Category Archives: Gaming

The entries are in for the National STEM Video Game Challenge, and our expert judges have been busy playing video games! This year we’ve received more than 4,000 entries in the following categories: Gamestar Mechanic, Gamemaker, Scratch, Unity, Open Platforms, and Written Design Documents. The STEM Challenge has hosted more than 35 game design workshops across the country for youth and educators. The energy at these workshops was amazing—read more about a youth workshop that took place at the Science…

Family Time with Apps is a free interactive guide for parents and caregivers that highlights some ways that families can use technology together. The book features comic strips that parents and children can enjoy together, as well as tips on selecting apps that can help turn screen time into family time. The guide provides tips on how using apps together can support a child’s learning and development. It is available from the iBook Store. We’re thrilled to share Jordan Shapiro’s…

In an education setting, video games are often dismissed as mindless entertainment. This was the opposite in the National STEM Video Game Challenge Workshop hosted at the Science Museum of Virginia (SMV), where Barrie Adleberg and I helped students to critically think about the mechanics of a video game and apply them to their own passions. Students from all over Richmond filed into one of the Museum’s classrooms; they were clearly excited to find out what a video game design…

The fourth National STEM Video Game Challenge is well underway this year, with students from middle school and high school programs across the country creating their own video games. We can’t wait to see the results of their hard work as the submissions begin rolling in—we’ve always been blown away by their creativity! Game design professionals will present hands-on workshops for youth and staff museum and library professionals across the country with the generous support of our national community program sponsor, the…

Sago Sago‘s apps are charming interactive experiences that aim to engage the youngest players. We recently had the opportunity to ask CEO Jason Krogh to share the story behind the company and to tell us more about their most recent game, “Friends,” which encourages young children to go on a digital play date.   Can you tell us a little bit about your path to developing apps for children? Like most people in the field, I stumbled into it. Shortly…

Together with our partners at the Smithsonian and E-Line Media, we are thrilled to announce that the National STEM Video Game Challenge is now open for its fourth year! The Challenge aims to motivate interest in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) learning among youth by tapping into their natural passions for playing and making video games. The competition is held in partnership with founding sponsor the Entertainment Software Association and the generous support of the Institute of Museum and…

What if we could reimagine the iPad as an augmented reality camera for kids to act out their own stories – a costume box for the 21st century? Introducing: TeleStory You’ve all heard the stats. One in three American kids are obese or overweight and will suffer from diabetes at some point in their lives[1]. After diet and exercise, two of the biggest culprits in this epidemic are TV and gaming—the average 8-18 year-old spends 7.5 hours every day on…

He called himself MechaStayPuft. That was the username and avatar he would use across all of the game design platforms we used. It struck me as an odd choice for a teenager, a compound reference to Ghostbusters, which turned 30 this past June, and Gozilla vs. MechaGodzilla, which predates Ghostbusters by a decade. How did a student who couldn’t have been born before the Clinton administration be acquainted with two relics of 70s and 80s counterculture? Regrettably, I never found…

The Joan Ganz Cooney Center needs your vote for the SXSW Interactive 2015 conference! We have pulled together heavy hitters from LEGO, Nickelodeon, and MIT Media Lab to talk about how the engaging power of games can be used to promote playful learning. The design experts will share lessons learned from applying the latest research to produce transformative AND popular games. Vote for our panel if you want to hear their best practices for such integral processes like research gathering,…

Einstein put it best: We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them. The world’s most beloved genius reminds us that it doesn’t take a genius to graduate beyond the state of being stumped. It only takes an earnestly dogged jury-rigger. Martha White’s Time Magazine article, “The Real Reason College Grads Can’t Get Hired,” reports the widely-held managerial observation that young job applicants either haven’t been born or bred to think critically…