Tag Archives: parents

Televisions, touchscreens, and smartphones are now almost ubiquitous in homes. Many young children are watching, listening to, or interacting with two to three hours of screen media per day. In the latest installment of the Ideas Lunch series at the Governance Lab, a Brooklyn-based action research lab focused on the use of new technology to govern better, the Cooney Center’s Michael Levine explained that rather than portending the death of reading, devices, apps, and tools can help children learn by…

** The results of this survey are now available in the Digital Games and Family Life infographic series ** Back in 2012, the Joan Ganz Cooney Center embarked on a multi-stakeholder game design project, also known as “Hard Fun: Learning Mathematics,” funded by the NSF with lead designers at E-Line Media and premier researchers in neuroscience from University of Rochester and Johns Hopkins University. The goal was to design and research an educational game that both parents and kids would…

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…

Here at the Cooney Center, we have seen the need to provide research-based guidance to help sift through the mountains of kids’ media that is out there (see our reports Always Connected and D Is for Digital) — so we are thrilled that Common Sense Media (CSM), the almost 10-year-old organization known for smart guidance and reviews of kids’ media, has beta-launched a new “ratings” system that deepens the appeal of their already appealing website. The ratings are intended to…

We’re pleased to help our friends at Reading Rockets spread the word about their great new mobile site. But even beyond the great content that the site provides, they’re also offering the chance to win some great prizes, including an iPod Nano. Rachael Walker shares more information on the new mobile website and how to win below: For more than ten years, Reading Rockets has been spreading the word about research-based reading instruction and offering the latest information on what…

I recently had the pleasure of sitting on a panel at the MacArthur Foundation’s Digital Media and Learning conference to discuss mobile learning. As our good friends at Project Noah and other games/apps like The Hidden Park have shown, mobile devices like the iPhone and iPad present incredible opportunities for developers like ourselves to get kids out of the house, learning about the world around us, and sharing their findings with peers around the globe. Inevitably, the Million-Dollar-Question arose: How…

In my first week on the job at the Joan Ganz Cooney Center I learned about two terrific Websites — Poptropica and Whyville. I dutifully recommended them to my brother and sister-in-law, who are ever in search of “good” digital media for their 8-year-old. “Thanks so much for these,” Debbie responded. “So helpful. I was just about to search the web for some good math sites for Marta… she definitely needs practice that is also fun. She’s holding her own…

The Sesame Workshop research team has been following the development of a game promoting intergenerational computer literacy. Mindy Brooks shares some of the lessons they’ve learned about designing an educational game that appeals to both parents and kids. How do you design a game to engage both parents and children to play together and ultimately enhance the child’s literacy skills? After hearing multiple exclamations from parents such as, “Watch out for that word!” or “No, that’s not the “t” sound!”,…