Category Archives: Commentary

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

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.    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…

​​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…

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…

Parents often quip that children do not “come with instructions.” Underlying this joke is a real interest in supporting their children’s learning and development, but not always knowing how. And parents do need to know how to do their job well—their actions may determine children’s lifelong happiness and success.   In 2018, my team and I started Devie, an AI parenting coach startup, to help parents feel empowered about the decisions they were making and to help provide their children with…

At a time when young people’s mental health and well-being is of paramount importance, the LEGO Group and NYU are partnering with the Joan Ganz Cooney Center to investigate the relationship between parents, digital play, and children’s wellbeing. Parents, please share your thoughts about your kids and video games by visiting: bit.ly/gamesNYU and earn a chance to win a $100 gift card! For more information, check out the blog post below!    What do parents think about kids and video…

This summer, 10 teenagers from around the country joined the Cooney Center for our first-ever Next Gen Public Media Youth Fellowship. The cohort met every other week throughout the summer to build community and prepare for events that the Cooney Center hosted in the Next Gen Public Media initiative. Over the course of the summer, youth fellows were guests in a Peer Learning Community meeting, panelists in a workshop, and discussants in our “Group Chat” webinar series (being released this…

When we design for children, we design both for the present and for the future. Childhood experiences have an impact on children, which translates into long-term effects on the population and society—our collective future. Excluding children from our thinking is a systemic bias and we work to change that.  Designing for Children’s Rights (D4CR) is a global non-profit association, working in collaboration with UNICEF to create awareness about the importance of keeping children’s rights in mind when building products and…

Roblox is the only example I can think of when I was a child that was open world with endless possibilities, as limited as it was in 2008, it was still a great opportunity for interaction and creativity —20-something Roblox developer The “gamification of learning” is a common theme in education and edtech, but as we observe the emerging metaverse at Dubit, we’re thinking about the “learnification of gaming.” “Gamification of learning” leverages game design features and mechanics to deliver…

On May 13, 2022, the Joan Ganz Cooney Center and the LEGO Group hosted an interactive workshop to launch the Responsible Innovation in Technology for Children (RITEC) initiative in Washington, DC. Speakers included Carolina Giuga (LEGO), Bruce Homer (CUNY), Steven Vosloo (UNICEF), and Michael Preston (Joan Ganz Cooney Center). You can hear the tension, guilt, and fear in people’s voices when they talk about what to do about protecting children in the digital environment. As with everything, the pandemic accelerated…