Tag Archives: access

What is one thing you believe must be done now to improve how children and families are faring during the current crisis, specifically as it relates to the media and technology in their lives?  Learn the ABCDs of equitable remote learning. Vikki Katz is an Associate Professor in the School of Communication and Information at Rutgers University. She is the author of Opportunity for All and Kids in the Middle. We have just jumped into a national experiment for students…

For many years, the “digital divide” signaled a split between people with access to the internet and those without. The term expressed concerns about those who may fall behind in the highly digitized economy of the 21st century. But with internet service now present in most U.S. homes, the gap has become more nuanced. Today, the question is less about access and more about quality and consistency of connection. A nationally representative telephone survey of 1,191 families conducted last year…

This post was originally published on the Common Sense Media Kids Action blog and appears here with permission. Read in Spanish here. In today’s society, access to technology is the path to academic and economic opportunity. This is especially true for kids, who increasingly need access to computers, printers and the Internet to keep up with schoolwork. But too many American children still don’t have access to the technology they need to succeed. New research from the Joan Ganz Cooney…

“Introduce your hearing-impaired child to a world of new friends,” reads the above 1986 advertisement in Exceptional Parent magazine for the TeleCaption II, a closed-captioning decoder system produced by the National Captioning Institute that could be hooked up to a standard television set.  By “a world of new friends,” the ad alludes to the cast of Sesame Street, symbolized here by bright yellow Big Bird, who boldly stands out from the black-and-white background.  In a mock-up of the TeleCaption II…

Last December, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced the results of its two-year review of the Children’s Online Privacy Protections Act (COPPA), including a series of amendments and rule changes aimed at updating the Act in light of recent technological and social developments. This was the first time COPPA had been revised since it was first introduced in 1998, and given all the new devices, industry practices and trends in children’s online behaviour (including social networking) that have emerged over…

The Open Education Movement advocates sharing content, reducing barriers to, and increasing access in in education. During Open Education Week, the organization will host free events online and in locations around the world to raise awareness of the movement and its impacts.  Participation in all events is free and open to anyone. For more information, please visit the official site.

Welcome back! In our first post, we told you about Connected Foundations, a digital literacy program funded by the US Department of Commerce’s Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) and managed by the NYC Department of Education and the NYC Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications. In this post, we’ll describe the “badged and blended” formula we use in courses for NYC high school students. What does “badged and blended” mean? Instructional content in our online platform, BadgeStack, is grouped into…

Avast! Today marks an exciting day for our hornswoggling crew here at Launchpad Toys: Toontastic Jr. Pirates is LIVE in the App Store for iPhone and iPad! With 3 million cartoons created in over 150 countries, our first app – Toontastic – has been a great success for kids ages 6-12. Now, with the launch of Toontastic Jr. and our new StoryShare platform for online, creative Co-Play, little brothers and sisters as young as 3 years old can create their…

On June 8th, the National Center for Family Literacy (NCFL), the Joan Ganz Cooney Center (JGCC) and the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) convened more than 50 of the nation’s leading scholars, practitioners, and policy-makers to discuss the state of our knowledge of the role and implications of digital technologies in the lives of Hispanic-Latino families. As a graduate student intern at the Cooney Center, I helped conduct a literature review and write a corresponding background paper for the Hispanic-Latino Families and Digital…