Tag Archives: coviewing

Imagine someone telling you that a new technology would be available in five years that has the potential to revolutionise childhood and early education. But the downside is that you will have to choose from among 80,000 possible options. This is the problem currently facing many parents. Following the invention of the iPad in 2010, by January 2015 there were 80,000 apps marketed as “educational” in the Apple App Store alone. We recently published a large-scale review of more than…

We recently released Family Time with Apps: A Guide to Using Apps with Your Kids, a free interactive guide for parents and caregivers. The book features comic strips that parents and children can enjoy together, as well as tips on selecting apps that can help turn screen time into family time. Whether the challenge is preparing for a new experience like starting school, spending more time outside, connecting to distant loved ones, or reading together every day, the guide provides…

Many kids received new tablets, smartphones or video games over the holidays. And now that the holiday break is coming to an end and students are preparing to return to school, it’s a good time to evaluate the way they are using these new media tools. While most parents we know are happy that their kids are well-versed in these new digital media, they are also concerned about issues like how much time they are spending on these devices, who…

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…

What makers of technology for early education can learn from Sesame Street. Whether you’re at a restaurant or on an airplane, you can’t miss changes in adult-child interactions from just a generation ago. Everyone is plugged in. It seems almost quaint to see kids and adults engaged together in screen-free play. Four-year-olds now consume three hours of media per day, and fourth graders more than five hours. And it is not just youth—adults are also increasingly finding it difficult to turn off…

Until last year, I had a strong appreciation for Muppets, but limited knowledge of the role of children’s media in the 21st century. I was purely of the first generation of ‘Streeters — the generation whose episodes now come with a parental warning.  But in March 2011, everything changed.  While staying with my nephews in Maadi, a neighborhood of Cairo, Egypt, for a few months, I got a first-hand glimpse into  some of the affordances of digital tablets and the way…

Last month, we released the results of our first QuickStudy on e-books. This report, “Teacher Attitude about Digital Games in the Classroom,” was inspired by the continued growth of e-readers — the Kindles, Nooks, and iPads that are almost ubiquitous now — and the exploding popularity of e-books for children. At the Cooney Center, we study how children’s learning is impacted by the technologies that surround them. There’s no doubt that kids are drawn to digital media — we’ve all…

How can technology allow us to provide teachable moments and meaningful interactions across challenges of everyday life? How can a single parent who works until 9:00 at night help a child with homework assignments after school? Is there a way for distant relatives to read story books together with young children despite being far apart? What would a video game for children and grandparents to play together look like? These are just a few of the possible scenarios that characterized…