Category Archives: Commentary

It may come as no surprise that kids want gadgets over toys this holiday season. According to the Duracell Toy Report, the top 10 most wanted toys for Christmas among kids 5-16 are squarely focused on tech, with iPhones, iPod Touches, and iPads topping the list. Read full article, Children Want Gadgets Not Toys for Christmas

This past August, the New York Times released an alarming article about plagiarism in U.S. higher education. Citing statistics from a Rutgers University study of 14,000 undergraduates, it reported that over 40 percent of students admitted to having copied text directly from the Internet. More frightening still, 34 percent said they did not consider plagiarizing from the Internet “serious cheating.” As college professors, high school teachers, and parents become increasingly exasperated with a population of copy-and-pasters that fails to see…

In today’s information-obese world, book reading has become a refuge from my click-happy, easily distracted, multitask-ery. But as books extend their reach into the digital landscape through the Kindle, iPad and the new Barnes & Noble Nook, I have to wonder: Does a book by any other platform still smell as sweet? The Internet and digital media have often been blamed for the decline of children’s interest in reading books. In a 2007 report by the National Endowment for the…

The following remarks were delivered by Sesame Workshop CEO Gary E. Knell at the Grantmakers for Education annual conference last week. The end of World War II was a pivotal moment in our nation’s history – it was the first time in 150 years that the government made a serious investment in public education. And it was the beginning of a long-term demographic shift of historic proportions.  Soldiers returning from war were given opportunities to a higher education long considered…

This post originally appeared in New Media Literacies on October, 25, 2010. I recently attended Digital Hollywood, a digital media trade conference in Los Angeles for executives in the film, television, computer, music, and telecommunications fields. As a Ph.D. student in Communication at USC Annenberg, I attended four panels relevant to my research interests in children and media. These panels were organized around the following themes: immersive touchscreen media, mobile apps, crossmedia content reinvention, and one specifically on children in…

I heard a great interview this morning on NPR’s Morning Addition: For Halloween, TV Scares That Are Still Kid-Friendly, addressing the question of how scary is too scary? Elizabeth Blair spoke to folks from Nickelodeon and PBS Kids, who are both airing specials this week, including an Arthur episode guest starring none other than an [animated] Neil Gaiman. Horror has been making a comeback in the last few years, and the kids’ media space is no exception. From a revamped…

Guest post by Sara M. Grimes, PhD Years ago, when the idea of “games for learning” was still a relatively new concept, a small but important movement emerged around issues of gender in gaming. Led by scholars, designers and members of the game community, the primary objective was to address a gaming gender gap that had formed in the 80s and early 90s. Then as now, boys were generally gaming more (and more often) than girls, male characters appeared far…

Great piece by Edutopia, Rapping Math Teachers Bring It, featuring the Rapping Mathematician Also check out these instructions to learn how to write your own math rap!      

The domestic educational research group here at Sesame Workshop gets to have really fun conversations. We talk to experts. By experts, we mean the 3- to 9-year-old children for whom we create content. We explain to them that we’re grown ups and don’t remember what it was like to be their age and that they’re experts about what they like and what they think and know about the things they read, watch and play. We also talk to their parents…

Today we bring you the first in a series of STEM related blog posts — starting with last year’s Cooney Center Prize finalists for the Motion Math — Gabriel Adauto and Jacob Klein. Throughout the process of creating Motion Math, our bouncing star fraction game for the iPhone and iPad, we’ve greatly benefited from conversations with our primary users: kids. The game was just released, and you can buy it here. We were honored this past June to be a…