Tag Archives: policy

This post originally appeared in the Huffington Post. It’s that time again. New commitments and new resolutions to make…and hopefully keep. As educators and children’s advocates we are involved in many initiatives whose goals are reimagining education and providing equal opportunity to all children. We are board members and advisors to some nonprofits that are doing remarkable work with kids — Sesame Workshop, Creative Commons, The Forum for Youth Investment, We Are Family Foundation, Learning Matters, Vroom and Journeys In…

On December 10, 2014, President Obama hosted the White House Summit on Early Education. Michael Levine was invited to participate in a panel on Equity and Excellence in the Earliest Years hosted by Megan Smith, Chief Technology Officer of the United States and Shannon Rudisill, Director of the Office of Child Care. The following are his remarks:   Good afternoon colleagues, I’m Michael Levine and I run the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop.  The Workshop—now over four decades…

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…

Every parent and concerned citizen in the U.S. has been following the national conversation about the need for a balanced response to the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. One area of concern that the President and Vice President highlighted in the action plan they presented last week is the role that media portrayals of violence may have on vulnerable children’s and their communities’ well-being. The President and Vice President have urged the Centers for Disease Control…

Every parent and concerned citizen in the U.S. has been following the national conversation about the need for an urgent and balanced response to the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.  One area of concern that the President and Vice President highlighted in the action plan they presented on this week is the role that media portrayals of violence may have on vulnerable children’s well-being.  Our leaders will urge the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to…

The Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) has released “Making Progress: Rethinking State and School District Policies Concerning Mobile Technologies and Social Media.”  While the title is just barely tweetable at 110 characters, the report could essentially be boiled down to just four letters: BYOT:  Bring your own technology (twitter hashtag #BYOT.) The goal of the policy report, which is the result of a convening of senior level education leaders and policy makers in December 2011 by CoSN and the FrameWorks…

Here at the Cooney Center, we often talk about the importance of multi-disciplinary collaboration, and I love it when talented people from different sectors of the industry get together and do something great.  Last week, brilliant app developer Andy Russell of Launchpad Toys joined forces with one of my favorite kids-tech writers, Dan Donahoo of WIRED’s GeekDad blog, on what I think is an extremely important initiative.  The pair has released the Children’s App Manifesto, which was unveiled via this…

This piece originally appeared in the Huffington Post.   On Tuesday, June 7, the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop will present a report at the E 3 Expo in Los Angeles that may surprise media designers and cause policymakers to step back from their current concerns about kids’ digital multitasking addiction, cyber-bullying, violent videogames, and mobile disruptions in school. While much of the public discussion about digital media is concentrated on how little influence parents have in shaping…

Last Wednesday, April 27th, New York University held a special event to celebrate the work of University Professor Jerome Bruner. This year marks the 50th anniversary of his landmark publication, The Process of Education. Panel discussions between leading researchers who worked with Bruner in the 1960s and notable authors and academics working in education today, provided the audience with a sense of the legacy of Bruner’s work, along with ideas of how we might yet see it realized 50 years…

A few weeks ago I blogged about Fisher Price’s new iPhone case, a plastic case that protects the devices from the poking, prodding, and sticky fingers of young children. I commented on how we’ve figured out how to protect the device from sticky fingers, but questioned who’s protecting those sticky fingers from the device. Well, it seems like Apple has taken one step in the right direction. Recent accounts of children unknowingly racking up thousands of dollars through in-app purchases…