Category Archives: Commentary

Today, the Joan Ganz Cooney Center and Sesame Workshop are releasing a new report entitled Always Connected. The report is a synthesis of data from seven studies and presents a comprehensive look at young children’s media use over the past five years. As someone who is interested in research methodology, and as one of the authors, the report has encouraged me to think more carefully about the way we define and measure media use. Measurement of media use taps into…

Every February, children’s entertainment professionals from around the world converge in New York as the overlap of Toy Fair, Engage Expo and KidScreen Summit turn the city into a veritable stomping ground for those of us in the kids business. And every year, I can hardly wait to hear about the trends and see the products that will entertain children throughout the year ahead. This year did not disappoint! Surprisingly, the product that most interested me this year came from…

Occasionally, those of us who work in digital media can get so caught up in the excitement of exploring the “new literacies” that make up our 21st century educational landscape, that it can be easy to lose sight of the fundamental problem of not being able to read. The truth is, for both children and adults, illiteracy is still a major issue worldwide. According to LitWorld, “nearly 1 billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or…

Why most U.S. school reformers are on the wrong track, and how to get our kids’ education right for the future What President Obama said: “We need to out-educate.” What Obama should have said: “We can’t win the future with the education of the past.”   This is an unprecedented time in U.S. education, and awareness that we have a problem has never been higher. Billions of dollars of public and private money are lined up for solutions. But I…

In my first week on the job at the Joan Ganz Cooney Center I learned about two terrific Websites — Poptropica and Whyville. I dutifully recommended them to my brother and sister-in-law, who are ever in search of “good” digital media for their 8-year-old. “Thanks so much for these,” Debbie responded. “So helpful. I was just about to search the web for some good math sites for Marta… she definitely needs practice that is also fun. She’s holding her own…

The Sesame Workshop research team has been following the development of a game promoting intergenerational computer literacy. Mindy Brooks shares some of the lessons they’ve learned about designing an educational game that appeals to both parents and kids. How do you design a game to engage both parents and children to play together and ultimately enhance the child’s literacy skills? After hearing multiple exclamations from parents such as, “Watch out for that word!” or “No, that’s not the “t” sound!”,…

Reprinted from Huffington Post. As President Obama discusses our State of the Union with a much needed focus on innovation, education and investment in America’s future, let’s focus on one area that is ripe for radical change: how digital media can be used for education and hands-on, lifelong learning beginning right from the start. We need to focus more attention on the potential long-term effects of a major investment in the early years, especially in building an entirely new learning…

Give a young child a couple of toys or a box of crayons and he or she is likely to play for hours, deeply engrossed in an imaginary world. In both art and dramatic play, children construct settings, create fictional characters, and act out fantastic storylines that would be the envy of many Hollywood scriptwriters. Yet, ask that same child to write out a story in a blank notebook or a word processor and you would be lucky to capture…

This past year has been a difficult one for many families, especially for the nation’s most vulnerable children. By some estimates, nearly half of all young children in the U.S. are at risk of falling into poverty should their parents face more economic stress. And the litany of disturbing statistics that were released this past year — only 14 percent of African-American children are proficient readers by the 4th grade, and more than one-half of Latino youth drop out of…

“Who has an email account?” we ask the second grade children sitting eagerly before us. Almost every hand goes up excitedly. “And who has an S-account?” I then ask (saying the first non-existent thing that pops into my head). Almost three-quarters of the hands go up excitedly. I only heard one skeptical child turn to her friend and ask, “What’s an S-account?” As we interviewed children across the country to gain a better handle on their responses to The Electric…