The Joan Ganz Cooney Center

Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop

Founded	2007
Legal status	501(c)(3) nonprofit organization[1]
Headquarters	New York City[1]
Executive Director	Michael H. Levine, Ph.D H.
Mission	To advance children's literacy skills and foster innovation in children's learning through digital media.[1]
Website	www.joanganzcooneycenter.org

The Joan Ganz Cooney Center (informally, the Cooney Center) is an independent, non-profit, non-partisan research and innovation group founded by Sesame Workshop in order to advance children’s literacy skills and foster innovation in children’s learning through digital media.^[2]

Background

The Joan Ganz Cooney Center was founded in 2007^[3] to study the role of digital technologies in promoting childhood literacy particularly among elementary school age children. According to the organization's mission statement, the Cooney Center exists "to advance children’s literacy skills and foster innovation in children’s learning through digital media."^[2][4]

Activities

The Cooney Center focuses on research, new technologies, and catalyzing policy change. Its activities comprise three primary themes:

• Literacy by Ten: The Cooney Center co-authored Pioneering Literacy in the Digital Wild West: Empowering Parents and Educators, a 2012 report that has been used by literacy researchers from Stanford University^[5] and others around the globe.^[6] It was the result of a partnership with the Campaign for Grade Level Reading, led by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, to develop analyses and an action plan to raise literacy rates in America. In 2013, the Cooney Center partnered with the National Center for Families Learning (formerly the National Center for Family Literacy) to form the Aprendiendo Juntos Council, which focuses on improving literacy rates among Spanish-speaking American children.^[7]
• Digital Play: The Cooney Center has released and contributed to a number of reports and surveys on the connection between games and learning. In 2009, with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Cooney Center published Game Changer: Investing in Digital Play to Advance Learning and Health,^[8] which was used in a 2011 testimony to the United States House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology.^[9] In 2010, the center offered a prize to top innovators in the field of children's digital learning and in 2011, the Cooney Center organized the first annual National STEM Video Game Competition. More recently, in February 2014, the Cooney Center launched GamesandLearning.org, a news site reporting on the latest in the field of educational gaming.^[10]
• Learning Together: The Cooney Center is the convener of the Families and Media Research Consortium, which also includes as members AARP, Sesame Workshop, Northwestern University, Arizona State University, and Stanford University. As part of the Families and Media Project, the consortium released a series of reports, the first of which was released on January 24, 2014 by the Cooney Center. For Learning at Home: Families' Educational Media Use in America, the Cooney Center collected data from parents of young children encompassing a variety of ethnicities and backgrounds in order to assess "the new family media ecology that is shaping interactions in every community in the U.S. and around the globe."^[11] The report garnered major media attention.^[12][13][14]

The Cooney Center also hosts periodic events aimed at catalyzing policy and industry change. The 2009 Leadership Forum: Breakthrough Learning in a Digital Age,^[15] hosted at the Googleplex, attracted more than 200 thought leaders from the research, policy, education, and industries. In 2011, the Cooney Center hosted its annual leadership forum focusing on scaling up effective models that support children's learning with an emphasis on harnessing the largely untapped potential of digital media, especially for struggling learners. Learning From Hollywood: Can Entertainment Media Ignite a Digital Revolution? brought together leaders from the creative media industries, education, research, policy, and philanthropy. Recent research publications on the potential of video games and mobile platforms for children's learning have received wide attention in the media and among national and state policymakers.^[16]

Reports

The Cooney Center disseminates research that informs national debates, with the intention of "stimulating investment in effective reforms."^[17] It does so through its publications on timely topics, including the children’s fast evolving, interactive media landscape, mobile learning, and the debates over media multitasking. The Cooney Center’s inaugural report was The Power of Pow! Wham!: Children, Digital Media and Our Nation's Future by Rima Shore, Ph.D.

In 2014, the Cooney Center published Learning at Home: Families' Educational Media Use in America. For this national survey, data was collected from 1,577 parents on the amount of media used in their home and its educational value.^[12] "What is more, the study, by the Joan Ganz Cooney Center," reported the New York Times, "shows that as children spend more time with screens as they get older, they spend less time doing educational activities, with 8- to 10-year-olds spending about half the time with educational content that 2- to 4-year-olds do."

Significant reports

• Opportunity for All? Technology and Learning in Lower-Income Families^[18] by Victoria Rideout and Vikki Katz (2016)
• Getting a Read on the App Stores: A Market Scan and Analysis of Children's Literacy Apps^[19] by Sarah Vaala, Anna Ly, and Michael H. Levine (2015)
• Diverse Families and Media: Using Research to Inspire Design^[20] by Amber Levinson, Sinem Siyahhan, Briana Pressey, and Katie Headrick Taylor (2015)
• Tap, Click, Read: Growing Readers in a World of Screens^[21] by Lisa Guernsey and Michael H. Levine (2015)
• Apps en familia: Guîa para usar apps con tus hijos by the Joan Ganz Cooney Center ^[22](2015)
• Aprendiendo en Casa: Media as a Learning Tool among Hispanic-Latino Families^[23] by June Lee and Brigid Barron (2015)
• Digital Media and Latino Families: New Channels for Learning, Parenting, and Organizing^[24] by Bruce Fuller, José Ramón Lizárraga, James H. Gray (2015)
• Connecting to Learn: Promoting Digital Equity for America's Hispanic Families^[25] by Vikki S. Katz and Michael H. Levine (2015)
• Family Time with Apps: A Guide to Usings Apps with Your Kids^[26] by the Joan Ganz Cooney Center (2014)
• Level Up Learning: A National Survey on Teaching With Digital Games^[27] by Lori Takeuchi, Ph.D., Sarah Vaala, Ph.D. (2014)
• The Mindshift Guide to Games and Learning by Jordan Shapiro^[28] (2014)
• Learning at Home: Families' Educational Media Use in America^[29] by Victoria Rideout. (2014)
• Games for a Digital Age: K-12 Market Map and Investment Analysis^[30] by John Richards, Leslie Stebbins and Kurt Moellering. (2013)
• Pioneering Literacy in the Digital Wild West: Empowering Parents and Educators^[31] by Lisa Guernsey, Michael H. Levine, Cynthia Chiong & Maggie Stevens. (2012)
• Kids Online: A new research agenda for understanding social networking forums^[32] by Sara Grimes and Deborah Fields. (2012)
• What in the World Happened to Carmen Sandiego? The Edutainment Era: Debunking Myths and Sharing Lessons Learned^[33] by Carly Shuler. (2012)
• National Survey and Video Case Studies: Teacher Attitudes about Digital Games in the Classroom^[34] by Jessica Millstone. (2012)
• iLearn II: An Analysis of the Education Category on Apple’s App Store^[35] by Carly Shuler. (2012)
• The New Coviewing: Designing for Learning through Joint Media Engagement^[36] by Lori Takeuchi and Reed Stevens. (2011)
• Take a Giant Step: A Blueprint for Teaching Young Children in a Digital Age^[37] by Brigid Barron, et al. (2011)
• Families Matter: Designing Media for a Digital Age^[38] by Lori Takeuchi. (2011)
• Always Connected: The new digital media habits of young children^[39] by Aviva Lucas Gutnick, Michael Robb, Lori Takeuchi and Jennifer Kotler. (2011)
• Learning: Is there an app for that?^[40] by Cynthia Chiong & Carly Shuler. (2010)
• Can Video Games Promote Intergenerational Play & Literacy Learning?^[41] by Cynthia Chiong Ph.D. (2010)
• iLearn: A Content Analysis of the iTunes App Store's Education Section^[42] by Carly Shuler, Ed.M. (2010)
• Game Changer: Investing in Digital Play to Advance Children's Learning and Health^[43] by Ann My Thai et al. (2010)
• Pockets of Potential: Using Mobile Technologies to Promote Children's Learning^[44] by Carly Shuler, Ed.M. (2010)
• Getting Over the Slump: Innovation Strategies to Promote Children's Learning^[45] by James Paul Gee, Ph.D. (2010)

Initiatives

The Cooney Center focuses on four key strategies: action research, innovation and model development, partnership building and dissemination. These strategies reflect the Center's field-building mission, which calls for the creation of new knowledge, the creative application of that knowledge in practice, and the engagement of key decision-makers in making investments to drive innovation and scale up what works.

National STEM Video Game Competition

The Cooney Center, in collaboration with E-Line Media, hosts the National STEM Video Game Challenge as part of the "Educate to Innovate" campaign, which President Barack Obama launched in November 2009 to “harness the excitement and educational potential of video games to advance STEM learning (science, technology, engineering, and math)."^[46]

Cooney Center Fellows Program

Cooney Center Fellows assist with high priority research, program development and dissemination activities that examine the potential and challenges associated with digital media applications in promoting children's learning and healthy development. In addition, the Center has established a research fund to help support priority areas.

Digital Age Teacher Preparation Council

The Cooney Center, in collaboration with the Stanford Educational Leadership Institute, convened a Digital Age Teacher Preparation Council, co-chaired by Linda Darling-Hammond of Stanford University and Michael Levine. The council's sixteen members from academia, industry, and policy assessed current practices in early education and elementary school teaching and designed a professional development "blueprint" to advance the use of effective digital media in teaching and learning, with a special emphasis on instruction for underserved students. The final report was issued on November 1, 2011.^[47]

People at the Cooney Center

Founders

• Joan Ganz Cooney, Chairman of the Executive Committee, Sesame Workshop
• Lloyd N. Morrisett, Chairman Emeritus of the Board, Sesame Workshop
• Gary E. Knell Former President and CEO, Sesame Workshop, Current CEO, National Geographic Society

Key staff

• Michael H. Levine, Ph.D., Executive Director
• Lori Takeuchi, Ph.D., Senior Director and Research Scientist
• Catherine Jhee, Director of Web and Strategic Communications

References

External links

• Official website
• The Joan Ganz Cooney Center on Facebook
• The Joan Ganz Cooney Center on Twitter
• The Joan Ganz Cooney Center's channel on YouTube
• New York Times, 1/24/2014, "The Younger the Child, The More Educational the Screen. Maybe."
• Cooney Center Reports
• Cooney Center Initiatives
• Cooney Center Press Room
• Cooney Center Events
• Cooney Center People
• Education Week, 9/17/2008 "Let's Get Over the Slump"
• New York Times, 12/6/2007, "Institute Named for ‘Sesame’ Creator"