Category Archives: Commentary

This is the first of three posts by Sarah Vaala, the 2011-2012 Cooney Center Fellow, reflecting on a recent visit to the Mary Cariola Children Center to learn how iPads are being used by children with developmental disabilities. Part Two focuses on specific skills that are fostered through using an iPad. Part Three addresses the limitations. “What would you like to do today?” asks preschool teacher Dana Bennett as she hands an iPad to 4-year-old Sean. Sean’s eyes light up,…

More and more kids are involved in digital networking, to the point where mastery of this is a crucial 21st century skill. Which means more and more kids online are being exposed to cyberbullying – with, according to PEW Internet’s August 2011 Tracking Survey, 21 percent even admitting to joining in.  While younger children, our usually audience, are protected by the age guidelines of most social media platforms, tweens, teens and young adults are all at risk to be potentially affected by…

A Communique on the Horizon Project’s Recent Communique. Many of you may have heard of the annual Horizon Report, the report put out by the New Media Consortium that tracking the most important trends technology for education over the last decade. To celebrate ten years of producing what has become a vital indicator of social change,this past January the report’s organizers brought together 100 international leaders from academia and industry. Putting their heads together, these experts identified 28 megatrends that…

A brief message from our friends at Reading Rockets and AdLit.org who are working with the Library of Congress and the Ad Council to help support the Explore New Worlds. Read. It has been 100 years since Edgar Rice Burroughs first introduced readers to Tarzan and “John Carter” — a hero whose Martian adventure hits the big screen this month in the new Disney film of the same name. Give K-12 readers the chance to learn more about Edgar Rice Burroughs and…

Right now, here at the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, we are all about STEM – Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. There are only two weeks left to enter the National STEM Video Game Challenge, which we are proud to present along with our partner E-Line Media. But we’re not the only STEM-centric show in town. February 23, as part of National Engineers Week, was ‘Introduce a Girl to Engineering’ day. US News and World Report has a section devoted to…

I just returned from Kidscreen Summit and its new digital offspring iKids, where I had the rare opportunity to participate in a platform diving competition. OK – that makes me sound way cooler than I actually am. By platform I’m referring to software on a mobile device, and by diving I’m referring to launch strategy. But entering the children’s app space can be scarier than plunging headfirst off of a 10-meter plank into a body of water, so the analogy…

 This post was originally submitted to Edutopia and is reprinted with their permission. Mixed reactions to children’s e-books and the digitization of story time The news media and blogosphere were abuzz last month with the news that Apple is “reinventing the textbook” through the introduction of digital textbooks available for the iPad. With the announcement has come a myriad of opinions and speculations regarding the possible repercussions of Apple’s textbook reinvention for schools and for children’s learning.Many celebrate the availability of…

In 2011, The Cooney Center formed six action teams, based on geographical location.  The teams were charged with building promising practices and scalable models of the ways that media, and particularly digital media, can promote children’s learning in environments outside of school. These teams were an integral part of the Learning From Hollywood Forum where they had the opportunity to network with industry and policy leaders across media, technology, education and philanthropy, and where each team walked away with hard…

Editor’s Note: Want to join the Joan Ganz Cooney Center team? Apply to be the 2016-2017 Cooney Center Fellow! We are accepting fellowship applications now through April 4, 2016. We’ve all been there many times: “go around the table and introduce yourselves.”  There are certain times in our lives when this happens at an extremely frequent rate: the first weeks of college and when we start a new job being two of the most popular. For a new job as a research scientist, this introduction…

Most of us have had experiences playing with traditional playsets. In fact, many of us have fond memories and attachments to particular figurines or characters. Reminiscing about these experiences may bring up memories of your childhood imagination, your love to create stories and explore imaginary worlds, or even a desire to share these experiences with another person. If you’re like the two of us, you might have a couple cherished pieces sitting in a box somewhere hoping that one day…