Category Archives: Educators

“What would Joan do” is a question children’s media professionals can ask as we explore the pedagogical possibilities of new digital tools. Early childhood researchers have long noted that children often “think like a scientist” as they explore novel materials or situations. Likewise, viewers may imitate their favorite television character, as when preschoolers try broccoli after seeing Elmo do the same. Children, youth, and individuals of all ages can learn to think and act like artists, authors, naturalists, mathematicians, philosophers,…

Like many of you, we’ve been thinking a lot about the future. What do we want to take with us from the time before the coronavirus? What’s best left in the past? How do we want to live as we stagger, sore-armed, back into society? If we’ve learned anything from the past year, it’s that collaboration carried us through. Working together is what kept kids learning when the pandemic sent them home. It’s what developed vaccines faster than ever before.…

The following post is part of a series springing from the Cooney Center’s joint initiative with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, By/With/For Youth: Inspiring Next Gen Public Media Audiences. This is a project aimed at exploring the role of public media in the lives of young people by taking stock of the current landscape and imagining a future that public media can build alongside teens and tweens. With that in mind, we are inviting public media practitioners who are already experimenting…

One could say the only constant during this unprecedented time is change. Childcare centers and schools are adjusting from one day to the next in order to keep the children and families in their communities safe. Another constant, however, is the value of connecting with well-trained children’s library professionals. This is why the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) developed Look to Libraries, a collection of materials intended to assist parents and caregivers during the COVID-19 pandemic. ALSC is…

Every day, information is collected on our daily habits, from the groceries we purchase, the music we stream, the websites we visit, and even our physical locations. What happens to all this data? Some are sold for advertising purposes, some may be used for research, while other data is used by particular interest groups. It might be reported as line graphs, bar graphs, or heat maps. But how do we learn to read and accurately interpret the reality presented by…

On Thursday, March 12, 2020, PBS SoCal, KCET and the Los Angeles Unified School District, the second-largest district in the nation, announced a plan to provide Pre-K–12th grade educational programming throughout the daytime on PBS SoCal, KCET, and KLCS channels. This partnership has the potential to serve more than 600,000 students across Southern California. This multi-platform initiative includes robust digital resources, created in collaboration with KQED in San Francisco, through our online platform, PBS LearningMedia. Public television has long served…

If you happened to be visiting Independence National Historical Park in late October, you might have seen some of us educators and park rangers walking around with cell phones and taking pictures of things not normally featured on the postcards sold in the Park’s gift store. In addition to the Liberty Bell and the Mall, these photos included steam coming out of manhole covers, late budding plants growing along the parks’ edges, sidewalk patterns made of river stones, bricks and…

Claudia Haines, librarian at Homer Public Library in Homer, Alaska, describes a recent Storytime with Robots event that she hosted in which children and their parents had the opportunity to think about computational thinking along with early literacy. This post was originally published on Claudia’s blog, Never Shushed, and appears here with permission. I’ve been reading and thinking A LOT about computational thinking (CT) and coding this winter as part of my work on the Libraries Ready to Code initiative.…

This summer, Oak Park Public librarians Anne Bensfield and Naomi Priddy hosted two workshops inspired by the Joan Ganz Cooney Center’s Digital Play for Global Citizens guide. As Multicultural Learning Librarian, Naomi manages the Multicultural Collection, a circulating collection of books and artifacts from around the world. Her goals are to create opportunities to explore different cultures, invite learners to reflect on their own identities and cultural lenses, and ultimately to build intercultural empathy.  Anne’s work as the Children’s Digital Learning…

It’s August. August? How did that happen? We are facing a new school year, which as a parent of a 6- and 8-year-old I am simultaneously saddened about (where has the time gone?) and relieved by (these kids need to get back to school!). As the end of summer approaches, it’s time to start thinking about preparing for school. Are the kids ready? Not just in terms of getting their stuff ready (school supplies, anyone?), but also emotionally and academically.…