First Joan Ganz Cooney Center Symposium Unveils New Research

NEW YORK, May 9: Today’s
first annual Joan Ganz Cooney Center Symposium, “Logging Into The Playground:
How Digital Media Are Shaping Children’s Learning,” presented the results of
three special reports that focused on the educational potential of new media in
kids’ lives.

The three special reports
are: The Power of Pow! Wham!: Children, Digital Media and Our Nation’s
Future, centered on the
recommendations of 60-plus industry leaders who identified key research and
policy to accelerate children's learning; Getting Over the Slump: Innovation
Strategies to Promote Children’s Learning, a report by Arizona
State University professor and gaming expert James Paul Gee, featuring
potential strategies to promote children's literacy and learning; and finally,
a national survey commissioned in association with Common Sense Media that
explores the perception of parents and educators about new media's educational
potential.

Gee’s report indicates
that the “fourth-grade slump,” the point where students fail to develop reading
comprehension, consistently leads to educational failure, while the digital gap
leads to a failure to develop skills like the ability to use knowledge to solve
problems. The report also found that digital media has the potential to
increase vocabulary and the concepts attached to such words, for children whose
families are unable to do so; digital media naturally elicits problem-solving
behaviors and attitudes in students; and digital media can also be used to
track and individualize how people learn.

Gee’s recommendations
include funding digital research and development to invest in what works,
establishing a digital teacher corps for the nation’s lowest-performing
schools, designing alternative assessments and new standards, creating
community-based literacy tech centers across the country, and modernizing
public broadcasting investments in digital platforms for the next generation,
among others.

The potential and
limitations for digital media’s use in education are also explored in The
Power of Pow! Wham! report. The
report provides a blueprint to accelerate and deepen learning for elementary
school children who are immersed in new technology. Furthermore, the paper
notes that it will take coordinated efforts by researchers, educators, parents’
groups, designers, business leaders, policy-makers and child advocates to meet
new challenges. The three interrelated challenges highlighted in the report are
building a coherent research and development effort; using digital tools effectively
and safely to help students read well, think critically, broaden geographical
and cultural knowledge, and participate in collaborative learning communities;
and advance digital equity to reach all children.

Finally, a national study,
commissioned by Common Sense Media and the Center, indicated that American
parents agree that digital media skills are important to kids’ success in the
21st century. Survey participants also expressed skepticism about whether
digital media can contribute to the development of informal social skills like
communicating and working with others.

Sponsored by Electronic
Arts, the symposium was held at the McGraw-Hill Companies building in New York
City. In addition to the results of the three reports, there were panels
moderated by journalists and experts in the field of digital media for kids.
The event also marked the addition of a new Center sponsor, Mattel. In a brief
presentation, Gabriel Zalzman, the senior VP and general manager of
Fisher-Price, announced the partnership and presented the Center’s executive
director, Michael Levine, with a check for $1 million.

Levine commented: “Digital
media is driving what is now a multi-billion-dollar business that shapes the
learning and entertainment experiences of most school-age children.” He added,
“It is our mission to counsel the industry’s movers, shakers and policymakers
and provide a needed bridge to what has become traditional education’s fourth
and fifth ‘Rs,’ reform and research. Wise and informed investments will harness
the growing power and full potential of digital media’s use in educating young
children.”

The Joan Ganz Cooney
Center at Sesame Workshop, named for Sesame Workshop's founder, is an
independent, not-for-profit research center that examines the role of new
technology in learning and literacy development both in and out of school.

—By Irene Lew