Category Archives: Guest Posts

“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…

2021 set off alarm bells for big tech when the courageous whistle-blowers Frances Haugen, Sophie Zhang, and Nobel Prize winner Maria Ressa made front-page news of irresponsible design of technology – an issue that’s also demonstrated by 5Right’s extensive research. The digital world is entirely human-made: designers, engineers, and rule-makers can imagine and design the digital world so that children are protected from harm and their rights are upheld. A pioneering new standard shows how. Many policymakers, civil society organizations,…

This post originally appeared on the Digital Futures Commission website and appears here with permission.   Last fall, the Digital Futures Commission (DFC) launched ‘Playful by Design: Free play in a digital world.’ The report looks at a crucial important aspect of children’s development – free play – and at how digital products and services succeed and fail in facilitating it. At our launch event, Baroness Beeban Kidron OBE and Professor Sonia Livingstone OBE were joined by key experts in the field of free play who discussed and explored our reporting as…

While young children are off school over winter break, many families will be looking for activities to keep kids learning and having fun. On cold winter days, creating art or music together using a touchscreen app is one way for caregivers to connect and support the cognitive and social development of their early learners.  Research on Joint Media Engagement (JME) from the Joan Ganz Cooney Center demonstrates that media can provide important social, emotional, and cognitive experiences for children when…

This post was originally published on GettingSmart.com Across the United States, children are returning to school. For some, it will be their first time since March 2020. The past year and a half has been a challenging, if not devastating, disruption for families, teachers, and administrators. Now we’re all hungry for a return to normal. But at what cost? Normal, for vast numbers of American students, is not something to which we should aspire to return. For too long, our society…

Like many digital learning products, Sago Mini provides tools to engage parents in their child’s play experience. However, unlike most similar products, you won’t find a single chart, graph, score, or badge that measures your child’s success.  It’s well-established in the industry that while parents often express an interest in having dashboards that track their child’s learning, very few actually use them. With that in mind, it was with some caution that we began to explore the idea for a…

The following excerpt is from Why Play Works: Big Changes Start Small by Jill Vialet and appears here courtesy of publisher Jossey-Bass. The book is designed to support schools, educators, and parents in promoting play as an essential tool to help children learn to manage risks, develop greater self awareness, and build confidence while strengthening social connections. Power of Play One of the most important things the extended youth development community agrees on is that caring adult relationships significantly contribute to…