Report By Gaming Expert and Professor James Paul Gee Urges Adult Mentoring
to Leverage Technological Know-How and Decrease Digital Gap
Leading Innovators, Educators, Journalists and Researchers Convene At
Day-Long Event Sponsored By Electronic Arts and McGraw-Hill Education With
Support From Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and PBS KIDS Raising
Readers
NEW YORK, May 9 /PRNewswire/ -- At today's first annual Joan Ganz
Cooney Center Symposium called "Logging Into The Playground: How Digital
Media Are Shaping Children's Learning," thought leaders from across
research, communications, education and policy convened to set a new
benchmark for the way in which digital media is used to improve children's
literacy, learning and development.
As a launching point for this critical dialogue, the symposium featured
panels moderated by journalists and experts in the field and revealed the
results of three compelling special reports: The Power of Pow! Wham!:
Children, Digital Media and Our Nation's Future focusing on the
recommendations of over 60 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) exploring the perception of parents and educators about new media's
educational potential. The day's events were streamed and viewers were
invited to participate on the Global Kids website and in Second Life.
The invitation-only event, sponsored by Electronic Arts (EA) and
McGraw-Hill Education (in association with the Corporation for Public
Broadcasting (CPB) and PBS KIDS Raising Readers), was held at The
McGraw-Hill Companies Building in New York City and featured a keynote
speech by Bing Gordon, in one of his last appearances as EA's Chief
Creative Officer. It was announced last week that Gordon would be joining
the premier venture capital firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers.
The event also marked the addition of a new Center sponsor, Mattel,
Inc. In a brief presentation, Gabriel Zalzman, SVP and General Manager,
Fisher-Price, announced the partnership and presented Executive Director
Michael Levine with a check for one million dollars.
Michael Levine, Executive Director for The Joan Ganz Cooney Center,
said: "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."
Gee's report indicates that the so-called 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
21st-century skills, especially the ability to use knowledge to solve
problems.
Gee's report finds 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.
-- 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; establishing Governor's digital partnership schools; and finally,
modernizing public broadcasting investments in digital platforms for the
next generation.
The potential and limitations for digital media's use in education are
also explored in The Power of Pow! Wham! report. Featuring 60 of the
industry's most respected leaders in child development, literacy, family
policy, digital media production and global knowledge and skills, the
report provides a blueprint to accelerate and deepen learning for
elementary school children who are immersed in new technologies.
Furthermore, the paper underscores that no single person, organization, or
program can meet these challenges and that it will take coordinated efforts
by researchers, educators, parents' groups, designers, business leaders,
policy-makers, and child advocates.
The three interrelated challenges highlighted in the report are:
-- Build a coherent research and development effort.
-- Use digital tools effectively and safely to help students read well,
think critically, broaden geographical and cultural knowledge, and
participate in collaborative learning communities.
-- Advance digital equity to reach all children.
Also presented was a national study, commissioned by Common Sense Media
and the Center, available on both http://www.commonsensemedia.org and
http://www.joanganzcooneycenter.org, which indicated that American parents agree
by wide margins that digital media skills are important to kids' success in
the 21st century. They also expressed skepticism about whether digital
media contribute to the development of informal social skills like
communicating and working with others.
"Forty years ago, in a paper about the untapped potential of television
that became the foundation for Sesame Street's creation, I noted that
children are conditioned to expect a pow! wham! factor ... highly visual,
and expensively produced material that inspires them to learn," Joan Ganz
Cooney said. "Now, the pow! wham! factor has taken a different form, in
interactive and electronic games, but the challenges are the same. The
Center's mission to fund research, to prod industry leaders in the
development of quality products and to bring together some of the
industry's greatest minds, will hopefully help the next generation learn
the skills they need to be successful in the digital age."
The agenda for the day-long symposium also featured child-led
demonstrations of new technologies and a hands-on forum promoting two dozen
of the best digital media initiatives in the world. Attendees were shown
one of the first demonstrations of BOOM BLOX, a new game for Nintendo Wii
developed by EA in association with director Steven Spielberg along with
promising emerging technologies from exhibitors including: Community
Building with Google Earth by Google Earth creator and Google Chief
Technology Advocate, Michael T. Jones; Web-based books in English and
Spanish by the Center for Applied Special Technology, to help individuals,
especially those most at risk, to gain knowledge, skills, and enthusiasm
for reading; IBM's Traducelo AHORA! ("Translate Now!") that uses IBM
WebSphere software to translate web sites from English to Spanish for
schools, community organizations, as well as parents so they can correspond
directly with teachers no matter what language is spoken at home; and an
Apple in the Classroom demo by Kathy Shirley, an Apple Distinguished
Educator, on using iPods to strengthen reading fluency and comprehension.
Journalists and experts in the field of digital media for children
including Time Magazine's Claudia Wallis, author Lisa Guernsey and
Children's Technology Review Editor and New York Times columnist Warren
Buckleitner, moderated and participated in panels on a variety of topics
including the ways in which digital media shapes literacy development,
critical thinking, creativity and cultural awareness. In addition, they
discussed how to meet the new challenges that come with the growth of
digital media, emerging learning technologies and which priorities the next
President and the critical sectors should tackle first.
About McGraw-Hill Education
McGraw-Hill Education, a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies (NYSE:
MHP), is a leading global provider of instructional, assessment and
reference solutions that empower professionals and students of all ages.
McGraw-Hill Education has offices in 33 countries and publishes in more
than 40 languages. Additional information is available at
http://www.mheducation.com.
About Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts Inc. (Nasdaq: ERTS), headquartered in Redwood City,
California, is the world's leading interactive entertainment software
company. Founded in 1982, the company develops, publishes, and distributes
interactive software worldwide for video game systems, personal computers,
cellular handsets and the Internet. Electronic Arts markets its products
under four brand names: EA SPORTS(TM), EA(TM), EA SPORTS BIG(TM) and
POGO(TM). In fiscal 2007, EA posted revenue of $3.09 billion and had 24
titles that sold more than one million copies. EA's homepage and online
game site is http://www.ea.com. More information about EA's products and full text
of press releases can be found on the Internet at http://info.ea.com.
About the Joan Ganz Cooney Center
The Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop
(http://www.joanganzcooneycenter.org) is an independent, not for profit research
center that examines the role of new technologies in learning and literacy
development both in and out of school. The Center conducts and supports
research, creates educational models and interactive media properties, and
builds cross-sector partnerships to scale-up best practices. Based at
Sesame Workshop, the center is named for Sesame Workshop's visionary
founder, who revolutionized television with the creation of Sesame Street.
Core funding for the Center is provided by the generous support of Peter G.
Peterson, Genius Products, Mattel, Inc. and Sesame Workshop.
Contacts:
Jodi Lefkowitz
Sesame Workshop
212-875-6497
jodi.lefkowitz@sesameworkshop.org
Stephanie Baumoel
FerenComm for Sesame Workshop
212-983-9898
stephanieb@ferencomm.com
SOURCE McGraw-Hill Education; The Joan Ganz Cooney Center
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