Future of Childhood Salon: Immersive Media and Child Development
2018-11-07 - 2018-11-08
On November 7 and 8, 2018, the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop, the School for the Future of Innovation in Society at Arizona State University, and Dubit will host the inaugural Future of Childhood Salon on Immersive Media and Child Development. At this day-and-a-half workshop, we will proactively plan for the future of immersive media—i.e., virtual, augmented, and mixed realities—in the lives of preadolescents before these technologies become ubiquitous among children this age. A cross-sectoral group of approximately 65 child development and media researchers, learning scientists, child health experts, hardware and content developers, educators, journalists, and funders will look at these emerging media via a cascading series of considerations. These will be organized around necessary choices in order for VR, AR, and MR—from such time they are approved for use by pre-teens—to be unique, essential, safe, engaging, and beneficial to children’s socio-emotional, cognitive, and physical development. The goal is to emerge with an agenda for needed research, a framework for responsible development of immersive experiences for children, and industry-wide best practices that can evolve over time via cross-sectoral partnerships.

NAEYC 2018 Annual Conference
2018-11-14 - 2018-11-17 | Venue Washington D.C., Washington D.C., United States
The NAEYC Annual Conference is the largest early childhood education conference in the world. Each year, tens of thousands of teachers, program administrators, students, and researchers choose from hundreds of presentations and exhibits to explore the latest trends and research in the early childhood field.

Learn more and register: https://www.naeyc.org/events/annual

Family Online Safety Institute: 2018 Annual Conference
2018-11-15 | Washington, DC, Washington, DC, Select a Country:
The 2018 FOSI Annual Conference will see the launch of FOSI’s latest research report, “Online Safety Across the Generations.” Panels will address topics such as screen time and “tech addiction”, digital resilience and wellbeing, content moderation, children’s privacy, and how we can all work together to build a culture of responsibility online.

Learn more and register at fosi.org

Society for Research in Child Development 2019 Biennial Meeting
2019-03-21 - 2019-03-23 | Venue Baltimore, MD, Baltimore, MD
The Society for Research in Child Development hosts its 2019 Biennial Meeting in Baltimore, MD this year. The invited program features scholars from a number of countries (Australia, Germany, Mexico, South Africa, United Kingdom, United States), and disciplines (anthropology, economics, education, medicine, psychology, public health, public policy, sociology). Each day of the conference will be organized around one of these three themes: International, Interdisciplinary, and Relevant.

Learn more about the SRC Biennial Meeting.

LEGO Idea Conference 2019
2019-04-01 - 2019-04-03
The three-day LEGO Idea® conference offers a vibrant, playful and thought-provoking environment for group dialogues and impactful workshops. Participants from around the world come to debate, share insights, inspire and get inspired on topics within children’s learning, education and development.

The next conference will be held on 1-3 April 2019. This year’s theme is:
Unlocking the Power of Parenting.

ASU GSV Summit 2019
2019-04-08 - 2019-04-10
The ASU GSV Summit draws more than 4,500 leaders in education and talent tech. Attendees at this year’s summit will include CEOs, investors, school, district and university leaders, media, enterprise learning and talent leaders, politicians, foundation leaders and policy makers.

https://www.asugsvsummit.com

69th Annual International Communication Association Conference
2019-05-24 - 2019-05-28 | Washington, DC, Washington, DC, Select a Country:
The ICA 2019 conference theme of Communication Beyond Boundaries aims for an understanding of the role of communication and media in the crossing of social, political and cultural boundaries that characterize contemporary society, and encourages research that crosses the boundaries of research domains, of particular fields of research interest, and of academia and the outside world.

For more information, visit https://www.icahdq.org/page/2019Conference.

Reframing Learning Across Boundaries: Building Public Understanding and Support
2019-06-06
We know that children spend more than 80% of their time outside of school. But research indicates that millions of preschool and school age children—especially those from low-income communities—too often lack access to the connected, intentional, evidence-based educational nourishment that is needed to propel lifelong learning. To combat these inequities, policymakers and program developers have targeted expanded learning opportunities as a national priority. But research by the FrameWorks Institute has identified a disconnect that needs to be addressed: most people don’t fully appreciate the value of learning outside of school or the need to connect learning between different environments. This lack of appreciation for how, where, and when learning occurs holds important implications in building public support for needed reforms. Practitioners, program designers, and advocates need strategies to build greater understanding among their constituents about the value of these connections.

At the Summit, co-hosted by the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, the FrameWorks Institute, and PBS, a carefully selected group of leaders from across sectors and geographies will craft creative new strategies to support programs and policies that advance learning across boundaries. The Cooney Center will share findings from its research on how parents and teachers are connecting children’s learning across settings, and FrameWorks will share insights on how the general public and decision-makers think about children’s learning environments. The event will use these resources to launch a toolkit for the “reframing” of the national conversation and provide a chance to advance organizational alliances moving forward.

Immersive Media Design and Children Workshop
2019-06-15 | Boise, ID
Immersive Media Design and Children is a one-day workshop to be held at the 2019 Interaction Design and Children Conference in Boise, Idaho. Co-hosted by the Joan Ganz Cooney Center and foundry10, this workshop will bring together a community of researchers, designers, practitioners, and other experts who are interested in the responsible design of immersive media—or augmented, virtual, mixed, and cross reality—for children, while taking into account children’s developmental needs, equity, and inclusivity. At the workshop, participants will discuss and make connections across their work, participate in hands-on activities, and begin producing a set of design guidelines for immersive media for children, grounded in their collective experiences, research, and knowledge of the field. After the workshop, we will publish these guidelines as a white paper to distribute to interested industries, developers, designers, and more to positively impact the future of childhood. https://imdc-workshop.wixsite.com/idc2019

The Education Market: VR’s Best Hope? at XR for Change Summit
2019-06-17 08:00 - 17:00 (America/New_York)
On Monday, June 17, the Joan Ganz Cooney Center presents a panel discussion at the XR for Change Summit in New York City.

For years, experts have been predicting that immersive technologies like AR and VR are on the cusp of breaking into the mainstream market. But despite the dazzling experiences that users may encounter when they first try a VR headset, industry reports suggest there continue to be signs of instability in the hardware marketplace, and that consumer demand hasn’t been as strong as anticipated. Perhaps the classroom is where AR and VR will really shine.

Children are enthusiastic about AR and VR, and teachers have expressed greater engagement around lessons that incorporate immersive media. But is it safe? How are these technologies being deployed in the classroom – are teachers receiving the training and support they need to implement successful lessons? What happens when the novelty wears off? And as AR and VR continue to gain traction in the education marketplace, how can we ensure equitable access to these learning experiences for all students?

View the full agenda for the XR for Change Summit.

NAMLE Conference 2019
2019-06-26 - 2019-06-28 | Washington, DC, Washington, DC, Select a Country:
The theme for the 2019 National Association for Media Literacy Education conference is A Path Forward: Elevating Conversation, Unifying Voices. The conference is designed to provide a platform for including voices from diverse disciplines as we explore the future of media literacy in a rapidly shifting media landscape.

To learn more and to register, visit namleconference.net.

Play Make Learn 2019
2019-08-08 - 2019-08-09 | Venue Madison, Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin, Select a Country:
The Play Make Learn Conference promotes high-quality learning opportunities for educators, researchers, developers, designers, foundation leaders, policy makers, musuem and library professionals, and school leaders who are dedicated to promoting making, gaming, and playful learning. Play Make Learn provides hands-on workshops that engage the audience in cutting-edge learning science ideas and experience; keynote speakers who have expertise in communicating state-of-the-art design, education, and research; demonstrations of new and upcoming games and technology; and networking opportunities meant to spark new projects.

Learn more and register.

2019 Connected Learning Summit
2019-10-02 - 2019-10-05 | University of California, Irvine
The mission of the Connected Learning Summit is to fuel a growing movement of innovators harnessing emerging technology to expand access to participatory, playful, and creative learning.

The Connected Learning Summit represents a merger between three community events with this shared vision and values: the Digital Media and Learning Conference, the Games+Learning+Society Conference, and Sandbox Summit. With a unique focus on cross-sector connections and progressive and catalytic innovation, this event brings together leading researchers, educators and developers.

Learn more and register

CSforALL Summit 2019
2019-10-21 - 2019-10-23
The CSforALL Summit is a multi-day convening focused on rigorous, inclusive and sustainable computer science for all US students. There will be two plenary sessions where you will hear from both local and national stakeholders impacting systems change within CS education and highlighting their 2019 commitments. This year’s event takes place in Salt Lake City, Utah from October 21-23, 2019.

The Joan Ganz Cooney Center’s Executive Director Michael Preston will lead “Leveraging Public Media to Inspire All Kids to See Themselves in Tech,” a fireside chat with Debra Sanchez from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Milton Chen, senior fellow and executive director emeritus of the George Lucas Educational Foundation during the Systems for CS session on Tuesday, October 22.

View the full agenda

The Common Sense Census: Media Use by Tweens and Teens 2019
2019-10-29 09:00 - 11:00
The Common Sense Census: Media Use by Tweens and Teens 2019, an update to the 2015 study, is a big-picture look at how young people in America are engaging with media and explores differences by race, gender and socioeconomic status. The study reveals a huge increase in the amount of time tweens and teens are spending watching online videos and using devices for homework, even as the digital divide persists.

Please join Common Sense for a presentation of this research, followed by a panel discussion with child development experts, researchers, and educators, about how tweens’ and teens’ daily lives are affected by media and technology at home, at school, and in their communities.

The event will take place at Sesame Workshop at 9am on Tuesday, October 20, 2019.

Featured SpeakersJames P. Steyer, founder and CEO, Common Sense
Anya Kamenetz, author and education correspondent, NPR
Michael Preston, Executive Director of the Joan Ganz Cooney Center
Vicky Rideout, VJR Consulting
Michael Robb, senior director of research, Common Sense
LaVerne Srinivasan, vice president, national program and program director, education, Carnegie Corporation of New York
Emily Weinstein, postdoctoral research fellow, Harvard Graduate
School of Education

Register here
There is no charge to attend, but seats are limited and advance registration is required.

National Center for Families Learning 2019 Conference
2019-11-04 - 2019-11-06
The Families Learning Conference is the premier event focused on innovative strategies and practices in family literacy and learning, two-generation education, and parent and family engagement. Attending the conference will equip attendees with tools and strategies to use right away with the students, families, and communities they serve.Presented by the country’s top experts, sessions will be available in: Adult Education, Early Childhood Education, Funding and Sustainability, Library, K-12 Education, Parent Leadership, and Research and Policy.In addition to gaining strategies and resources, attendees have the opportunity to engage in networking events that inspire action.Visit http://conference.familieslearning.org/ for more information.

FOSI 2020 Annual Conference
2019-11-21
The Family Online Safety Institute’s 2020 Annual Conference theme is “2020 Vision: The Future of Online Safety.”

Leaders from industry, government, law enforcement and non-profits will come together in Washington, DC to collaborate and innovate new solutions to Internet safety challenges. There will be keynotes, plenary panels, breakout sessions, alongside exhibits and a networking reception.

Michael Preston, the Cooney Center’s executive director, will participate in a panel on designing for children.

Learn more and register for FOSI 2020 here

2020 NETA Conference & CPB Public Media Thought Leader Forum
2020-01-26 - 2020-01-30 | Arlington, VA
The NETA Conference and CPB Public Media Thought Leader Forum is dedicated to the foundational cornerstone of Public Media: Education. Attendees represent station leadership, education, community engagement, marketing, promotion, production and content to learn from national thought leaders and engage in hands-on discussions. This year the conference will explore the future of education and media, with a focus on the following areas: Media in the Classroom, Content, Community Engagement, Station Management, and Youth Voices.

The Joan Ganz Cooney Center will share highlights from our Families Learning Across Boundaries (FamLAB) Project with representatives from PBS SoCAL and Idaho Public Television, who were on project teams that were recipients of our Spark Grant awards.

Future of Childhood Summit
2020-03-03 - 2020-03-05 | San Francisco, CA
Event postponed

After much deliberation, the Future of Childhood Summit has been postponed. The planning team at Joan Ganz Cooney Center and Google are disappointed not to be able to host the Summit this March.We will share more details as soon as we are able to do so.

The Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop and Google will convene a Summit aimed at realizing our most positive visions of childhood in this tech-saturated age. This invitation-only event will bring together leaders from industry, research, education, and advocacy to create a unified vision of the future of childhood, in which all children grow up in a world where their interactions with media and technology enrich their learning, wellbeing, and safety. The summit will kick off on the evening of March 3 with an opening session and reception followed by two days of conversation and hands-on planning. We will reflect on how to nurture, empower and protect children while building new skills. The summit will be an opportunity to engage in discussion across industries and disciplines, and also develop a shared agenda for the decade ahead.

LEGO Idea Conference 2020
2020-03-09 - 2020-03-11 | Billund, Denmark
Cancelled

The LEGO Idea Conference invites thought leaders, practitioners, researchers, government representatives and social innovators to share their insights on new ways of learning that will equip and empower children to become creative, engaged, lifelong learners. Each LEGO Idea Conference features some of the most inspiring and influential speakers on topics related to learning, education and early childhood development. From young protagonists trying to change the system to established voices who are part of a deep-rooted way of thinking about learning and education.

View the conference website

ASU GSV 2020
2020-03-30 - 2020-04-01
GSV takes on society’s greatest challenge: Ensuring everyone has an equal opportunity to participate in the future. Started in 2010 with a collaboration between Arizona State University and Global Silicon Valley (GSV), the annual ASU GSV Summit is the industry catalyst for elevating dialogue and driving action around raising learning and career outcomes through scaled innovation. ASUGSV website

New York Academy of Sciences Webinar: COVID-19: Screen Time and the Developing Brain
2020-07-22 12:00 - 13:30 | Online
During COVID-19, children are spending more time in front of screens than ever before, with virtual school, video streaming, social media, and multiplayer games. Given that kids’ brains are still developing, should parents be concerned? What are the long-term effects? Is there such a thing as too much screen time? What will happen to kids and teens in a post-COVID world? How will they adjust to a life with less screen time? This panel will bring together experts in pediatrics, education, and digital media to discuss the effects of extensive screen time on the developing brain.

Speakers: Michael Preston, PhD, Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop; Sonia Livingstone, Dphil, The London School of Economics and Political Science; Jenny Radesky, MD, University of Michigan Medical School; and Michael Robb, PhD, Common Sense Media.

The event is free for NYAS members and $10 for non-members.

Learn more about the webinar and register here.

Parenting for a Digital Future
2020-07-29 12:00 - 13:00
Wednesday, July 29, 2020
9:00am PT / 12:00pm ET / 5pm BSTPlease join the Joan Ganz Cooney Center in celebrating the release of Parenting for a Digital Future, a new book by Sonia Livingstone and Alicia Blum-Ross that offers a balanced, in-depth exploration of the realities of parenting today. The authors will be joined by Anya Kamenetz, an education correspondent for NPR and author of The Art of Screen Time in a conversation hosted by Michael Preston, Executive Director of the Joan Ganz Cooney Center.

Together, they will discuss the challenges facing parents as they grapple with a digital age that is full of both opportunity and risk. What does a child’s growing independence mean in terms of digital technology, when the risks of online activity may be eclipsed by the public health dangers of the pandemic? Where do parents of tweens go for advice?

The event is free and open to the public.

Register here»
Learn more about Parenting for a Digital Future here »
Learn more about The Art of Screen Time here »

Speakers:

Sonia
Livingstone
Alicia
Blum-Ross
Anya
Kamenetz
Michael
Preston

FOSI 2020 Annual Conference
2020-11-18
This year’s Family Online Safety Institute’s Annual Conference, “Building Resilience,” will cover the many changing elements of online life, for ourselves, our families, and our world. The inherent obstacles and vast benefits of the digital world have become apparent to all of us now more than ever, and we look forward to the new challenge of examining these issues against the backdrop of a quickly changing social and cultural landscape.

Join Cooney Center Senior Fellow Mary Madden in a fireside chat with Facebook’s Antigone Davis at 1:15 PM ET.

For more information and to register, visit https://www.fosi.org/events/2020-annual-conference

The Future of Free Play in the Digital World
2020-11-20 08:00 - 17:00
On World Children’s Day, November 20, 2020, the Digital Futures Commission will launch ‘The future of free play in the digital world.’

The work of the Digital Futures Commission will be introduced by Baroness Beeban Kidron, 5Rights Foundation, followed by a panel discussion chaired by Professor Sonia Livingstone OBE, London School of Economics, with Ann Phoenix, Kate Cowan, and Chris Batemen, to mark #WorldChildrensDay. They will introduce Digital Futures with a panel exploring the future of free play in the digital world.

November 20, 2020 11:00 AM-12 PM GMT (6:00 AM EST)

Register: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_gxTYaQ-3TPiUsaLHX37-GQ

SXSW EDU 2021
2021-03-09 - 2021-03-11
The Joan Ganz Cooney Center is thrilled to share our work at SXSW EDU this year. Michael Preston and Senior Fellow Mary Madden will present highlights from our research on youth media practices in this conversation with Debra Sanchez (Corporation for Public Broadcasting) and Milton Chen (Edutopia.org, Sesame Workshop, Kellogg Foundation).

Tweens, Teens, & Public Media: The Missing Middle.

While most young kids watch PBS, they leave public media behind in their tween and teen years. But youth still need engaging and educational content as they form their identities, opinions, and sense of purpose. With its mission to inform and educate, public media must envision a future in which young people are equipped with the knowledge and skills to build the world they want to live in. We’ll discuss our latest research and how public media can serve this “missing middle” audience.

The session will be broadcast on the SXSW EDU platform on March 10, 2021 at 10:30am CT.

For more information and to register, visit sxswedu.com

Reframing Education for the 22nd Century
2021-04-07
2020 was a year unlike any we have experienced before … until 2021. We have witnessed the “hoaxification” of the COVID-19 pandemic, massive civic unrest in response to long-tolerated systemic racism and injustice, continued denial of climate change in spite of an increasingly inhospitable natural environment, and most recently, a violent insurrection seeking to disrupt democracy and encourage authoritarianism.At the root of these issues is more than a conflict between change and the status quo: it’s the difference between equitable and sustainable societies and life-threatening imbalances in power and privilege.One critical challenge is that our education systems are fundamentally designed to advance individualistic goals over collective success. Even “21st century skills,” such as collaboration and communication, are implemented in ways that fall short of their goals. As educators, we have a moral imperative to rethink our work so that children are prepared to bend, if not upend, the arc of history toward progress for the common good.Education should foster in each and every child an egalitarian mindset — a positive sense of oneself as a worthy individual rooted in valued cultural traditions, able and disposed to construct a view of reality from multiple perspectives and act in collaboration with others toward the common good. To develop an egalitarian mindset, we might consider these questions:
School climate and culture: What features of present-day school structures and cultures should students never or rarely experience?

Pedagogy, Curriculum and Assessment: What about current teachers and teaching, curriculum, and assessment should students never or rarely experience?

Technology: What should be the normative experience of every child with regard to technology, including AI? What should they never or rarely experience?
How would these changes lead to egalitarian mindsets?The Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop and the Center for Global Education at Asia Society invite you to participate in a series of provocative conversations with the goal of reframing the purpose of education as the foundation for a social movement toward equality and sustainability. We hope that you will join us.Dates: Wednesday, April 7, 14, and 28 (Skipping April 21)
Time: 1 PM US EDT for 75 minutes
Format: A weekly series of salons encouraging the free flow of ideas around how to build an education system for the 22nd century focused on the common good. In partnership with

The Missing Middle: Reimagining a Future for Tweens, Teens, and Public Media
2021-05-25 13:00 - 14:00
Tuesday, May 25, 2021
1:00 PM ET

Today’s tweens and teens feel they have outgrown the programming offered by public media as they begin to discover a world of information and entertainment at their fingertips. Yet even though they have access to an abundance of options for watching, listening, playing, and communicating, they are often underserved by quality content appropriate to their developmental stages and needs.

The Joan Ganz Cooney Center and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting have partnered to better understand how young people are engaging with media today. As part of our By/With/For Youth: Inspiring Next Gen Public Media Audiences project, we spoke with 50 tweens and teens across the U.S. about how they spend their time, what they find interesting, how they find new shows, apps, or videos, what issues are important to them, as well as what misconceptions adults have about youth. We asked them for their advice about what media producers should do if they want to engage with people their age, and we talked about how their lives have changed during the pandemic.

Please join us as we discuss our findings to be published in our forthcoming report, The Missing Middle: Reimagining a Future for Tweens, Teens, and Public Media on Tuesday, May 25 at 1pm. This event is free and open to the public.Learn more and register here»

Speakers:

Monica Bulger, Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop

Mimi Ito, Director, Connected Learning Lab, University of California, Irvine

Mary Madden, Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop

Michael Preston, Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop

Debra Sanchez, Corporation for Public Broadcasting

Studying Youth and Family Learning During the COVID-19 Pandemic at Connected Learning Summit 2021
2021-07-12 14:00 - 15:00
As schools around the United States were forced to turn to remote learning methods last spring, research teams around the country mobilized to study how families were adjusting to the pandemic. Join the Cooney Center, Stanford University, the University of Washington, and the University of Michigan at the Connected Learning Summit for a discussion about family learning as aided by technology during the pandemic, as well as how we as researchers can study such learning remotely. The symposium will take place on 2pm ET on July 12, 2021.Studying Youth and Family Learning during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Learn more about the Connected Learning Summit

The Augmented and Virtual Reality Policy Conference
2021-10-21
In the last decade, augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) have evolved from niche tools for enthusiasts and high-tech industries to more widely adopted communications technologies that have the potential to transform the way people communicate, collaborate, and learn. As AR/VR solutions gain traction across sectors, they will raise important policy considerations-some of which are already a part of broader tech policy discussions, while others will be unique to these technologies. Through a series of expert talks and panels, this half-day virtual conference organized by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation and the XR Association will explore the role of policy in AR/VR innovation and identify priority areas for policymakers to consider as these technologies continue to expand.
JGCC Executive Director Michael Preston will be speaking beginning at 1:25 PM EST on Thursday, October 21st, as part of the Lightning Round: Priorities for an AR/VR Policy Agenda panel.

Register for the conference here.
