Initiatives

The New Coviewing Initiative: Investigating and Designing for Joint Media Engagement

In the 1980s, communications researchers discovered that children whose parents talk about Sesame Street as they watch learn more from the show. Caregivers who coview with their children can help guide their attention to media features salient for learning. But today, with approximately two-thirds of mothers in the workforce and more platforms delivering media into homes than ever before, children are often engaged with media by themselves, at earlier ages, and for longer periods of time. We can no longer consider television the primary platform, parents the primary participants, or living rooms the primary settings for shared media experiences. In the changing face of American family life, we must now also turn our attention to mobile devices and video games; teachers, grandparents, and siblings; and schools, after-school programs, museums, and the backseats of cars.

Key Tags:  coviewing, joint media engagement, JME, LIFE Center, families, learning, digital media, television

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E-book QuickStudy

In line with our previous research on coviewing and intergenerational play, the research team at the Joan Ganz Cooney Center wants to get a sense of how interactions between adults and children are taking place when reading electronic books, or e-books. How do adults and children read e-books compared to print books? Is someone more in charge on one format over another? Does one format encourage more conversation between adults and children? Which design features of e-books appear to support parent-child interaction? Do any features detract from these interactions?

Key Tags:  e-book, QuickStudy, research, NYSCI, families, intergenerational, coviewing, iPad

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QuickStudies

QuickStudies are informal field explorations of learning around digital media. New forms of digital media are hitting the market and entering homes at a faster rate than academic researchers can study them. By the time studies are completed and findings are published, these media may already be yesterday's news. As an alternative to the traditional research cycle, the Joan Ganz Cooney Center has developed QuickStudies as a means of quickly exploring new media with the purpose of determining which research questions to pursue later on in more formal investigations with partnering institutions. 

Key Tags:  QuickStudy, research, new media, NYSCI, field research, IRB, e-books

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Games and Learning Publishing Council: Analyzing a Rising Sector

(A national inquiry by E-Line Media and the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, generously supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation)

Game-based learning has emerged as a promising area of innovation in making rigorous academic content and professional practices more engaging, relevant and effective for America’s youth. Recently the National Academy of Sciences and the Federation of American Scientists have issued statements identifying the potential benefits of more robust experimentation and integration of digital games and simulations in K-12 education.

Key Tags:  games, learning, education, markets, investment, game-based learning, gaming industry, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, E-Line Media

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National STEM Video Game Challenge

Inspired by the "Educate to Innovate" campaign, President Obama's initiative to promote a renewed focus on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) education, the National STEM Video Game Challenge aims to motivate interest in STEM learning among America's youth by tapping into students' natural passions for playing and making video games.

Key Tags:  STEM, video games, prize, innovation, E-Line Media, Microsoft, ESA, Microsoft, AMD, ALA, American Library Association, AASL, American Association of School Librarians, Boys & Girls Clubs of America, Club Tech, BrainPOP, IDGA, Educate to Innovate, White House

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2010 Cooney Center Prizes for Innovation in Children's Media

The goals of the Cooney Center Prizes for Innovation are to identify, inspire, nurture, and scale breakthrough ideas in children's digital media and learning. The program will annually award cash prizes and provide ongoing business planning support and mentorship to a new generation of children's media entrepreneurs and visionaries.

Key Tags:  innovation, prize, competition, Mattel, Skild, literacy, mobile, The Electric Company

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Story Visit

The Cooney Center Sesame Workshop, and Nokia Research Center have formed a research collaboration to explore ways in which mobile media can support family communication and literacy. Dr. Glenda Revelle, a Senior Fellow at the Cooney Center is the recipient of the Center's first Nokia-funded research fellowship.

Key Tags:  literacy, Nokia, reading, intergenerational, coviewing, Glenda Revelle, Sesame Workshop, Elmo

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Intergenerational Play and Literacy Learning

Forty years of Sesame Street research has consistently demonstrated greater learning benefits when children co-view an educational television program, compared to viewing alone. Might benefits also accrue when adults and children use educational games together?

Key Tags:  Intergen, educational research, co-viewing, game research, educational gaming, Cynthia Chiong, video games, intergenerational learning

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Giigle Study

The Internet has great potential as a source of learning for children, but search engines such as those offered by Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft were originally designed for adults. Given the growing number of young children who are using the Web, we need to understand how children approach forming queries, make sense of the results presented, and how they may be hampered by the search engine's interface and/or by their own cognitive abilities. With the knowledge gained from the Giigle study, new interfaces and algorithms can be designed specifically for children.

Key Tags:  Allison Druin, HCIL, Giigle, search, educational research, digital literacy

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First Book Literacy Initiative

This model development project is examining how to deliver printed and digitally formatted books and other rich interactive educational media through existing distribution channels to low-income and minority children in the United States. The Center has established a partnership with First Book, an internationally acclaimed literacy network of preschool, afterschool, and school-based programs that have distributed more than 50 million books in the U.S. Key partners in the planning are Dr. Allison Druin, whose Human-Computer Interaction Lab at the University of Maryland is developing prototypes and exhibitions of digital books from the International Children's Digital Library and Christopher Cerf of Sirius Thinking Ltd., the noted children's literacy expert and Creative Producer of the Public Broadcasting System's Emmy Award-winning early literacy program, Between the Lions.

Key Tags:  First Book, literacy, development model, Allison Druin, HCIL, ICDL, Christopher Cerf, Sirius Thinking, LongView Foundation, Between The Lions

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