Category Archives: Sandbox

Earlier this year, the edtech startup LitLab began testing a new feature in their classroom product that creates AI-generated storybooks for early readers. The feature is a “record me” option for kids reading aloud, backed by technology that can analyze the recordings to assess student progress and facilitate personalized feedback from both the app and human teachers. As a technology, the feature worked well in the pilot classrooms. The problem was that too many students seemed reluctant to use it. …

The Joan Ganz Cooney Center has officially welcomed the first six edtech partners into the Cooney Center Sandbox for Literacy Innovations. Supported in part by the Walton Family Foundation, the Sandbox aims to foster edtech design informed by the science of learning and the creative spark of children.  The six partners, introduced below, are working on a wide range of new literacy tools to help kids both in and outside of classrooms, from an octopus reading buddy to “beasties” hungry for…

The Cooney Center’s new initiative matters for kids and teachers Early in my education career, I taught ninth-grade English in a small public high school. My vivacious, curious students came from all over San Francisco for our school’s strong community, youth leadership focus, and promise of college readiness. I was an enthusiastic and capable young teacher, excited to read and discuss compelling books with students and to coach them to find their voice and clarify their ideas through writing. My…

Generative AI is here to stay—so how can we help children understand what it is and how to use it responsibly? On March 3, 2025, the Joan Ganz Cooney Center was thrilled to participate in a panel at SXSW EDU exploring how AI can enhance, rather than replace, the student-teacher relationship. Moderator Lisa Guernsey, Director of the Learning Sciences Exchange at New America, opened the conversation by highlighting AI’s potential to reshape literacy and computational thinking. She emphasized that AI-powered…

The tables were strewn with multicolored pipe cleaners, clumps of clay, construction paper, markers, feathers, scissors, tape, and other arts and crafts materials. On a Friday afternoon last June, about a dozen kids, ranging from 8 to 12 years old, filled a studio space in New York’s School of Visual Arts with noisy, exuberant chatter as they brought their brainstorms to life with marker-stained fingers. Several adults joined the creative chaos, including game designers from Mrs Wordsmith, a developer of…

The Joan Ganz Cooney Center with support from the Walton Family Foundation, is excited to announce a three-year initiative with a simple, yet profound goal: ensuring that the needs and perspectives of children from diverse backgrounds drive educational technology products development for use at home or in school.  The Cooney Center Sandbox aims to reshape an edtech marketplace that is booming in the financial sense—with U.S. school districts spending more than $40 billion annually on apps and software—but lacking evidence…

The Call for Applications is now open through October 11, 2024.  If you follow our work, you may have seen the incredible results produced by our inaugural cohort of Well-Being by Design Fellows.  Building from the success of the first year of this program, the Joan Ganz Cooney Center is thrilled to announce a second year of the Well-being by Design Fellowship, supported by Pinterest.  We invite applications from mid-career designers of kids’ technology and media who want to prioritize…

In 2024, the Joan Ganz Cooney Center invited 10 professionals who design kids tech to join us for the inaugural Well-Being by Design Fellowship. The organizations that these fellows represent range from small startups to large, well-established companies; all of them share a passion for creating great digital experiences for young people.  Throughout the fellowship, we met regularly as a learning community, workshopping ideas informed by well-being and child development frameworks and applying them to the fellows’ digital products for…

 I recently had the chance to chat with Michael Preston, Executive Director of the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop, for a new episode of the Designing for Children’s Best podcast, produced by the Designing for Children’s Rights Association. The result was an inspiring conversation between Michael and myself, Polina Lulu, regarding one of Michael’s recent talks, “Building a Positive Digital Future for Kids, with Kids—Together.” We dove into each of the title words individually and in relation to…

In January 2024, the Cooney Center announced 10 fellows in our inaugural Well-being By Design cohort. Since then, the fellows have been meeting regularly to learn about the frameworks and approaches that can help media and technology companies integrate well-being principles deeply into their products for children. During this period, the fellows have had opportunities to workshop their emerging insights with a parallel cohort of teenagers in the Cooney Center’s Youth Design Team. With representation from across three US time…