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TRANSCRIPT
The New Coviewing:Intergenerational Play and Learning for a Digital Age
Michael H. LevineThe Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop
screen2screen, Fordham UniversityOctober 8, 2010
• About the Cooney Center• A brief history of intergenerational play and literacy
learning• The new coviewing: Joint media engagement• Research on joint media engagement• What next? Setting an R&D agenda
Overview
About the Cooney CenterJoan Ganz Cooney’s 1966 report to Carnegie Corporation,The Potential Uses of Television in Preschool Education
“How can emerging media help children learn?”
Pioneering Research in Children’s Media
The Cooney Center’s MissionTo foster innovation in children’s learning through digital media
What we care about• Middle childhood (5 to 11-year-olds)• Improving literacy: old and new• Underserved populations• Learning ecologies across formal and
informal environments
govt agencies
mass media
parents’ work
digital media market
local school system
the neighborhood
attitudes & ideologies of the culture
friends, afterschool,
etc.
home school
digital media spaces
An Ecological Framework
Bronfenbrenner, 1977
Research PrioritiesTo foster innovation in children’s learning through digital media
Our research priorities stem from an ecological perspective on learning:
• Joint media engagement• Bridging learning across home,
school, and community settings• Networked participation
Research Activities
• Research and market scans• Studies of digital media use and literacy learning• Convening key sectors and disciplines• Prototype design and testing• Policy papers
Recent Research Publications
A Brief History of Intergenerational Play and Literacy Learning
Research on Television Coviewing• Children who coview with their parents enjoy
programs more than other children (Salomon, 1977)
• Sesame Street researchers found that children learn more from the show when parents watch with them
• But parents must be actively engaged, talking and pointing things out (Wright, St. Peters, & Huston, 1990)
• To keep parents in the room and engaged, Sesame Street producers included adult humor, music, and celebrities
The New Coviewing:Joint Media Engagement
Joint Media Engagement
• Caregivers can act as guides by establishing joint attention to media features salient for learning
• This guidance promotes children’s engagement with media in purposeful ways
• JME extends the notion of coviewing to include newer, interactive forms of media and other learning spaces
• JME research studies how media content intersects with in-room and in-world interactions and learning (Stevens, Satwicz, & McCarthy, 2008)
Joint Media Engagement
Research on Joint Media Engagement:Two Studies
Intergenerational Play & Learning• Games are the most popular digital activity for children
ages 2-14, with 85% usage among device users• 97% of American teens play computer or video games• The average child starts to play computer games at age 6,
and cell phone games at age 10• A 9-year-old spends ~55 minutes on a
portable or video game console on a typical weekday, over double the amount of time spent by 6-year-olds
Intergenerational Play & Learning
Aim to develop research-driven design principles for creating intergenerational play mechanics that help children learn in a variety of settings
Partners• USC Game Innovation Lab• University of Michigan School of
Education• The Joan Ganz Cooney Center • Corporation for Public Broadcasting
Key Research Questions
• How can intergenerational play be intentionally designed and promoted during game play?
• What behaviors are associated with intergenerational game play?
• Which player dynamics attract both parents and children to play?
• Which platforms and play mechanics best support intergenerational engagement?
Trends
Intergenerational Play & Learning• Game choice• Rules of the game• Competition• Mentoring opportunities• Influence of game type• Focus of the interaction • Mutual engagement
Story Visit
• A traditional paper book (Monster at the End of this Book by Jon Stone)• A sensor-enhanced frame to monitor page each party is viewing• Video-conferencing technology• Video of Elmo to maintain child’s engagement and support the interaction
between the child and grandparent
• Grandparent and child-parent dyad were in different rooms of the lab, to simulate distance communication
• Grandparent read the story and parenthelped child follow along
• Small paper flaps in the grandparent’s book could be lifted to reveal a suggestion for how to engage the child in conversation related to the book content.
• Whenever Elmo’s thought bubble appeared, the child could touch it to hear a story-relevant comment or question from Elmo.
Story Visit - Study Procedure
• Most Story Visit calls lasted from 6 to 10 minutes, in contrast to parents’ reports of calls lasting under 1 minute when traditional phone technology is used.
• The quality of call interactions was much higher than in regular phone calls. Children remained highly engaged in the sessions 97% of the time with Story Visit.
• When using Story Visit, grandparents averaged asking two questions per page of the book.
Story Visit - Findings
Story Visit - Implications• Elmo can help make video-conferencing more child-
friendly• The Story Visit System can facilitate richer interactions
around reading and provide a shared context for long-distance family interaction
• Communication, education, and entertainment can converge to help young children play, learn and connect
What Next? Setting an R&D agenda
Challenges to Creating Effective Digital Media• Current research efforts are fragmented and lack shared
priorities and practices• Old models of R&D no longer apply to an evolving, multi-
disciplinary field• Most current investments in educational technology are spent
on hardware and software, rather than on training to effectively use technologies
• Educational digital media rarely bridges home and school, or spans multiple grades
• The public dialogue about games is often focused on their negative effects, not their potential
Studying Digital Media SolutionsCraft studies to investigate potential of digital media to:• Engage parents in scaffolding their kids’ learning• Personalize early literacy development• Promote healthy eating and exercise habits• Inspire kids to engage in scientific inquiry• Support learners with special needs
Advancing Methods to Study JME
How do gaming experiences transfer to in-room and in-world learning? (Stevens, Satwicz & McCarthy, 2008)
• Family as the unit of analysis
• Transmedia migration• Boundary crossing
(Barron, 2004)
Family as the Unit of Analysis
Can video games (re)unite generations?
Transmedia Migration
Boundary Crossing
• Youth Prize & Developer Prize categories• Announced at the White House on
September 16, 2010• Winners awarded at 2011 Leadership Forum• Visit http://www.cooneycenterprizes.org
Presented in collaboration with:
Sponsored by:
Founding outreach partners:
National STEM Video Game Challenge
Thank You