Cooney Center Sandbox

The Cooney Center Sandbox is a design and innovation lab that helps digital media innovators create products that are good for kids.

Channeling Sesame-inspired design practices, we harness evidence-based research and co-design experiences with kids and families to help industry leaders and product development teams answer: How do you know what you are making is engaging and appropriate for kids? And, how do you know it will have a positive impact?

Designing with kids, for kids

The Cooney Center Sandbox uses a consultancy approach with industry partners to answer pressing questions on designing products for kids’ learning, development, and well-being.

Collaborating with product teams
We work closely with product teams, sharing the most up-to-date research critical to their work. We then customize participatory sessions with kids from diverse backgrounds, including co-designing, prototyping, playtesting, or a combination, to elevate kids’ perspectives in their products.

Advising industry leaders
We help digital media leaders and investors understand and support child-centered design practices. We leverage our research and content expertise to customize a series of experiences—such as workshops, expert panels, convenings—for leadership, product teams, emerging professionals in the field, and other stakeholders.

Mobilizing research for practical applications
We also work with investors and philanthropic funders to design and implement customized research studies that help them—and the field—better understand areas of shared interests and concerns:

• kids’ digital media use and its impact on their learning, development, and well-being
• the role of kids in digital media development
• the impact of participatory research on kids’ learning and development
• the impact of participatory research on products themselves, leading to improved learning, development, and well-being outcomes for the kids who use them

Kids as experts and learners

Young people are often experts in the media they use and have perspectives on the experiences they want. The Cooney Center works with community partners to engage kids from diverse backgrounds in our co-designing experience with digital media innovators.

Research indicates that kids’ co-design participation can build critical skills often not taught at school, including collaboration, communication, and confidence. Our co-design experiences bring kids from diverse backgrounds into roles where they partner directly with professionals and experience authentic STEM activities.

By doing so, digital media products better reflect the diverse perspectives of kids, and, in turn, better support their well-being and learning.

Our Partners

The Cooney Center works with community organizations, R&D partners, and innovative digital media product partners who seek to improve their work on behalf of kids. We center learning in our partnerships, and do not certify nor endorse products. Together, we commit to the process of helping kids to become smarter, stronger, kinder in our digital world.

For more information about working with us, please contact us here. 

 

R&D partners The GIANT Room KidsTeam UMD

Product partners Mrs Wordsmith Oko Labs Reading Reimagined -AERDF Scratch Foundation Story Jam

 

 

We are grateful to the Walton Family Foundation for supporting the Cooney Center Sandbox.

 

 

Sandbox: Project Highlights

 

 

Read more about our projects:

• Re-imagining Reading: How Reluctant Readers Would Design Their Own Educational Technology
• How Would Kids Design a Social Networking App That Supports Their Digital Citizenship?
• Webinar: Co-Designing the Digital Future with Kids, for Kids (September 27, 2023)
• “We would have created our own ‘adult’ version of fun”: Adult co-designers’ perspectives on designing technology with children
• Kindergarteners Are Designers: Improving ScratchJr
• Designing with Kids: How Children and Adults Can Co-create New Technology