Category Archives: Guest Posts

What if algebra were more addictive than Angry Birds? Imagine an eight-year old mastering algebra on an iPad by sorting dragons into boxes. Or, what if middle schoolers could become proficient with fractions by playing a platform game similar to Super Mario Bros? How about if the doorway to mastering Newtonian physics involved ninth graders and digital levers? Now, what if a video game could both teach students to argue a point in an essay, read Great Books closely for…

The topic of kids and technology is a hot topic again. This would normally be a good thing, if the questions that are being discussed weren’t fundamentally the wrong ones. It is, however, a familiar situation. We are going through a normalization of a new technology, and it will be met in the same way that technology has been met before: with skepticism, doubt and the occasional hint of technophobia. Discussions like these cloud the interesting part—the choices that parents…

Last December, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced the results of its two-year review of the Children’s Online Privacy Protections Act (COPPA), including a series of amendments and rule changes aimed at updating the Act in light of recent technological and social developments. This was the first time COPPA had been revised since it was first introduced in 1998, and given all the new devices, industry practices and trends in children’s online behaviour (including social networking) that have emerged over…

Scratch makes it easy to create games using programming blocks that snap together, in the spirit of LEGO bricks. You can customize your Scratch projects by drawing or importing your own images and sounds. Since Scratch was released in 2007, more than a million kids (age 8 and up) have used it to create games, animations, simulations, and many other kinds of programs. Here are a few examples of cool games that young people have created with Scratch — including…

Today we are living in a world where our lives are being shaped in fundamental ways by the products of science and their application in technology. For millions of youth, videogames are a big part of some of their earliest and up-close encounters with advanced technologies that incorporate computer simulations, visualization, communication, and digital art among other things. Playing videogames is gaining increased recognition as a valuable educational activity both within formal (in-school), and informal (out-of-school) settings. Research studies have…

Over the past decade, the steady increase in the accessibility of the Internet has put new technologies at the fingertips of many. This evolving platform presents a niche for the development of digital literacy and a growing market for information technologies. With deep commitment to a mission serving the youth who need us most, my team and I at the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Washington (BGCGW) take on the responsibility of ensuring that every member who comes through…

What really matters for early-grade reading? That’s a question we tackled in a recent paper for policy makers and other non-academic audiences, titled “Launching Successful Readers:  The Role of ICT in Early-Grade Literacy Success.”  Our aim was to help guide and frame discussions about how to have more effective investments in technology for early-grade literacy, in both developed and developing countries, based on research about what really matters for literacy growth. No one disputes that many investments in technology for…

This post was originally published on 360kid’s blog and appears here with permission. For more than a decade I’ve been going to the annual NY Toy Fair, and I go primarily for one reason. To check out the latest technology toys. I’ve seen some amazing toys over the years, as well as hundreds, maybe thousands of other toys that just didn’t make the cut. This year a few new tech toy products caught my eye, and I’d like to share…

A little while back I was playing Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare with one of my patients, we’ll call him Alex*.  Twenty minutes into our game, I was clearly losing badly and dying a lot.  Although I am a gamer-affirmative therapist, first-person shooters have never been a favorite of mine.  In fact it was only recently that I started playing them at home and with patients at all.  The game ended with me having died 25 times to his 2. …

Every parent and concerned citizen in the U.S. has been following the national conversation about the need for a balanced response to the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. One area of concern that the President and Vice President highlighted in the action plan they presented last week is the role that media portrayals of violence may have on vulnerable children’s and their communities’ well-being. The President and Vice President have urged the Centers for Disease Control…