David at the Inaugural Symposium, May 2008

It’s hard to believe 15 years have gone by since the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop launched. Due to the visionary force of nature that is Michael Levine, the Center swiftly earned its reputation for being an organization that serves as a nexus between research, policy, and practice in children’s learning and media. It also quickly became known as a launchpad for emerging scholars, entrepreneurs, and multi-sector leaders committed to advancing kids’ learning through media.

I joined Sesame Workshop in 2007 as a National Urban Fellow assigned to help Michael and his team shape the Center’s policy and public engagement strategy. I was on a full scholarship and stipend through National Urban Fellows (NUF), selected as one of 40 social impact leaders from across the country to earn an accelerated 14-month Master of Public Administration degree at Baruch College’s School of Public Affairs while also completing a full-time nine-month fellowship with a public sector or non-governmental organization (NGO).  I interviewed with several government agencies and NGOs that partnered with NUF to take on Fellows, including Sesame Workshop (thanks to former Sesame COO/CEO Mel Ming). After interviewing with Michael, Ann Thai, and the head of HR at Sesame Workshop, the Center was my top choice, and I happily accepted their offer to join the team.

My career path before joining the Center was already meaningful. I had worked for venerable organizations and legendary leaders like National Urban League and the late U.S. Congressman Major Owens, contributing to national and local efforts around bridging the digital divide. However, going to work every day at “the longest street in the world” brought a whole new level of excitement and meaning for me that tapped into my own Sesame Street-influenced childhood and my interest in achieving impact at scale. I was immediately struck by Sesame Workshop’s commitment to equity globally, and how it was (and still is) a magnet for the most brilliant and dedicated early childhood and media leaders in the world. It was exhilarating to participate in the planning and implementation of the Center’s first symposium with Michael and his small but stellar team, to feel the energy in the room, and to engage with a Who’s Who of cross-sector leaders as they each affirmed the critical importance of the Center and its mission to continue the legacy of Joan Ganz Cooney.

I’ll never forget my first conversation with Joan. She and I shared an elevator ride down to the lobby one afternoon. After letting Joan know how honored I was to work at the Center, I mentioned watching an interview she gave about having Malcolm X on a TV talk show she had produced, and I asked her what he was like. Joan got a kick out of my knowing about that and told me how impressive Malcolm was.

My nine-month fellowship at the Center turned into nearly two years, in part because of a grant I helped secure from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation that enabled us to transform my master’s thesis into a policy brief and conveneing at the Woodrow Wilson Center.  My thesis, which explored Dave Rejeski’s ideas around establishing a Corporation for Public Gaming  and the subsequent policy brief I co-authored with Ann Thai, Dixie Ching, Michael, and Dave, allowed me to interview more than a dozen thought leaders in the field. It included interviews with then-Sesame Workshop CEO Gary Knell, Alan Gershenfeld who I would later work for, and Sara DeWitt who would become my long-time boss at PBS KIDS, where I’ve been since 2011.

I am forever grateful for the lessons learned and relationships formed during my fellowship at the Center.  It is awe-inspiring to reflect on what the Center has meant to the field—and to me—over the last 15 years. I look forward to cheering on Michael Preston and his team over the next 15, and to finding new ways to collaborate.

As Senior Director of Ready To Learn, David Lowenstein manages PBS’ partnership with Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the U.S. Department of Education. He oversees grants strategy at PBS KIDS and daily operations of the Ready To Learn initiative, leading a cross-disciplinary team responsible for the research, development, and distribution of educational media for young children and their families. He is a regular speaker on education technology, the digital divide, and the role of public media in improving early learning outcomes. 

Laurie as a Cooney Center intern

During my junior year of college, I came across the Cooney Center while looking for potential internship opportunities. To be clear, they hadn’t posted an internship, but I just knew I had to get in. After pestering Lori Takeuchi, I wore her down and I became an undergrad intern during the summer of 2012. It was worth the pestering.

After spending just a few days in the corner of the Workshop that housed the Cooney Center, it was obvious that this small but mighty team was simply the most intelligent, kind-hearted, and genuine group. It was also clear that the office was awesome and there were muppets everywhere —that’s not to be understated. But the team truly cared about the mission and the research, and didn’t mind having some fun along the way. It was one of my first real “work world” experiences, and it set a high bar. As an undergrad intern, I did a lot of data entry, transcribing, and data coding, but I learned a lot about the intricacies of kids and digital media research. In addition, I was provided with a lot of food for thought about the research path versus the content path, and where my career might go. A decade later, I now work on the content side, producing animated educational shows for preschool and bridge audiences. The background in the mission and research-driven mindset has helped me center what’s important in each project along the way. 

Ultimately, the most meaningful impact the Center had on me was the opportunity to be part of a team where everyone’s opinions are valued—even the undergraduate intern. The people make the place, and the leadership and passion I observed have been greatly impactful, even 10 years later. Also, the time I met Joan Ganz Cooney is in the highlight reel of my life. Along with the time I got to meet Elmo. Hey, it’s a pretty cool place. 

Happy Anniversary, JGCC!

Laurie Rabin is a producer, writer, and kid’s media creator. She has worked for Nickelodeon, Houghton Mifflin, & the Cooney Center @ Sesame Workshop. She helped create & launch interactive Play-Along Videos for Noggin and produced Chico Bon Bon: Monkey with a Tool Belt for Netflix. Currently, she is the Supervising Producer on Liza Loops (w.t.) coming to PBS Kids in 2024.

It was December 2013. I was finishing my master’s program in Media Design for Learning at NYU when one of my professors told me about a position at Sesame Workshop that, according to him, had my name all over it. Soon, three more people shared the same position with me, saying it “would be a perfect fit.” The position was for a bilingual qualitative researcher with professional experience working with young children to work on the Families and Media Initiative at the Joan Ganz Cooney Center to explore how Spanish-speaking families were using technology and media for learning alongside a talented group of researchers internally and a group of academics and practitioners across the country. 

In 2002, I had begun my career in Mexican Public Television as a research assistant in the children’s programming block, Once Niños, doing quantitative and qualitative research and conducting dozens of interviews and focus groups with kids between the ages of 3 to 12. I continued to use data and research to inform my work for many more years as I moved into the production of content for children. As you can see, people had a point saying the position sounded like a good fit, but at the time, it was harder than it is now for people to truly see my 12 years of professional experience in children’s media just because that experience was from Mexico. I was skeptical. 

My first interview with my soon-to-be colleagues, Lori Takeuchi, Jason Yip, Brianna Presley, and Anna Ly made all my fears disappear. Not just because our meeting went way over time, but because they seemed like an honest, caring, and incredibly brilliant group that seemed eager to learn (yes, learn) from my own experience; it completely blew my mind and made me feel like a professional again. 

For almost two years, while I was an associate researcher at the Cooney Center, we visited families of different SEL across various boroughs of New York City. We filmed interviews with children and families, and we reviewed material captured by children with flip cameras. We discussed our findings in various groups, such as the Aprendiendo Juntos Council (AJC); we became more curious, and we studied more. We met with researchers, had long and fruitful discussions about families and technology, and questioned how we could influence creators, producers, and designers to serve families and kids better, especially Latinx families that had been overlooked by the industry for so long. 

Once the grant for our project came to an end, I moved to Denver, Colorado, where I live now. I was eager to expand my learning to the school settings, so I worked at a school teaching kids about design, games, and computational thinking; I was able to add a piece of the puzzle after observing bilingual low-income children using technology in various ways at school.  

Fast forward to 2020. I began working at Fred Rogers Productions as a digital producer, first for Alma’s Way and now also for Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood, where I get to apply the breadth of learning that I absorbed from my extraordinary experience at the Cooney Center. After seven years, it still informs my perspective and the decisions I make in leading our development partners, and as I strategize on how to serve children better. The valuable insights from the work we did with AJC partners around intergenerational learning and co-playing are always top of mind; I am constantly thinking of the quality and respect that these families deserve in the games, activities, and other content that we create. 

I want to finish this love letter by sharing a memory. One day when I was 5 years old, my mother, a now-retired teacher, brought me to her third-grade classroom. The lesson was about triangles, and when her students couldn’t remember the characteristics of triangles, she brought me to the front of the class and had me say what I knew about the topic. Then she said I had learned these facts from Plaza Sésamo, “so you all need to go home and watch that show after school.” It was my dream to work at Sesame Workshop, and it was an even greater dream come to life to work with what I now call the dream team led by Lori Takeuchi: Brianna Ellerbe, Jason Yip, Kristen Kohm, Anna Ly, Alan Nong, and Michael Levine, Catherine Jhee, Sadaf Sajwani, Lili Toutounas and the rest of the JGCC team. I’ll be forever grateful to the first company that gave me a chance as a recent immigrant in the US with a thick accent, and that keeps opening its doors—and other doors—for me. 

Love, 

Rocio 

Rocío Almanza Guillén is a deeply passionate bilingual innovator in the children’s media industry. Her almost-20-years experience includes product management, production, creativity, and strategy for educational and non-profit organizations such as the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop, Televisa Foundation, NCWIT, Once TV México, the Denver Zoo, Discovery Kids México as well as in-depth study and collaboration in programs for girls, such as Girls Inc. of Metro Denver, STEMblazers (formerly Girls in STEM), and TECHNOLOchicas. She is currently a digital producer at Fred Rogers Productions.

Lloyd N. Morrisett, PhD, 1929-2023
Photographer: Gil Vaknin

The Joan Ganz Cooney Center and Sesame Workshop mourn the passing of our esteemed and beloved co-founder Lloyd N. Morrisett, PhD, who died at the age of 93.

Lloyd leaves an outsized and indelible legacy among generations of children the world over, with Sesame Street only the most visible tribute to a lifetime of good work and lasting impact.

An experimental psychologist by training, Lloyd was a Vice President of the Carnegie Corporation of New York when he posed the question that would revolutionize children’s media: Could television be used to educate? In 1968, with fellow visionary Joan Ganz Cooney, he created Sesame Workshop, where the answer was proven to be a resounding “yes.”

As a wise, thoughtful, and above all kind leader, Lloyd was a profound and invaluable guide for 30 years as Chairman of Sesame Workshop’s Board of Trustees, then Trustee and Chairman Emeritus, and a Lifetime Honorary Trustee. We are indebted to his leadership as a founding member of the Joan Ganz Cooney Center’s Board of Directors. He was fascinated by the power of technology and constantly thinking about new ways it could be used to educate.

We have been influenced by his passion, dedication, and firm belief in the transformative power of educational media. Lloyd’s presence will forever be felt in our halls, in our hearts, and in our work on behalf of children and families around the world.

Joan Ganz Cooney, his co-founder and close friend, put it best. “Without Lloyd Morrisett, there would be no Sesame Street. It was he who first came up with the notion of using television to teach preschoolers basic skills, such as letters and numbers. He was a trusted partner and loyal friend to me for over fifty years, and he will be sorely missed.”

Art by Iyla Gray-Pai (age 12)

“What would Joan do” is a question children’s media professionals can ask as we explore the pedagogical possibilities of new digital tools. Early childhood researchers have long noted that children often “think like a scientist” as they explore novel materials or situations. Likewise, viewers may imitate their favorite television character, as when preschoolers try broccoli after seeing Elmo do the same. Children, youth, and individuals of all ages can learn to think and act like artists, authors, naturalists, mathematicians, philosophers, and more, given the right scaffolding — modeling, joint activity, apprenticeships, etc. In the process, they may gain useful skills, knowledge, and dispositions, especially when they learn to pivot among social roles to fit the needs of a given challenge.

This sort of social and parasocial learning is at the pedagogical heart of the Explorers’ Guide to the 21st Century, a participatory book project launching this month. Initially, it will be structured as a Kickstarter project, with one chapter (essay) shared each month for ten months, and an associated online community for discussing each set of ideas. I’m starting on Kickstarter because it’s a tried-and-true platform for finding and bringing together people with a common interest in a creative project. It is open to your participation and support. In this blog post, I outline the project and invite you to join.

Individuals pivot among roles and create social synergies while working on community-oriented projects.

Why am I doing this project? The content grows from my career-long experience at the intersection of human development and learning, technology innovation, and education reform. The format affords flexibility in both the creative process and follow-on steps. The associated online community supports extension and critique of the ideas, networking, and potential collaborations among members.

The Guide will appeal to educators, researchers, parents, and others with a commitment to preparing children and youth for our rapidly changing, high-stakes world of robotic automation, synthetic biology, political polarization, artificial intelligence, climate change, and more. It will describe a novel educational system designed from first principles of human development and learning to help the next generations survive and thrive in challenging times. It is designed as a fresh start, but is informed by current school improvement and informal education approaches and may contribute to them. The Guide will confirm some established principles of education and challenge others. Core learning goals include being flexibly adaptive, constructively collaborative, and wise.

We study first principles of the physical, living, social, and digital realms of experience in the World (illustration by Pat Pataranutaporn, MIT Media Lab)

The Guide is organized around a theme (building wisdom), curriculum (“self and world” from multiple perspectives), and pedagogy (learning archetypes, community-oriented projects). You could think of it as a kind of future school, designed to support self-directed learning, lifelong and lifewide, across institutions and cultures.

Essays: 

Overview: Education Moonshot —How designing a new education system from first principles of human development and learning can leapfrog the barriers to school reform, provide a blueprint for future education design, and inspire short-term practical solutions to current needs.

Theme: Building Wisdom— Focus on a far-future orientation, understanding the past and current trajectories, honoring multiple perspectives, and doing social good.

Curriculum: Self and World — Center core skills in self knowledge and efficacy. Build the capacity to see and act from multiple perspectives; pivot as needed between different epistemologies. Explore first principles of the physical, living, social, and digital realms.

Pedagogies: Learning Archetypes, Constructionism, Learning Sciences — Social learning – people learn from people — is a first principle of human learning, which can be expressed across activities of domain-specific archetypes and community-oriented collaborative projects. This learning is consistent with fundamental pillars of learning science.

Athlete and Artist— Each in their own way, these archetypes model a process of physical and psychological centering.

Naturalist and Sage — These Archetypes represent two complementary ways of engaging the world.

Author and Mathematician-Logician — These represent two fundamental ways that human beings use symbolic systems to expand their experience and agency through time and space.

Scientist and Teacher —These Archetypes are engaged in processes that help adapt to changing conditions.

Philosopher-Theologian — This Archetype represents a broad epistemic project to ask, and perhaps answer, existential questions such as “Who am I?”, “Why am I here?”, and “What is it all about?” And, it may address emerging issues such as consciousness and artificial intelligence.

Conclusion and next steps — The final chapter of the Guide will be determined by the process of writing, sharing, and discussing the previous chapters/essays. That said, possible next steps include:  Edit essays into a commercial book. Character bibles for children’s media and games. Graphic novels. A blueprint for education systems. A guide for research. Youth club akin to Scouting. An AI-based system of learning archetypes.

Archetypes: Scientists, Mathematician, Artist, Naturalists

To learn more, participate in the discussion, or contribute financially, please see the Kickstarter Campaign for the Explorers’ Guide to the 21st Century. Thanks. I hope to see you there!

Jim Gray is a teacher, parent, researcher, and author focused on learning and digital media. He has held leadership roles at multiple ground-breaking educational organizations (LeapFrog Inc., Sesame Workshop, MIT Media Lab). He has tween-age daughters and tries to make the future a little brighter.  https://www.linkedin.com/in/jgray344/

“I know the right answer is to tell an adult, but I would not tell an adult. I would ask my friend Lucy for advice.”  This was a 7th grader’s response to a quiz question about cyberbullying.  The student was clear that while she knew the “correct” answer, it wasn’t the action she would take in real life.

Schools tend to focus on talking about digital wellness, encouraging students to earn “cyber-savvy” certificates or creating “be kind online” posters- but they don’t necessarily offer opportunities to discuss their concerns with adults.  Rather than “do and don’t” lectures, our young generations need safe spaces to talk about and brainstorm strategies for healthy, productive online lives.

But having grown up with fewer screen options themselves, caregivers often struggle with how to navigate their children’s digital lives. We know that some of the top concerns that parents are when to introduce their children to screens and what is an appropriate amount of daily screen time. They also want to learn more about healthy onscreen activities. Many have expressed a concern that they might be judged as parents about their decisions.  There is no one-size-fits-all solution, but it is clear that both parents and children are looking for guidance in a non-judgemental space.

After over a decade of talking with middle school children, we have learned the importance of conversation over lecture when trying to move the needle with students’ choices around device use.  We’ve also learned that children want to talk about what, why, and how they engage online – if they are in a space that is judgment-free. They also want their parents to better understand the significance of devices in their everyday lives: that devices are often a pathway to positive influences that provide comfort and satisfy many social needs.

This is why we developed the University of Michigan Digital Wellness Symposium for Youth and their Caregivers.  Our half-day virtual event was designed to create a fun, interactive, and judgment-free free space for caregivers and youth to have facilitated conversations about screen time and use.

When we asked our parents and youth participants about their experience with the symposium, 100% of them said the event met or exceeded their expectations!  Every participant also felt that the symposium helped generate conversation with their family members and that the activities were engaging and fun.

We hope our event’s success will give families the confidence to have similar conversations at home. Here are some tips for parents:

• Talk often. Instead of waiting until problems arise, have regular, low-stakes conversations – during car rides, cooking, or walks – about what your family is doing on your devices and how it feels. This will help children feel that online life is something that is OK and safe to talk about. It will also make them more willing to come to you when something feels wrong online.
• Explore new tools together. You can model how you think through your decision-making, look up information about the app, and even set a trial period. Even if the ultimate answer is no, tweens will more likely understand the decision-making process if they are a part of it. A side benefit? Opportunities to explore and be curious together.
• Embrace the gray areas. Too often, advice for parents is framed as a good/bad binary. The truth is likely somewhere in the middle. We adults know that sometimes some Instagram is fun, but too much might mean scrolling past our bedtime. Similarly, some gaming for tweens is fun escapism with friends, but too much can be a withdrawal from the real world.
• Remember that youths are human. Post-pandemic children are living in a different world than their parents did. For tweens, screen time is more than consuming content: there are social, relationship, and reputational issues associated with device use. Adults can help by understanding and honoring that worldview before leaping in with rules or solutions.
• Remember that parents are human, too! We recognize that parents are struggling and grappling with pressure from their children to have devices or apps, societal pressure about what “good” caregivers do, and an innate desire to keep their children safe and healthy in a complicated world.  What works best for one child may not work well for another. Decisions should be centered around your family’s morals, ethics, finances, and the unique needs of your child.

Our next symposium is Saturday, January 21, and we’re eager to hear from families nationwide.  Learn more and register here.

The 2022 & 2023 Digital Wellness Symposia are made possible in part by the University of Michigan Center for Teaching and Learning, the University of Michigan School of Education, the University of Michigan School of Information, and MACUL.

Liz Kolb is a clinical associate professor at the University of Michigan School of Education where she works with preservice and in-service teachers on integrating technology into K-12 teaching.  She is the author of numerous books and articles related to educational technology, most recently Learning First, Technology Second: In Practice.   

Kristin Fontichiaro is a clinical professor at the University of Michigan School of Information, where she works at the intersection of libraries, learning, and leadership. She is the author and editor of numerous books on information, digital, and data literacy for educators, librarians, and K-8 students, most recently Making in School and Public Libraries, Creating Data Literate Students, and Data Literacy in the Real World: Conversations and Case Studies.

Jason Yip was a Cooney Center Fellow from 2013-2014 and remains a frequent collaborator through his work with KidsTeam UW.

Jason joined the Cooney Center team in 2013, and quickly added Cookie Monster to his collection of Sesame Street toys.

My time at the Cooney Center (2013 – 2014) came immediately after a stint as a doctoral student at the University of Maryland (UMD). At the time, I was completing my PhD in curriculum and instruction in science education, with some work in child-computer interaction. While I had a lot of projects at UMD (such as investigating the way children search the internet, co-designing technologies and developing social media technologies for science learning), I felt lost and overwhelmed about the direction I wanted to head towards. I knew I wanted to continue my work in child-computer interaction, but wasn’t sure about the capacity in which I wanted to do this. I also didn’t know if I wanted to go into industry, non-profit, or academic research. I felt like I needed some help making some decisions.

I was so happy to arrive at the Cooney Center for many different reasons. First, Sesame Workshop was always a dream place I wanted to spend some time at. I am (not was) a Sesame Street kid since the early 1980s. I just had to spend some time at the place where Grover, Oscar the Grouch, and Big Bird were born! Second, I wanted to understand more about the families and technology space in research. At the time, I had spent some time reading the Cooney Center report on joint media engagement. My dissertation at the time on social media and science learning made similar conclusions about the need for families to spend time on mobile technologies together to engage in science learning. Finally, I needed time to figure out the industry, non-profit, and academic research career trajectory. I respected the fact that the Cooney Center is at the intersection and hub of relationships between all three areas.

Overall, the Cooney Center has made a tremendous impact on my career. Ultimately, I did decide to go into academic research at the University of Washington’s Information School. The Cooney Center gave me so many research contacts that I still work with today, and my research trajectory finally solidified during my time at the Cooney Center. Today, I study how families and children use technologies to collaborate in learning together. The fundamental message from the Cooney Center report on joint media engagement is at the core of my research, whether I’m building new technologies for family collaboration, investigating how current technologies support family collaborative learning, and co-designing technologies with families about collaboration. Finally, I do love telling people today that I met Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch (the late Caroll Spinney at his birthday party). Congrats on 15 great years, Cooney Center!

Jason Yip is an Associate Professor at the Information School and an adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Human-Centered Design and Engineering at the University of Washington. His research examines how technologies can support parents and children learning together.

Jenny Ng was at the Cooney Center as an administrative coordinator in 2019. She’s currently a project manager at Noggin.

From L-R: Kiley Sobel, Lori Takeuchi, and Jenny Ng, Summer 2019

I am a mom to three young children and a proud alumna of the Joan Ganz Cooney Center! I had the great opportunity to join the team in June 2019. Although I am no longer at Sesame Workshop, it was a pivotal moment in restarting my career growth and in reigniting my sense of self within a team – and what a great team it was. My supervisors, mentors, colleagues, and now lifelong friends at the Joan Ganz Cooney Center welcomed me warmly, appreciated my drive and contributions to the department, and mentored me well. I was so proud to work with these brilliant and kind people, and so proud to work for the mission that JGCC embodied “to advance children’s learning through digital media.”  Currently, I am employed at Noggin as a project manager working with my mentor, the founding executive director of Cooney Center, Michael Levine. I could not be happier to be where I am now. I am grateful for my opportunity and experience at JGCC, as the people, culture, and mission have greatly and positively impacted me.

Alan Nong was a Cooney Center research intern from February 2014 to March 2015.

Alan Nong with Oscar

At the Cooney Center, I had the opportunity to work with some of the most amazing people as we investigated the issues facing modern Latino families and media use. From creating a Mission Impossible-style briefing video to site visits with the kids and their families, I knew the work we were doing was truly impactful.

My time with the Cooney Center had played a major role in my life as I had recently applied to graduate school during this time. From this research experience, I developed a strong interest in the measurement of learning and educational media. I eventually ended up attending the Research, Evaluation, Measurement, and Statistics program at the University of Kansas, and my dissertation topic was on evaluating the impact of serious games. Needless to say, my experience with the Cooney Center was a strong influence in the years that followed.

Currently, I work in the Office of Institutional Research and Decision Support at Loyola Marymount University. As a Senior Institutional Research Associate, I help coordinate and streamline the reporting of official university statistics to various institutional, agency, state, and federal reports, questionnaires, and surveys. I also provide leadership in the development of research studies to inform university planning and decision-making and assist in data management and governance processes.

Alan Nong, PhD, is a Senior Institutional Research Associate at Loyola Marymount’s Office of Institutional Research. Previously, Alan supported a variety of research initiatives and program evaluations within the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Kansas. Alan received his B.A. in Psychology from the University of California, Riverside, M.A. in Education and Human Development from George Washington University, and Ph.D. in Educational Psychology and Research with a concentration in Research, Evaluation, Measurement, and Statistics from the University of Kansas.