Category Archives: Conferences and Community Events

April was a busy month at the White House. In addition to the Early STEM Learning Symposium (which Elisabeth McLure reported on last week), the White House also played host to a day-long conference, “Helping Children Explore, Learn, and Dream Without Limits: Breaking Down Gender Stereotypes in Media and Toys.” Organized by the White House Council on Women and Girls, the US Department of Education, and the Media, Diversity and Social Change Initiative at the University of Southern California, the…

Remarks of Chairman Tom Wheeler at “Digital Equity: Technology and Learning in the Lives of Lower-Income Families” On February 3, the Joan Ganz Cooney Center and Rutgers University co-hosted a forum at New America in Washington, D.C. We released Opportunity for All?: Technology and Learning in Lower-Income Families  with presentations by authors Victoria Rideout and Vikki S. Katz, and a series of conversations around the issues of digital equity and access to broadband, with a focus on families with school-age…

This post was originally published on The Conversation and appears here with permission. Most parents have profound concerns about their children reading digital books on tablets. In a new survey of 1,500 parents of under-eights in the UK about their attitudes to children’s use of technology and digital books at home, we found that only 8% have no concerns about them using tablets to read. For using digital media in general, only 16% of parents had no concerns. By comparing…

On February 3, 2016, the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, Rutgers University, and New America co-hosted a forum on digital equity and technology among lower-income families at New America’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. The event featured the release of Opportunity for All?, by Vicky Rideout and Vikki Katz. As we got started, we were thrilled to see some mentions of the report in the news: Many low-, moderate-income families ‘under-connected’ to Internet (USA Today) Many low-income families get on the Internet with…

Last week we released Diverse Families and Media: Using Research to Inspire Design, at the Stanford Graduate School of Education and Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (d.school). The report draws from research conducted by the Families and Media consortium around media use in predominantly Latino families living in New York/New Jersey, the San Francisco Bay Area, Phoenix, and Chicago. This casebook and design guide aims to provide insight on family media use, prompts for thoughtful discussion, and inspiration for the design…

On August 12th, returning and new participants of the Aprendiendo Juntos Council gathered at Sesame Workshop for the 3rd annual working meeting of the consortium. The Aprendiendo Juntos (Learning Together) Council is a multi-sector group of researchers, practitioners, media producers, and policy experts who seek to identify new models and practical strategies to improve educational outcomes for multicultural Hispanic-Latino families through the wise deployment of digital technologies. The group, which strives to take a strengths-based approach to optimizing educational outcomes…

The 11th annual Games+Learning+Society Conference brought together game designers, educators, researchers, funders, academics, cultural institutions, and everyone in between (…and yes… there are even more individuals interested in learning games). This diverse collective sparked debate around issues facing games and learning and the future of this growing field, and, fittingly, this was the first year games were turned away from the showcase. This year’s conference marked a key shift in its history—no longer was the event focused on the need…

Attending SXSW Interactive is a little like being on safari. The day begins with anticipation, involves endless strategizing around where to be and what ballrooms offer the maximum return, and ends with a re-cap of which “big game” was spotted, what life-changing experiences were narrowly missed and what was photo (or Tweet, or Instagram, or Meerkat) worthy. The highs and lows are all there—some great speakers sharing the new and unexpected, some sessions so popular they require sacrificing your morning…

This post originally appeared on gamesandlearning.org   A session at SXSW Interactive on Monday, March 16 will offer some real insights into how various companies think about design and use research in their product development. The session will feature Cecilia Weckström, senior director of LEGO.com; Tinsley Galyean, founder and CTO of the Global Literacy Project, a collaboration between MIT, Tufts, & GSU; and Elliott Hedman, whom Wired labeled as a pioneer of new design research. Ahead of the conversation, we…

The Games for Change Festival (April 21-23 & 25), the largest gaming event in New York City, celebrates the positive power of games, again as part of the Tribeca Film Festival. From the most successful mobile games to cutting-edge virtual reality projects, this year brings the best Festival line-up yet. Beyond Games Nicholas Kristof, NY Times columnist, Pulitzer Prize winner, author of A Path Appears Sheryl WuDunn, Pulitzer Prize winner, author of A Path Appears Morgan Spurlock, Acclaimed Filmmaker, Super…