Category Archives: Commentary

Makeda Mays Green is the Director of Education and Research for Digital Media at Sesame Workshop. We were lucky to have her join us in LA for the Leadership Forum in May. She shares her thoughts on the event and some of her favorite takeaways.   The “Learning from Hollywood” forum was nothing short of amazing! It presented a rare opportunity to connect leaders from the entertainment industry with educational experts from around the country. Over the course of two…

This piece originally appeared in the Huffington Post.   On Tuesday, June 7, the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop will present a report at the E 3 Expo in Los Angeles that may surprise media designers and cause policymakers to step back from their current concerns about kids’ digital multitasking addiction, cyber-bullying, violent videogames, and mobile disruptions in school. While much of the public discussion about digital media is concentrated on how little influence parents have in shaping…

In January, I attended a workshop dedicated to games, assessment and learning hosted by the MacArthur and Gates Foundations and the USC Game Innovation Lab. The workshop brought together game designers, educators, and researchers to work together on designing games around various curricula topics that would be engaging, educational, and contain features to allow for the collection and feedback about how players were faring when engaged in the game. The conversation went beyond what players could learn from games: We…

While managing the @cooneycenter Twitter feed and live blog during this week’s Learning From Hollywood Forum, my mental gears were continuously whirring.  Rich threads of conversation spun back and forth online and in face-to-face conversation, through the #cooneyforum hashtag and the generous physical space provided by the USC School of Cinematic Arts (even the terrific film soundstages where lunch was held!) During the coming weeks, I’ll be working with the Michael Levine and Rebecca Herr-Stephensen from the Joan Ganz Cooney…

When I was in Toronto a few weeks ago for the Sprockets panel on transmedia, I had the chance to walk (ok, run) through the Tim Burton exhibit in the new TIFF building. This exhibit reminded me of a few things. First, that I am way overdue for a re-viewing of Edward Scissorhands. Second, that trips to the museum have been replaced with trips to the grocery store since I left New York and had a baby. And finally, the…

The art and science of storytelling has been at the heart of all good education from the beginning of the humanity. Since before technology, before media, before printing or even writing, education was passed from generation to generation through storytelling. The stories told around the fire before written histories may have had elements of myth and legend and exaggerated truth in them, but they all served the same purpose: the enculturation of the young and the drawing together of the…

Frances Nankin, Executive Producer and Editorial Director of Cyberchase, has been developing children’s media for 30 years. She is both an educator and a media producer who sees great potential in emerging media platforms to boost kids’ learning. Cooney Center: What excites you about the potential of new technologies to support learning? Frances Nankin: My first experience with kids’ media was when I was a first-grade teacher and there was a slide projector in the library where kids who behaved…

To put my thoughts into context, I offer the following assertions: Our public education system is failing; Incremental change to a failing system is the same as making no change at all; Kids today spend—on average—seven hours each day interacting with and through digital media; The digital world has become the “new vast wasteland” unless, of course; We seize the opportunity to build quality, engaging digital content that reaches, teaches, and optimizes the skills and talents of the rising generation.…

Last week I had the opportunity participate in a panel discussion at Sprockets, Toronto’s International Film Festival for Children and Youth (which, by the way, is a FANTASTIC event held in the new and equally fantastic TIFF building). The topic of the panel? Transmedia. Well of course. It seems that transmedia has blossomed into an all-out industry buzz-word — it’s a featured topic at conferences ranging from SXSW to Kidscreen. Rumor even has it that Henry Jenkins is out to…

As long as media have created content for children, there have been debates about what defines “quality.” From the “penny dreadfuls” to radio to comic books to music, and onward to TV and digital media, parents have been cautioned about wasted time, moral decay or learning delays. At the same time, creators and distributors of children’s media have proclaimed its great benefits; every recent media innovation from TV (and color TV!) to tablet computers has been marketed first to parents…