Tag Archives: digital literacy

When I was a fourth-grade teacher, a minor scandal broke out when a student—who had proudly shared his private password with several friends—logged into our school library platform to find that all of his contacts and corresponding book recommendations had been deleted. This wasn’t due to a system glitch or the accidental click of a button—instead, a nascent classroom hacker had used that freely shared password to play a practical joke on her classmate. Looking back, this incident might have…

Dubit CEO Matthew Warneford estimates that within a decade, a million people will make their living from the metaverse. Another 100 million will build in immersive spaces for their own fulfillment. Can building in virtual worlds help make a better real world? The iCan Generation A full-fledged metaverse is a long way off, but Generation Z and the first wave of Gen Alpha are deeply engaged in using its emerging individual elements for play, work, learning, socializing and communicating. They’re…

As if any of us needed a reminder, the last few days showed us how quickly things can change. A month ago—or even a week ago—no one knew quite how different our day-to-day lives would be. Suddenly, kids are out of school, parents are working from home, and the way we socialize and interact with each other has seismically shifted. Now more than ever, families need to feel confident in their technology—which has been helping us stay connected when we…

On Thursday, March 12, 2020, PBS SoCal, KCET and the Los Angeles Unified School District, the second-largest district in the nation, announced a plan to provide Pre-K–12th grade educational programming throughout the daytime on PBS SoCal, KCET, and KLCS channels. This partnership has the potential to serve more than 600,000 students across Southern California. This multi-platform initiative includes robust digital resources, created in collaboration with KQED in San Francisco, through our online platform, PBS LearningMedia. Public television has long served…

As a children’s librarian at a small library, a significant part of my job is to find and purchase the best books, audiobooks, puzzles, apps, websites, devices, and even toys for kids and teens ages 0-18. I’m also tasked with making sure families can find them in the library. Some of these items will go on shelves for check out, some will be used in programs like storytime, the maker club or a long list of other programs held throughout…

How can you use technology to grab a struggling student? How does access to high-speed Internet open a world of learning? What combination of pedagogy and curriculum can deliver the magic blend of fun, interest, academic content, and the many component skills that lead to academic success—especially for students who need to make up for lost time?

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…

Cooney Center Research Associate Ingrid Erickson is teaming up with Ruth V. Small from Syracuse University and Eric Meyers from the University of British Columbia to co-edit a special issue of the journal Learning Media & Technology on the topic of digital literacy in informal learning environments. I’m excited to be co-editing an upcoming special issue of the journal Learning, Media and Technology that will be published in late 2012. We’re seeking proposals for papers that will focus on the…

According to research by the Kaiser Family Foundation, the typical American child — age 8 to 18 — spends no less than seven and a half hours a day engaged with media. According to research from Sesame Workshop and the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, younger children are also consuming media heavily — about 4 hours a day for the typical five year old. Television, cell phones, computers, etc. are not just part of these children’s lives — in a very…

While managing the @cooneycenter Twitter feed and live blog during this week’s Learning From Hollywood Forum, my mental gears were continuously whirring.  Rich threads of conversation spun back and forth online and in face-to-face conversation, through the #cooneyforum hashtag and the generous physical space provided by the USC School of Cinematic Arts (even the terrific film soundstages where lunch was held!) During the coming weeks, I’ll be working with the Michael Levine and Rebecca Herr-Stephensen from the Joan Ganz Cooney…