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The Cooney Center concentrates its programs on three core thematic areas: Learning Together, Literacy by 10, and Playful Learning.  Learn more about our projects here.

Future of Childhood Salon: Immersive Media and Child Development

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 hosted the inaugural Future of Childhood Salon on Immersive Media and Child Development. At this day-and-a-half workshop, we discussed the future of … 







Early Learning in the Digital Age

Promoting early learning through the support and empowerment of families—especially those who are under-resourced—has become an imperative for education leaders nationwide. New America and the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop have joined forces to document initiatives that use technology to connect with vulnerable families and improve educational outcomes. … 







FamLAB

Families Learning Across Boundaries Project (FamLAB)

The overarching goal of the Families Learning Across Boundaries (FamLAB) Project is to create an ecosystem that enables and encourages young children’s learning across settings, especially children from underrepresented populations. It draws upon evidence that the most resilient, adaptive, and effective learning involves individual, prolonged periods of engagement, and social … 







The App Fairy Podcast

The Joan Ganz Cooney Center is a proud to support the App Fairy, an original podcast featuring meet-the-author style interviews with top-quality children’s app makers. Created and hosted by children’s librarian Carissa Christner of the Madison Public Library, each App Fairy episode includes behind-the-scenes details about the app development process and research-based tips for using … 







Infographic Series: Reframing the Digital Divide

Internet service and digital technologies are critical for accessing a broad range of resources and opportunities. But how do low-income families decide whether to take advantage of programs (such as the Federal Communications Commission’s Lifeline program) that offer them reduced-cost broadband access and devices? How do they adopt digital technology, … 







Digital Games and Family Life

Once a novelty restricted to arcades, video games have become a deeply embedded part of our lives. As digital game platforms have become increasingly more affordable and more accessible over the past forty years, it has become clear that games aren’t just fun to play, but can motivate people of … 







Seeding Reading

Today’s children are surrounded by digital media of all kinds. How will they ever learn to read? That question is at the heart of Seeding Reading: Investing in Children’s Literacy in a Digital Age, a  series of articles and analysis by New America’s Education Policy Program and the Joan Ganz Cooney Center. This series of … 







Spotlight on Hispanic-Latino Families and Digital Media

The Joan Ganz Cooney Center has always been interested in how children—especially those who are struggling—learn across both formal and informal environments, whether they are interacting with media on their own or together with teachers, family members, or their peers. In June 2012 we deepened our commitment to learning more … 







The Families and Media Project

The Families and Media Project (FAM) aims to unearth the potential that media may have for enriching family learning and routines. To accomplish these aims, members of the Families and Media Research Consortium have conducted a series of studies that link large-scale data with in-depth illustrations. Findings are translated for … 







Games and Learning Publishing Council

Games and Learning Publishing Council

Game-based learning has emerged as a promising area of innovation in making rigorous academic content and professional practices more engaging, relevant and effective for America’s youth. Recently the National Academy of Sciences and the Federation of American Scientists have issued statements identifying the potential benefits of more robust experimentation and integration of digital games and simulations in K-12 education.  

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