Category Archives: People

The Cooney Center is thrilled to announce our new 2010-2011 Research Fellow, Dr. Becky Herr Stephenson. Becky received her Ph.D. in 2008 from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California. Her research interests include media literacy, teaching and learning with digital media and popular culture, and youth media production. Her dissertation, Kids as Cultural Producers: Consumption, Literacy, and Participation, investigates issues of access and media literacy through an ethnographic study of digital media production in two…

Stepping onto the elevator at 1900 Broadway for the first time, I took a deep breath and-for the hundredth time since leaving my apartment-lovingly instructed myself to Chill. Out. It was the first morning of my summer internship at the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, and I was scared. Scared, but not in the usual final exam, first day of school kind of way. I was scared of something worse. My apprehension was the type that comes with high expectations and…

There is something wonderfully simple about my 5-month-old daughter’s inexperience in our digital universe. I was three years old when the nation watched a woman in runner’s uniform hurl a hammer at “Big Brother” during Super Bowl XVIII. The world was invited to watch in awe and wonder how new technologies might empower us and where they could lead us next. At the time, my family had a Hershey computer running MS-DOS that my father built from a do-it-yourself kit…

Did you catch Michael H. Levine’s TEDxAtlanta speech back in May? In light of the fact that the event was entitled “Re: Learn” we thought it deserved a second look. In his eighteen minute talk, Michael shares three powerful trends in digital media that are revolutionizing learning. View his speech here.   Michael’s reflections: The TEDxAtlanta experience was a wonderful opportunity to demonstrate how communities can mobilize to translate innovation research, and new designs for learning into action. Convened by the leading…

The 2010 NBA Championship was not the only prize on the line at the Los Angeles Staples Center, on June 16, as four finalists competed in a quick pitch competition to win the first-ever Cooney Center Prizes for Innovation in Children’s Learning. Hosted by the Entertainment Software Association at its annual Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), the Cooney Center Prizes mobile learning category culminated in a quick pitch competition where each finalist presented their concept and engaged in a Q&A session…

Reprinted from the March 2009 from Cooney Center Bits Newsletter: The Roman Forum on Google Earth Last week, Google announced the winners of their first-ever nationwide curriculum contest using Google Earth. The Ancient Rome 3D Curriculum Competition challenged educators to create a K-12 lesson plan about Ancient Rome using the Ancient Rome layer in Google Earth. Truly versatile and integrated lesson plans were submitted, and the Cooney Center’s own Executive Director Michael H. Levine helped identify the work that rose…