Category Archives: Guest Posts

I started working at the Cooney Center out of college and grew to be the Research and Program Manager for the National STEM Video Game Challenge—a role that took me from Pittsburgh to the White House. As the Challenge grew, so did I. I was determined to understand how to guarantee positive outcomes from kids’ technology use. After lengthy conversations with my mentors at the Cooney Center, I pursued a dual PhD/MBA between Oxford and Yale focused on technology and…

Congratulations to the Joan Ganz Cooney Center on 15 years! This milestone is no small accomplishment and is a reflection of the Cooney Center’s heart and dedication to youth and their families. In a recent interview for a position, the interviewer asked me what my ideal work environment looked like. I told her that the first thing that came to mind was my time at the Cooney Center. In my experience, there was just so much to love and be…

I first learned about the Joan Ganz Cooney Center when I was working with Sesame Workshop’s research team as a graduate student. I was able to join Lori Takeuchi, who was the research director at the time, for fieldwork in Queens on a Cooney-Center study about young children’s perceptions of technology. The questions we asked during our interviews that day revealed that kids in 2010 didn’t differentiate between telephones, smartphones, flip phones, cameras, music players, and gaming devices. At that…

Technology can be a transformative learning tool in the classroom. According to The National Education Technology Plan (NETP), technology has the potential to “affirm and advance relationships between educators and students, reinvent our approaches to learning and collaboration, shrink long-standing equity and accessibility gaps, and adapt learning experiences to meet the needs of all learners.” While these are lofty goals, to be truly effective, educators need to have the skills and support to take full advantage of technology-rich learning environments.…

It was December 2013. I was finishing my master’s program in Media Design for Learning at NYU when one of my professors told me about a position at Sesame Workshop that, according to him, had my name all over it. Soon, three more people shared the same position with me, saying it “would be a perfect fit.” The position was for a bilingual qualitative researcher with professional experience working with young children to work on the Families and Media Initiative…

“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,…

“I know the right answer is to tell an adult, but I would not tell an adult. I would ask my friend Lucy for advice.”  This was a 7th grader’s response to a quiz question about cyberbullying.  The student was clear that while she knew the “correct” answer, it wasn’t the action she would take in real life. Schools tend to focus on talking about digital wellness, encouraging students to earn “cyber-savvy” certificates or creating “be kind online” posters- but…

Jessica Millstone was an Education Fellow from 2011-2014, where she honed her expertise in edtech and game-based learning. I first learned about the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at a pivotal moment in both my life and career. After years of working in K-12 schools and cultural institutions as a technology integration specialist, I had just invested in an advanced master’s degree from Bank Street College of Education and also gave birth to my second child (who is turning 12 next…

Parents often quip that children do not “come with instructions.” Underlying this joke is a real interest in supporting their children’s learning and development, but not always knowing how. And parents do need to know how to do their job well—their actions may determine children’s lifelong happiness and success.   In 2018, my team and I started Devie, an AI parenting coach startup, to help parents feel empowered about the decisions they were making and to help provide their children with…

WHYY has been running youth media programs for 20 years. In that time, we’ve grown our program from serving a dozen kids each year to serving a few thousand. We’ve helped nearly 50 Philadelphia schools launch their own youth media programs through WHYY Media Labs. Over the past four summers, we’ve been building bridges to employment for our students through the Pathways to Media Careers program, which combines job skill training with real-world work experiences where they can use their…