s engagement and fluency with technology to improve teaching and learning overall. One particular company in this space, BrainPOP, was integral in supporting my work at the Cooney Center, and when my fellowship concluded, BrainPOP became my full-time professional home for the next five years. 

Jessica now shares her expertise on podcasts like Learning Can’t Wait

After many pivots through marketing, product development, and UX Research at BrainPOP, I decided in late 2019 to make a dramatic career change and launch a venture capital fund.  Copper Wire Ventures, which focuses on early-stage/female-founded tech companies primarily in the future of learning + work sectors, leverages my deep expertise in edtech and lifelong learning products while also fulfilling a mission to expand access to catalytic capital for women entrepreneurs. It’s been an amazing experience to be able to combine all my accumulated knowledge in the education space with learning a brand-new (to me) sector: venture investing.  Among the many things I learned from mentors and peers at the JGCC is the craft of sharing knowledge, and I credit the comfort I developed at the Cooney Center in participating in thought leadership opportunities like national conferences, long-form podcast interviews, and judging competitions with the rapid growth I’ve experienced in my new career as an fund manager and entrepreneur support system. A huge thank you to everyone I worked with, and happy anniversary to all the past, present, and future leaders at the Joan Ganz Cooney Center! 

Jessica Millstone, MPS, Ed.M, is a leading expert and advisor on the use of educational technology at both home and school, and the founder of Copper Wire Ventures, a venture capital fund focused on women-led tech companies.  Prior to becoming a full-time investor, Jessica was the Director of Engagement at BrainPOP, building family engagement products and expanding UX Research within the company, the inaugural Education Fellow at the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, a research + innovation lab within Sesame Workshop, and a parent outreach presenter for Common Sense Media.  This background provides Jessica with a unique position to offer both financial capital and network connections to companies within or adjacent to the Copper Wire portfolio, supporting innovative products and business models that benefit the entire edtech ecosystem. Jessica holds master’s degrees from New York University’s Interactive Telecommunication Program and Bank Street College of Education, and is the mother of two children (ages 17 and 12) residing in Brooklyn, NY.

​​Do you remember 2007? It’s a year that sparked a massive transformation in technology. Yes, there have been mobile phones since the 1970s— and many of us remember our Motorola Razrs or Blackberries with fondness. But in 2007, Apple introduced the iPhone, followed quickly by Google’s Android operating system and Amazon’s Kindle. These devices and operating systems unleashed a powerful wave of digital media designed for children. Today’s 15-year-olds have never experienced a life without smartphones, streaming music and video at their fingertips 24/7, or the ability to connect with their friends over FaceTime or Discord!

Michael Levine, Joan Ganz Cooney, Gary Knell, and Lewis Bernstein established the Joan Ganz Cooney Center in 2007

This December also marks the 15th anniversary of the year that the Joan Ganz Cooney Center was established as an independent research and innovation lab within Sesame Workshop. Over the years, we have conducted original research, published dozens of reports, and convened thought leaders from academia, industry, and practice to discuss emerging technologies and their potential to benefit children’s learning and well-being. 

The Joan Ganz Cooney Center, also known as the Cooney Center, or the JGCC, has always been a small but mighty group with an impact that is larger than the team itself. We are fortunate to have such illustrious alumni on our roster, from Michael Levine, who is now senior vice president of learning and impact at Nick, Lori Takeuchi, a program officer at the National Science Foundation, and Carly Shuler, co-founder and CEO of Hoot Reading, to Kiley Sobel, senior UX researcher at Duolingo ABC, and Lili Toutounas, who is still in the neighborhood as part of Sesame Workshop’s Human Resources team. 

We have invited our former colleagues to celebrate our anniversary with us and to share their reflections on how the JGCC has impacted their careers. We’ll be publishing these memories over the next few weeks – and if you have thoughts you would like to share, please let us know! We’d love to hear from you.

• Michael Levine
• Carly Shuler
• Lili Toutounas
• Jessica Millstone
• Sarah Vaala
• Alan Nong
• Jenny Ng
• Jason Yip
• Rocío Almanza Guillén
• Laurie Rabin
• David Lowenstein
• Briana Ellerbe
• Meagan Henry
• Allison Mishkin
• Vikki Katz
• Lori Takeuchi

From left to right: Laurie Rabin, Marj Kleinman, Lili Toutounas, Gabrielle Cayton-Hodges, Catherine Jhee, Erica Rabner, and Allison Mishkin at a Sesame Workshop Alumni event in 2019.

Lili Toutounas was in charge of keeping everything organized and running while she was at the Cooney Center. And while people have confused her for a stern British lady while on the phone, she’s not nearly as old as she claims below.

I like to say that I have spanned three decades of my life at Sesame Workshop. 

It all started in 2010. I had just returned from living abroad for several years and was looking for a job (e.g. sending in resumes from the neighborhood Starbucks). Truthfully, I hadn’t thought about Sesame Street, or the impact it had on my childhood in years, or maybe, ever.

Lili at the Learning from Hollywood forum at USC-Annenberg, 2011.

But I grew up as an 80s kid who had three channels on our television, and PBS was one of them. Maria was my second mother. I didn’t know Elmo yet, but I did love Snuffleupogus. As I sipped my latte on that fateful day, I remember the gleam in my eye when I encountered a job posting for an Administrative Coordinator at the Joan Ganz Cooney Center. A smile washed over me, as if no time had gone by from the days I dialed the TV to PBS as a kid. Needless to say, I was thrilled when I got a call to interview. I remember walking into the office at 1900 Broadway into a sea of crayon-hued carpeting, with Muppets peering out from every corner. “Oh my gosh, I HAVE to work here.” I think it was Michael Levine who brought me into a now- replaced conference room to interview. The rest is history!

I worked at the Center for most of my tenure at Sesame. I am now in Human Resources where I oversee employee engagement and alumni relations, a natural progression that working at the Cooney Center prepared me for. I don’t know if I can put into words how grateful I have been for this experience. To work under Joan’s legacy has been an honor. I continue to tell anyone who will listen that the smartest people I have ever met are my JGCC colleagues. They shaped me as a person and carried me into an amazing career at Sesame Workshop. Happy Birthday, Joan Ganz Cooney Center! It has been the best ride.

Carly Shuler authored several reports, including D is for Digital, Pockets of Potential, and  Learning: Is there an app for that? during her time with the Joan Ganz Cooney Center from 2007-2012.

The Cooney Center didn’t just play a role in shaping my career—the term isn’t strong enough. The Cooney Center incubated my career. My company. The 50 people who work for Hoot, the 900 teachers in our teacher network, and the thousands of kids we work with. Our impact all comes back to the early days at The Cooney Center.

As the inaugural Cooney Center fellow, I played a small role on an incredible team that found that in the right set of circumstances, kids could make meaningful reading gains remotely over a live video call.

That simple research finding became what is now Hoot Reading. Hoot has delivered over 150,000 evidence-based, 1:1 reading lessons. This translates to over 2,000 days of 1:1 literacy instruction! This is just the tip of the iceberg for one of the most rapidly growing ed-tech startups … and there is no question in my mind that none of this would exist without the Cooney Center.  

While the Cooney Center incubated my career, it undoubtedly played a role in shaping me as a person.

Carly as Elmo for a photoshoot featuring Gary Knell.

The experience of getting to dress up as Elmo (fun fact – I am the perfect height for an Elmo walk-around) for a magazine photoshoot with Gary Knell taught me that we can do serious work without taking ourselves too seriously.

The wisdom of Michael Levine taught me the importance of not just doing good work – but disseminating that work and making sure that it has a broader impact on the field.

The opportunity to watch Joan Ganz Cooney ask frequent and often seemingly simple questions in board meetings taught me to be brave in asking questions, and that you are never the only person in the room who doesn’t understand something – even when it can often feel that way. 

This year marks 15 years since the founding of the Cooney Center. It also marks 15 years since my mom passed away. I can’t help but smile thinking of when I would call her from work and “Sesame Street” would pop up on the caller ID, she would always answer “Is this Big Bird?” The leadership and support of Michael and also my colleagues – Ann, Dixie, Catherine, Lili, and Lewis – during a difficult time taught me that the people who work for us and with us are humans first, and that is a lesson I will never forget. 

Carly Shuler is an ed-tech leader leveraging the power of technology to change children’s lives through literacy. As co-founder and CEO of Hoot Reading, the leader in online literacy tutoring, Carly partners with school districts across North America to provide 1:1, evidence-based reading instruction for thousands of students. She has been working at the intersection of children’s technology, education, and media for almost two decades. She holds a Master’s degree in Technology, Innovation, and Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she studied how media and technology can be used to educate children effectively. She has worked with some of the biggest brands in the world, including Sesame Workshop, Spin Master Toys, and UNESCO. Carly spent over five years at the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop, where she researched and authored a number of reports focused on the power of digital media and mobile devices to help children learn. Carly speaks worldwide on the topics of early literacy and children’s learning through technology.

Michael Levine, PhD, was the founding executive director of the Joan Ganz Cooney Center from 2007-2018. We’re grateful for his leadership and vision for the first decade and beyond!

When you think back on your time at the Cooney Center and the work that we’ve done, what are some of the things that you’re proudest of?

The Center turned out—partly through planning, and admittedly, through sheer serendipity—to be an incredibly timely enterprise.  Who knew when we began planning a “new media” R&D Center in 2007 that “digital content for little fingers and young minds” would emerge as the single most ubiquitous force for young children of perhaps the past 50 years?  There was no interactive touch screen at the time, and there certainly were very few high-quality educational choices for preschoolers. In fact, we began the Center as a way for Sesame Workshop to explore what was coming next. Looking back, I am so proud that this mission of discovery is exactly what we did. Through research led by our Director of Research Dr. Lori Takeuchi, whose small but mighty team of fellows and research professionals conducted dozens of studies on everything from whether apps and e-books were educationally robust—to timely topics like how search should be conducted by knowledge-seeking little ones well before they could just use their voices! My own research, communications, and policy background led us to produce thought leadership papers, convenings, and idea incubation, including national design competitions such as the National STEM Video Game Challenge and partnerships with leaders in the “tech for good space,” including MacArthur Foundation, E-Line Media, Google, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and many others. 

I think the quality of the Center that we should all be most proud of is one that endures to this day.  The JGCC is a “think-and-do” tank that has drawn DNA and daily inspiration from the woman who founded the Center and Sesame Street itself, the remarkable Joan Ganz Cooney. I am personally proud and humbled to have created something that bears her name.

Michael Levine and Joan Ganz Cooney at the Educational Media Use at Home forum in 2014.

How has the landscape changed for children and families since 2007?

The changes have been jaw-dropping!  We launched the Joan Ganz Cooney Center in December 2007 after conducting a study of the “informal digital media landscape”—which included games and digital toys claiming to have educational value. Well, sadly most did not have any evidence to back those claims. It really was a disappointing reminder that educational media—with some notable exceptions—were really much less powerful than kids and parents needed and expected.  And then something fairly crazy happened!  Apple launched the interactive touch screen with the Phone in 2007 and then, in 2011, the iPad. Competitors quickly launched their own versions, and the creative communities for kids’ interactives took off.  Consumption of digital media by younger and younger children grew and the boundaries between “formal and informal” learning began to blur. Fifteen years on, and now nearly three years after COVID shocked the world, the landscape has undergone bracing changes.

First, the great hopes of a digital promise dividend—that literacy levels would rise and knowledge among young children would propel lifelong learning and discovery—has not been fully realized.  We did not catalyze a deeply essential educational equity focus across the field, and that remains the biggest disappointment of my tenure at the Center.  Second, we had an important debate over consumption and safety—how much is too much for kids, are they protected—without centering the now much more timely and enduring conversation—are the media high quality, generative of positive identity formation and relationship building, culturally attuned, participatory? Post-COVID, we will enter a third set of challenges—how not to fail into a trap of using digital media only for so called “learning recovery,” without authentically changing the strategies that have too often built a moat between home, community, and school experiences for kids.

Can you share a little bit about the impact that the Joan Ganz Cooney Center’s work has had on the children’s media industry over the past 15 years? What are some of the lessons learned?

I believe the Center is well known in different parts of the digital media and learning field—especially among communications and child development scholars, as well as children’s interactive and linear media creators.  The Center’s studies on game-based learning, apps, the “new co-viewing,” and the ways in which lower-income and diverse families experience the digital divide will have, I believe an enduring legacy—across the pivotal sectors of industry, government, educators, and youth development leaders.  Our work to create tools for media designers, practitioners, and policymakers has also gained some traction across these sectors.  One key lesson: mega-trend forces like the global drive for digital transformation has a powerful “wave effect” with many unintended consequences.  In our case, we might have foreseen the early planning by tech and media companies—the social media ones in particular—through a different lens. The digital firms that built their business models to capture personal data for advertising and deep profiling purposes were largely unchecked by researchers, advocates, and other “good guys” who have equitable learning and child development as their missions. We certainly could have done more to raise objections and build broader coalitions to anticipate some of the threats to kids and to our democracy itself. 

What are some of the key questions that you see emerging today, and what can we do to address them?

Joan Ganz Cooney and Lloyd Morrisset,
© 2007 Richard Termine

The huge question that begs for collective action from leaders such as the Center is, how can the original digital promise be reframed into a powerful engine for restorative justice and equity?  Joan Ganz Cooney and Lloyd Morrisett, the co-founders of Children’s Television Workshop (now Sesame Workshop) created Sesame Street with a vision to close the educational gaps between lower-income kids and those from more privileged families? While they sparked an educational media revolution—with literally thousands of educational media organizations populating the globe and remarkable projects from the US to sub-Saharan Africa to refugee camps across the world— their remarkable vision and accomplishments have fallen short of catalyzing transformative progress across the board.

Today, I am a member of the team that is building a new digital learning platform at Noggin, Nick Jr. and Paramount’s early learning initiative.  Our vision is to break down the boundaries between learning environments—using digital media less as a main course, and more as a connective tissue that allows kids and parents to travel seamlessly across the now more permeable boundaries of virtual and real-world environments. I remain optimistic that Joan Ganz Cooney’s incredible vision for learning and relationship building—driven by the wonder that children can experience with characters they love—will do more to influence my grandchildren’s world as a more decent and just place for all.

Michael H. Levine is Senior Vice President at Nickelodeon, where he is leading learning and social impact work at Noggin, an industry leader in early childhood education. Previously he was founding executive director of the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, an independent research group founded by Sesame Workshop focused on fostering innovation in children’s learning through digital media and Sesame Workshop’s first Chief Knowledge Officer.

To mark this year’s National Media Literacy Week, the Joan Ganz Cooney Center joined the Children’s Media Association, the LEGO Group, and the National Association for Media Literacy Education to present an interactive virtual session called “Building Toward Digital Well-being for Children” on October 26, 2022.

Moderator David Kleemen (Dubit) served as host of this “news magazine” evening exploring the questions: “What is children’s digital well-being?” “Why is it important?” and “how can we all build towards it?” with New America’s Amanda LaTasha Armstrong, the LEGO Group’s Daisy Soderberg-Rivkin, and the Cooney Center’s Medha Tare. 

Medha also shared research and plans from the Responsible Innovation in Technology for Children (RITEC) initiative, a multi-year international and cross-sectoral project, co-founded by the LEGO Group and UNICEF and funded by the LEGO Foundation focused on prioritizing children’s well-being in a digital age

Please enjoy the video below, courtesy of the Children’s Media Association.

Building online communities that are healthy, inclusive, and allow people to be their authentic selves online is one of Riot’s core goals. It’s a complicated challenge and one we know we can’t do alone. That’s the inspiration behind our recent partnership with Ubisoft, our commitment to the Fair Play Alliance (FPA), and the Designing for Digital Thriving Challenge with IDEO.

Back in October, Riot, IDEO, the FPA, and the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop put out a call for proposals, frameworks, and tools that can help digital spaces continue to evolve in healthy ways.

The response was incredible. In all, we received 179 proposals from around the world. A committee of subject matter experts from across tech, gaming, design, and education came together as judges of the submissions. They looked at every submission to make sure it is relevant, actionable, accessible, equitable, impactful, and creative.

Today we are announcing the 10 winners who will each receive grants ranging from $5,000 to $50,000 with the aim of making their idea become a reality.

Global Nomads Group Content Creation Lab 

The Global Nomads Group Content Creation Lab (CCL) uses a “for youth, by youth” approach to digital program and content design. Their mission is to center youth voices and lived experiences, particularly those of marginalized youth, in digital learning content that increases empathy, perspective-taking, belonging, and action orientation. Since 2020, youth from 40 countries have contributed to the group. The group will use the grant money to scale up the CCL bringing on more youth interns and providing stipends to staff who are putting in the work to train and coach interns in the program.

Fostering Digital Wellness Through Education and Empowerment

Submitted by the Digital Wellness Group, this submission is focused on addressing the impact of screen time on mental health. The group is dedicated to creating tools, teaching educators, empowering organizations, and inspiring others with best practices on this front. Their goal is to educate 150 million people in digital wellness skills over the next five years. With 350 certified educators in 32 countries, the grant money will be used to continue to scale up the program and its reach over the coming years.

Plot Twisters: Online Game World for Nurturing Self-Reflection and Emotional Literacy

This co-design collective of 22 designers, researchers, artists, and technologists has been hard at work creating Plot Twisters, an immersive online game for nurturing emotional literacy, personal narrative building, and self-advocacy skills in young people. The group intends to use the money to compensate volunteers who work on the project and to fund the creation of Plot Twisters’ Minimum Viable Product or MVP, a crucial step in the design of any new game.

Take Another Perspective: A Character-Playing Simulation

This simulation allows students to gain new perspectives through the voices of diverse characters. The goal is to use character-play to put students in the mindset of important characters throughout history and provide a safe and inventive space to have conversations across differences. They will be using the grant money to invest in the technical development of the Take Another Perspective Software.

Transform Youth Mental Health Through Innovative Peer Support

Throughout the pandemic, anxiety and depression in youth, especially in marginalized communities, is on the rise. That led to the creation of Uplift, a peer-run digital summit that equips young people with the tools they need to cope with their mental health and help their friends do the same. The grant money will be used to advertise Uplift to bring more young people into the free summit.

Tilli’s Digital Safety Magic Box | Playful Learning for Kids and Caregivers

Tilli is a play-based, social-emotional learning tool that brings together the joy of play and the power of behavioral science to help kids and their caregivers build foundational, lifelong skills and mindsets to be safe, confident, and happy within the digital spaces they occupy. The grant money will be used to help cover design and development costs.

Tempok: A Coming of Age Ritual for Digital Life

Tempok is all about the moment when a smartphone enters a child’s life for the first time. It’s a huge moment for kids and an anxiety-inducing one for caregivers. Tempok reimagines the process of gifting that first phone through the lenses of trust, growth, community, and responsibility. The grant money will be used to help fund further user research and create working prototypes.

JOTLANDIA: Collaborative Storytelling for Kids and Adults

JOTLANDIA is a digital platform for telling collaborative stories in the real world. It’s like a multiplayer choose-your-own-adventure game with both children and adults in mind to facilitate intergenerational play. The grant money will be used to continue to accelerate the development of JOTLANDIA.

Deep Data Detectives (D3) Adventures

Created by nonprofit Nxt Wave Founders, the D3 Project is aimed at empowering underrepresented voices in the fight against climate change using data science education. The grant money will be used to help invest in staff who will continue to bring more education and opportunities in the fight against climate change.

Gamifying Digital Literacy for Older Adults to Increase Autonomy

Ask Mabel is a playful SMS based subscription service that sends bite-sized lessons to older adults who wish to learn the basics about online technology. It is designed for low-income seniors to help them navigate the complexities of an online world. The grant money will help fund outreach to bring more seniors to use the service.

Learn more about all of the winners