Tag Archives: research

Researchers gathered last month at the biennial Society for Research in Child Development conference in Salt Lake City to discuss the impacts of various technologies and media on children’s learning and development. The Joan Ganz Cooney Center was honored to organize a conversational roundtable inspired by the Responsible Innovation in Technology for Children (RITEC) initiative, founded by the LEGO Group and UNICEF and supported by the LEGO Foundation. On March 24,  2023, Cooney Center Senior Director of Research Medha Tare…

When I met Michael Levine outside a conference at UPenn in 2012, I had no idea how much that conversation would shape my career. From my earliest visits to the Joan Ganz Cooney Center office, I was struck by the infectious sense of purpose and energy there. Starting in 2013, I had the good fortune to partner with Michael, Lori Takeuchi, and the JGCC team in a multi-year research project to understand how initiatives to advance digital equity were influencing…

I started working at the Cooney Center out of college and grew to be the Research and Program Manager for the National STEM Video Game Challenge—a role that took me from Pittsburgh to the White House. As the Challenge grew, so did I. I was determined to understand how to guarantee positive outcomes from kids’ technology use. After lengthy conversations with my mentors at the Cooney Center, I pursued a dual PhD/MBA between Oxford and Yale focused on technology and…

Congratulations to the Joan Ganz Cooney Center on 15 years! This milestone is no small accomplishment and is a reflection of the Cooney Center’s heart and dedication to youth and their families. In a recent interview for a position, the interviewer asked me what my ideal work environment looked like. I told her that the first thing that came to mind was my time at the Cooney Center. In my experience, there was just so much to love and be…

Technology can be a transformative learning tool in the classroom. According to The National Education Technology Plan (NETP), technology has the potential to “affirm and advance relationships between educators and students, reinvent our approaches to learning and collaboration, shrink long-standing equity and accessibility gaps, and adapt learning experiences to meet the needs of all learners.” While these are lofty goals, to be truly effective, educators need to have the skills and support to take full advantage of technology-rich learning environments.…

It’s hard to believe 15 years have gone by since the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop launched. Due to the visionary force of nature that is Michael Levine, the Center swiftly earned its reputation for being an organization that serves as a nexus between research, policy, and practice in children’s learning and media. It also quickly became known as a launchpad for emerging scholars, entrepreneurs, and multi-sector leaders committed to advancing kids’ learning through media. I joined Sesame…

During my junior year of college, I came across the Cooney Center while looking for potential internship opportunities. To be clear, they hadn’t posted an internship, but I just knew I had to get in. After pestering Lori Takeuchi, I wore her down and I became an undergrad intern during the summer of 2012. It was worth the pestering. After spending just a few days in the corner of the Workshop that housed the Cooney Center, it was obvious that…

It was December 2013. I was finishing my master’s program in Media Design for Learning at NYU when one of my professors told me about a position at Sesame Workshop that, according to him, had my name all over it. Soon, three more people shared the same position with me, saying it “would be a perfect fit.” The position was for a bilingual qualitative researcher with professional experience working with young children to work on the Families and Media Initiative…

Jason Yip was a Cooney Center Fellow from 2013-2014 and remains a frequent collaborator through his work with KidsTeam UW. My time at the Cooney Center (2013 – 2014) came immediately after a stint as a doctoral student at the University of Maryland (UMD). At the time, I was completing my PhD in curriculum and instruction in science education, with some work in child-computer interaction. While I had a lot of projects at UMD (such as investigating the way children…

Alan Nong was a Cooney Center research intern from February 2014 to March 2015.   At the Cooney Center, I had the opportunity to work with some of the most amazing people as we investigated the issues facing modern Latino families and media use. From creating a Mission Impossible-style briefing video to site visits with the kids and their families, I knew the work we were doing was truly impactful. My time with the Cooney Center had played a major…