Tag Archives: RITEC

In this episode of Into the Digital Future, Shuli Gilutz speaks with Jordan Shapiro and Laura Higgins about the Responsible Innovation in Technology for Children (RITEC) initiative, led by The LEGO Group and UNICEF and funded by the LEGO Foundation. They discuss the RITEC-8 framework, developed through research conducted with over 750 children in 18 countries. Shuli discusses the release of the RITEC Design Toolbox, which has been created as a set of tools for design teams to support their…

Here at the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, we talk to a lot of folks who design digital products for children. One topic that comes up consistently is the challenge of applying quality academic research to everyday design practice. We are very proud to be a part of the Responsible Innovation in Technology for Children (RITEC) project because a key goal has always been to generate research-based insights from children’s perspectives that are easy for designers to use. After more than…

As an instructor at the Fowler School of Engineering at Chapman University, I teach an undergraduate  Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) class regularly. This class is a hands-on, project-based course that teaches students the fundamental principles of HCI and Interaction Design. The course aims to enable students to apply interaction design methodology—discovering requirements, designing alternatives, prototyping, and evaluating—to develop technology that puts the user’s needs upfront. In the Spring 2024 semester, our class goal was to design technology that supports the digital…

During the week of the 2024 Games for Change Festival, the Cooney Center had the privilege of helping to organize a series of events to bring the Responsible Innovation in Technology for Children Project (RITEC) learnings to life by sharing the backstory of the research process and work with children, and demonstrating how some have begun putting the RITEC-8 framework into practice. Celebrating the launch of the recent RITEC research report: Diving into working with children for children We started…

In 2024, the Joan Ganz Cooney Center invited 10 professionals who design kids tech to join us for the inaugural Well-Being by Design Fellowship. The organizations that these fellows represent range from small startups to large, well-established companies; all of them share a passion for creating great digital experiences for young people.  Throughout the fellowship, we met regularly as a learning community, workshopping ideas informed by well-being and child development frameworks and applying them to the fellows’ digital products for…

We are very excited to share new research produced by UNICEF Innocenti – Global Office of Research and Foresight as part of the Responsible Innovation in Technology for Children (RITEC) initiative. The Cooney Center was fortunate to hear insights from the researchers as the report was being finalized. From a Cooney Center perspective, there are several things that we love about it: Many initiatives work to create a framework and then leave it there. The RITEC initiative developed the RITEC-8…

The importance of play for children’s development and learning has long been recognized by parents, educators and researchers.1 Much of our lives are now being lived in digital contexts, and this is true for children as well. With the global popularity of video games such as Minecraft and Angry Birds, a great deal of children’s play these days includes digital games. This has raised some concerns about possible negative effects of digital technology, and it is important that parents help…

The Cooney Center was honored to be invited to PRIVO’s inaugural Children’s Digital Privacy Summit in Los Angeles in January. We don’t have the opportunity to connect with those in the privacy and compliance world as much as we would like, so it was extremely valuable to learn about ins and outs of the challenging environment that companies are navigating. We were glad to be able to offer an aspirational reminder to attendees of what a positive digital world for…

As digital games become ever more embedded in our daily lives, game designers and developers have the potential to create a positive impact through their work. This growing influence prompts us to consider a pivotal question: how can we navigate the ethics of digital game creation and be mindful of the impact that design choices have on players’ experiences, societal values, and most crucially, the well-being of the younger generation? Across a two-day conference that drew interest from over 600…

The Cooney Center was thrilled to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of the Games for Change Festival alongside an incredible community of thoughtful people dedicated to making games and the world better. We always learn so much at the festival and make so many important connections that help us to advance our work. This year was no exception. The theme of the Cooney Center’s participation in the festival this year was designing digital play for well-being.    Why focus on well-being?…