Category Archives: Conferences and Community Events

The Philadelphia Action Team is comprised of a set of core partners, Philadelphia Academies Inc., the City of Philadelphia, the Urban Affairs Coalition, Philadelphia Youth Network, Drexel University, and the Knight Foundation.  We attended the Joan Ganz Cooney Center’s 2011 Leadership Forum, “Learning From Hollywood: Can Entertainment Media Ignite a New Learning Revolution?” hosted by Sesame Workshop and University of Southern California. Our Action Team has been working together since January to build the Digital On-Ramps Project, a four-year initiative…

What do you get when you cross a pony with a unicorn?  According to 5 year-old Cassie Creighton, you get a ponycorn.  According to renowned game blog Kotaku.com, you get what may just be “the most adorable video game ever created.”  According to me, you get an intergenerational father-daughter experience around media creation that is as magical as the ponycorns themselves.   Sissy’s Magical Ponycorn Adventure is a video game created by Cassie and her dad Ryan, founder of Toronto’s…

Cooney Center Research Associate Ingrid Erickson is teaming up with Ruth V. Small from Syracuse University and Eric Meyers from the University of British Columbia to co-edit a special issue of the journal Learning Media & Technology on the topic of digital literacy in informal learning environments. I’m excited to be co-editing an upcoming special issue of the journal Learning, Media and Technology that will be published in late 2012. We’re seeking proposals for papers that will focus on the…

Dale Lipschultz, Literacy Officer for the American Library Association, was a panelist in the “Targeted Public Engagement Campaigns” session at the Learning from Hollywood Forum. She is also helping to guide our Action Teams as they work to turn their collective energy into collaborative projects. I came to the Forum with an open mind tempered by a healthy dose of skepticism. As a pragmatic Midwesterner, I wondered if it was reasonable to learn anything relevant from Hollywood. After all, I…

We’re pleased to help our friends at Reading Rockets spread the word about their great new mobile site. But even beyond the great content that the site provides, they’re also offering the chance to win some great prizes, including an iPod Nano. Rachael Walker shares more information on the new mobile website and how to win below: For more than ten years, Reading Rockets has been spreading the word about research-based reading instruction and offering the latest information on what…

We were thrilled by the energy and enthusiasm that the Action Teams brought to the Cooney Center Leadership Forum last May. The seven groups that we brought together willingly embraced our call to work as local networks of organizations dedicated to making an impact on the future of children’s learning in their communities. We have invited each Action Team to share their experiences at the Forum with us, and hope that they will continue to keep us posted on their…

One of the perks of working with The Cooney Center and Sesame Workshop is getting to meet people doing amazing things.  The industry is full of passionate organizations and individuals that are using digital media to promote children’s healthy development and learning in a multitude of ways I never would have dreamed of.  As part of my blog series, I hope to occasionally spotlight these organizations — groups that are doing something different, something amazing, or something inspiring.  It wasn’t…

I always love going to the Games, Learning and Society (GLS) conference in Madison, Wisconsin. Where else are you guaranteed access to a lakeside terrace, local microbrews, and warm Midwestern hospitality? In addition to these welcome amenities, GLS is also a place where games are taken quite seriously, albeit in a playful way. This year was no exception.   I attended the conference to present some of the early findings from my own research. With my collaborator LeAnne Wagner, I…

At the 2011 Games, Learning and Society research conference in Madison, Joan Ganz Cooney Center Executive Director Michael H. Levine was the closing keynote speaker on the topic “Gaming Education Reform.” His presentation to a multidisciplinary group of scholars, game industry leaders and practitioners focused on several missing key elements in our current approaches to learning. He shared some of the most cogent lessons learned from Sesame Street’s rich and instructive history as well as the Center’s more recent research…

At Games for Change (G4C) last week, the audience was treated to a number of interesting discussions and keynotes surrounding current issues of video game play for learning and social change. Among the hot topics were of course the impending “Gamepocalypse” that will arguably come as a result of intense “Gamification,” but there was also measured discussion around how people are working to find out where “gamifying” is most helpful to learning and education, and plenty of evidence of exciting…