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How is it that some members of online social networks have so many connections? Connections that number in the high hundreds, and sometimes even thousands? Do these users really know that many people?

A couple of years ago I was working on a presentation about inspiring technologies and their ability to influence future product development across a number of markets. One aspect of my presentation touched on social networks and their ability to bring people together that otherwise may not have the opportunity to interact with like minded people in the physical world. While preparing for this part of my presentation, I wondered “How is it that some people have so many social network connections?” While it’s not necessarily the norm, I noticed a small minority of users from services like LinkedIn and Facebook had hundreds, if not thousands, of connections. These people couldn’t be that gregarious, could they?

In my search for an answer, I stumbled upon a theory called Dunbar’s Number. Robin Dunbar, a British anthropologist, explored and published his thoughts on social groups, largely as a result of studying primate societies in the wild. Through his observations with primates, he developed a theory related to “social grooming”. Social grooming could be considered the meaningful, if not necessary, connections that exist between members of the chimpanzee tribes he was studying. Dunbar’s theory attempts to determine a primate’s maximum social size based on the dimensions of the animal’s neocortex (the size of its brain). Once he defined this theory, he applied it to a number of different animal species and other forms of evolved species, including people. The result? 148.

This number, 148 (or really 147.8) is the number Dunbar determined to be the maximum number of meaningful connections any person could have in their own personal social group. In social theory circles, this number is rounded up to be 150 meaningful connections.

(Before moving forward with my post, I’d like to point out that while Dunbar suggest that social group sizes of people could be correlated to a person’s brain size, many other researchers who study social group theories of humans do not. My article is simply an exploration of the concept, not an endorsement. Also, due to the logarithmic nature of this theory, coupled with a 95% accuracy calculation, this maximum number could be as low as 110 or as high as 210, depending on the fudge factor you’re willing to allow Dunbar’s formula.)

Can this number somehow help explain why some people have so many connections through social networking tools online? Well, not entirely, but I do see many individuals interested in online social networking who become familiar with this theory, reference it often.

Let me share with you my experience growing my own social network. My social networking product of choice for business is LinkedIn. I became a member over four years ago, not entirely understanding what social networking was all about or how it could possibly mean anything to me. Once I started dabbling with the service, reaching out to others and asking them to join my “network”, the number of users connected to me slowly started to grow. I distinctly remember how hard it was to grow a network in the early days of using the service. After a year of dabbling I reached about 50 connections. It was around that time that I slowly started to see things differently. I was just beginning to understand how to harness the power of social networks and its benefits, to understand the math involved in networked connections for finding other people who may have similar personal or business interests to my own. For each connection I added, I was able to reach exponentially more people beyond that single connection, all through the miracle of technology.

After some time and effort of regular use the big day came. I reached 150 connections. “Wow!” I said to myself, thinking I had finally reaching the upper number of my own personal village as defined by Dunbar. I sat back, and felt some kind of anthropological bliss having reached the outer limits of my social group size. But then, a strange thing started to happen. My network continued to grow, not entirely through own my efforts. I soon reached 160 connections, 170, 180, 190, 200. Fast forward many months and my network is just about to break 300 connections, twice the size of what Dunbar’s theory hypothesized. (Even with the math fluctuation, I still exceeded 210 connections.) What happened?? Was something wrong with the size of my neocortex? What would Dunbar say about the number of my connections?

I started to see social groups on a number of different levels. Could it be that Dunbar’s number is really a general formula to apply to a single social plane that, while developed based on one species, does not carry to another? Could it also be that Dunbar’s theory was all about self preservation, whereas the way most people engage in social circles is all about self selection? Anyone who has many different interests may very well engage in a variety of self-selected social planes.

While I don’t have a definitive answer to share here regarding multi-plane social spheres, this exploration started me on a path to question the strength of any connection between two individuals. When reviewing the strength of a connection between myself and any any other person in my network, I becomes clear immediately that the connection strength between myself and any other person I connect to varies greatly. I wondered if this connection strength could be charted out in some way, and if doing so would tell me something about Dunbar’s Number. I wondered if I could find an answer by crossing Dunbar’s theory with that of the Bell Curve. Having remembered that my grades in college were sometimes charted out on a Bell Curve, could the same be done with all of my self selected connections?

I began by looking up the definition of a Bell Curve, and among the answers I found one stated: “Many biological, psychological and social phenomena occur in the population in the distribution we call the bell curve.” Hmmm, those “social phenomena” words sure jumped out at me.

To get started with my experiment, I theorized and then defined different levels of “connected strength” any person could have with another. I defined these varying connections in the following way:

Group I – Family members and/or very close friends

Group II – Good friends

Group III – People you knew or are acquainted with

Group IV – People you knew but not that well

Group V – People you did not know at all

If I applied this labeling to the fictitious virtual village I lived in within LinkedIn at Dunbar’s social group size of 150, the numbers for each category above would be 3, 21, 102, 21, 3 according to the Bell Curve spread. This village in the real world would loosely translate into the following:

• I had a mother, father and one very close friend or sibling in this village.
• I had 21 friends, possibly relatives, that I knew well.
• There were 102 additional people in my village, performing various necessary roles and services (teacher, baker, doctor, farmer, etc.)
• I knew 21 people that were part of my village but I didn’t really know them very well because I didn’t interact with them as often
• There were 3 complete strangers I didn’t recognize or know at all.

But in my LinkedIn world I didn’t have 150 connections; I have about 300. Would the connections in my own online network break out as nicely into these same mathematical groupings, at least in terms of a percentage? I downloaded a list of everyone I was connected with through LinkedIn. I then rated the strength of my connection based on the above categories, and lo and behold, the groupings and percentages were pretty close, not exact, but close!

I’m thinking that Dunbar’s upper limit of 150 meaningful connections does not hold true with how individuals engage online (or for that matter even offline) with self-selected social groups. But maybe there’s something here about the varying strength of connections within one’s own social community, at least in terms of these connective strength percentages.

I have many more thoughts on this and other related social group observations, including what it means if your percentages don’t nicely fit within the above described number. I’ve also been thinking about how this information could be used to explain children building their own social groups, but that will have to wait for another day. Thanks for reading.

When I first became aware of Peggy Charren, I had been creating children’s media for only a short time. What I learned in those days was that Peggy founded a child advocacy group in 1968 called Action for Children’s Television (ACT). ACT challenged broadcasters to offer endless choices of quality television content for children. Her organization fought for content that was diverse, for all ages, and void of any censorship or hidden agenda. It advocated content rich with benefits for children and as free from the influences of advertising as possible. Ultimately Peggy and her organization pushed legislators to pass the Children’s Television Act in 1990, a law still in effect today that requires television stations to include at least 3 hours of “core” children’s educational content per week and, at the same time, limit the amount of advertising found in children’s programming. Peggy’s vision was bold, her voice strong, and her determination unstoppable.

I remember the moment I first spoke with Peggy many years ago. I searched online for a day or two to find her phone number, took a guess out of a handful of possibilities, and called her out of the blue. I introduced myself, told her I ran a company that creates learning products for children, and listed a handful of client names to demonstrate the quality of our work. Peggy immediately responded, “Are you one of those religious producers?” I was caught off guard. I didn’t expect her response. One of the clients I mentioned had often been misinterpreted as having religious leanings. “No, that’s not really what our organization is about” I replied. Peggy was sharp, quick, and to the point. I quickly learned that Peggy would tell it like it is, and she would be direct, and sometimes blunt, with me in our discussions. I realized these just might be the qualities needed to change the landscape of children’s media for the better.

Over the years I learned that Peggy loves the theater, that she developed arts programs for school children before ACT, that a member of her family was blacklisted during the McCarthy Era, that her organization had fought off attacks from religious organizations, and that Peggy was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom under the Clinton Administration, the highest government honor that can be awarded to a civilian.

After the passing of the Children’s Television Act, Peggy closed down ACT, saying the organization had fulfilled its mission. In the thirteen years since it closed, a lot has changed within the media landscape for children. Today there are 24-hour channels dedicated to children’s content, online videos, screened technology toys, iPods and family cars with individual screens. Having recently read Dade Hayes’ new book, Anytime Playdate, a book that examines the development, research and production of children’s preschool content, it prompted me to check in with Peggy about her views on today’s media landscape. Unlike my first call with her, this time I scheduled an appointment for our conversation.

Scott Traylor: Looking back on the passing of the Children’s Television Act of 1990, do you think it was a success?

Peggy Charren: Fifty-fifty, because that kind of change in how things work is never completely successful.

ST: Do you say fifty-fifty because of the negotiating necessary to pass the Children’s Television Act, that it resulted in making the law weaker than you had hoped?

PC: No, I never expect things to be perfect.

ST: Have the Children’s Television Act and subsequent amendments and rulings been effective?

PC: I think the answer is pretty much ‘no’. In a funny way they’ve been more effective than most people would give them credit for. There are some who think it had no effect at all. A lot of people feel it was better than nothing. When push comes to shove, I don’t think it was really very effective. In a lot of ways it had zero effect.

ST: Do you have any thoughts on how it could become more effective?

PC: Yes, I suppose that the major way to change it is to focus on what we haven’t thought about before. Some people in industry are thinking about how it could be more effective. I think technology may be part of the answer. We haven’t spent enough time thinking about how we could use technology in this regard. When we do the world is going to be more interesting.

ST: ACT was always an advocate for more media choices for kids.

PC: Yes, that’s absolutely true.

ST: Today there are multiple round-the-clock channels dedicated to children as well as video on demand, online offerings, and technology-based games and toys that have screens. What are your thoughts on the degree of choice and the quality of choices today?

PC: I think there’s never enough choice. I think the sense of choice is just very important and we’re not doing enough for kids with that priority. We’ll get along fine anyway but I think the world of children’s media would be more beneficial if we devoted more time to the kind of issues that ACT worried about in the old days. We don’t do that anymore.

ST: What changes have you seen in media advertising to children?

PC: Well, I think it would be nice if there weren’t any media advertising to children. I’ve always thought that and it’s a little hard to just accept the fact that advertising to kids is a reasonable thing to do. I never thought it was reasonable. I’m not a big one on advertising to children. I think that the goal of advertising to kids is wrong and I don’t like it, I never did like it, and I don’t like it now. It’s not that I worry about it being the end of the world, its just that I think it’s an inappropriate goal.

ST: Can you speak to the pros and cons of advertising regulation for broadcasters?

PC: I’m a big one for advertising regulations. I’ve always been focused that way when it comes to advertising. I think advertising doesn’t hurt kids as much as it sounds like it does but I think it’s manipulative and we keep doing it. It’s amazing how little it has changed actually.

ST: How little has changed over the years with regulation?

PC: No, with children’s advertising. In terms of regulation there’s a limit to how much regulation we’re going to see. I think advertising by itself is nauseating… she says mildly.

ST: Let’s continue with this question. It’s said that young children under the age of seven are not capable of understanding the difference between ads and programs, or the persuasive intent of ads.

PC: That’s right, they can’t tell the difference. This must have been the first thing I ever said in my life.

ST: So should the FCC forbid advertising to children?

PC: I think it wouldn’t be a bad idea. Just get rid of it entirely. We almost did it you know. We almost had it. It’s a real shame that it just sort of vanished into the quiet part of everyone’s life. I mean advertising to children is so dumb. It’s just a dumb thing to do.

ST: How do you think changes in ad requirements would impact the range of media available to young children?

PC: Oh I think it could have a big effect actually. I think there’s an opportunity for an enormous effect relating to not selling to children and I don’t know why it’s taken so long. It’s probably my fault.

ST: What do you think of the baby video phenomenon and the Kaiser Family Foundation report that one quarter of children under the age of two have a TV in their bedroom?

PC: Oh I’ve always thought that was idiotic. To set up a baby’s room with a television set in it says more about the parents than it does about anything else. Some day we may find that children will really suffer because of this.

ST: What advice would you offer parents today for making positive media choices for their children?

PC: Let’s see. Let me turn this back to you. What do you think is the most difficult question parents have to answer regarding media and their child?

ST: Lately I’ve been thinking a parent might ask, “Is viewing media hurting my child?”

PC: I think parents have to pay close attention to what’s helping and hurting their child. If parents care enough about their child in terms of their media viewing choices, I think it’s probably not a terribly serious issue.

Peggy and I talked about a number of related topics in the children’s media world. During our conversation we discussed noteworthy figures in the industry. Vicki Rideout, VP of the Kaiser Family Foundation was a strong favorite. Alice Cahn, VP of Social Responsibility for Cartoon Network received high praise for her smarts as well as humor. We also discussed the work of Henry Jenkins, Director of the Comparative Media Studies program at MIT for his thoughts on society and media. Peggy didn’t share her thoughts about who are the leading child advocate voices of today, but it was clear she was on top of the conversations and the people involved in shaping the discussion. Thinking about the challenges of quality media for children today I asked…

ST: Maybe we’re just missing those strong voices today that can fight for children?

PC: I don’t think so. I think that there are other kinds of voices we just let happen. It may never get fixed. People just aren’t upset enough.

Special thanks to Joe Blatt, Alice Cahn, Sue Edelman, David Kleeman, and Ellen Wartella for their help in preparing questions for Peggy. The ACT archives can be viewed at Harvard University’s School of Education in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

This past week I was at Northwestern University to participate in a conference called Interaction Design and Children (IDC). It’s a fantastic event where researchers, developmental psychologists and technology inventors and experts gather together to share information, research, and advice about creating effective interactive experience for children through technology.

There were many interesting presentations and posters offered which I hope to touch on in the coming days. One presentation in particular I enjoyed was delivered by Erik Strommen, founder and developmental psychologist of Playful Efforts. Erik and I were on a panel together along with Kathleen Alfano, the Director of Research for Fisher-Price. The panel was moderated by Edith Ackermann, who is currently a visiting scientist at MIT’s Center for Advanced Visual Studies. Among Edith’s amazing credentials is that she also worked with and studied under Jean Piaget. All of us discussed the importance of research in the creation of successful interactive technology products for children.

After opening remarks from Edith, Erik began his presentation by stating he would not be showing any Powerpoint slides because he is a member of the “Informal Society for the Suppression of Powerpoint” (Erik worked at Microsoft for many years.)

Next, Erik discussed the difficulty of testing interfaces for software and technology toy products that don’t exist. In many cases, researchers will be brought into a product development team to explore the effectiveness of an interface that has yet to be built. In such cases when you’re called in, it’s your duty to determine how best to guide the development of these new interfaces.

An important quote Erik mentioned that’s worth repeating:

“New interfaces raise a blizzard of never before asked questions that challenge conventional wisdom. Only after collecting data and seeing how such interfaces work with children can you determine how effective these new interfaces will be with children.”

Here are a number of tips Erik mentioned to guide successful child/interaction research:

• Seek out “parallel literature” to inform your design.
  You may not find exact research you’re looking for regarding the new interface you wish to build, but you can learn a lot about how to inform your design by reading similar interface studies. For example, Erik recommends checking out “studies on social interaction and discourse patterns” to inform social interface design.
  

• When prototypes don’t exist, fake it.
  Erik referred to this as “Wizard of Oz” testing. This is when the “man behind the curtain” may be carrying out audio or other functionality needs as part of a down and dirty prototype to test with. Always remember you may not be able to recreate the entire experience this way, just the crucial testing parts. How you define the testing will effect your mock-up. Focus ONLY on the developmental issue that need to be answered. DON’T focus on the technology! Be concerned with timing and vocabulary in your prototype scripts.
  

• Understand the schedule and development process of your client.
  How much time do you have and where in the development process do you have the opportunity to make changes in the design? Definition of the interaction with your user needs to be defined up front. It is a deliverable that affects the entire development process, so work fast and deliver your findings early before crucial product development efforts begin.
  

• Keep everyone informed.
  Let everyone on the development team know when findings will be presented. Keeping team members informed as to the time when conclusions will be shared better allows for changes that can be incorporated into the development schedule.
  

• Be specific with your research question.
  Don’t ask overly broad or numerous questions that will keep you from ever finding the mission critical answers you need to inform you product development team. Remember, generally speaking, companies don’t want to pay for research and they don’t want to schedule research. But be ready, once the information is available, everybody will beat a path to your door for the results! Also be aware that the broader your research question, the more complicated your prototypes will become.
  

• Make friends with the engineers on your team.
  They will be your best allies for creating prototypes. Engineers also care about having answers as to how best to develop for a specific audience
  

• Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
  Early prototypes can be very different from the final product. You may not have the right characters or correct voices in your prototype but if you ask the right question, the results of your test will be invaluable. Remember, it’s the interaction that you are interested in testing. If visuals or character voices aren’t correct it will not threaten the validity of your testing.
  

• Document what you did and the conclusions of your research.
  People will challenge your results and you may not remember everything you need in order to support your conclusions. You may also need to refer to your notes in the future when conducting similar studies.

At the end of the Erik’s presentation, he showed a number of prototypes used in technology toy testing.

To see video of Erik Strommen’s presentation at the IDC event, click below:

I just made it back from a three day conference in Washington DC held by the Association of Educational Publishers. The event, called the AEP Summit, occurs every June and industry leaders in educational publishing from around the globe gather together to discuss advances in technology, instruction, educational content, development and many other aspects of creating and delivering high quality student learning materials.

During the event, sessions are offered to discuss and showcase best practices, products, and trends. A highlight of the yearly event is the AEP Awards Gala. This banquet is held during the last evening of the conference and awards are presented to acknowledge the best educational products in their respective disciplines.

This year attendees were in for a special treat during the Summit. Through the amazing and tireless efforts of Doug Ferguson, AEP’s VP of Operations, with the assistance of his fantastic staff, conference attendees and invited members of the press participated in a debate between the senior education advisors of presidential hopefuls Senator Barack Obama and Senator John McCain. Jeanne Century, Director of Science Education and the Director of Research and Evaluation, University of Chicago’s Center for Elementary Mathematics and Science Education (CEMSE) spoke for the Obama campaign and Lisa Graham Keegan, Principal of The Keegan Company spoke for the McCain campaign.

During the more than ninety-minute debate, many important questions about education, policy, teacher performance, and global competitiveness (just to name a few) were asked from an insightful group of panelists moderated by Frank Catalano of Pearson. Panelists included education experts Marjorie Mayer from Scholastic, Neal Goff from Weekly Reader, Bernice Stafford from the Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration (CILC), Dr. Sara Davis from USA Today, and Joel Packard from the National Education Association (NEA).

During the debate, two noteworthy moments stood out from rest. The first came from Neal Goff, president of the Weekly Reader Publishing Group. Neal asked:

“How do you go about reintroducing subjects [like music, art and others] than those that are being tested [as mandated by No Child Left Behind] into the curriculum and how do you keep teachers from teaching to the test?”

In response to this question, Senator Obama’s education advisor Jeanne Century responded:

“With regard to keeping teachers from teaching to the test, the point isn’t keeping them from teaching them to the test, it’s making sure that teachers know and agree … on all the skills and expertise (students) need to succeed in the 21st century, agreeing on that, and then testing those. If we all agree and commit to what students really need to know and be able to do, we’re all good with the teacher teaching to the test, including the teachers.”

I thought this response spoke clearly to the United State’s need to address a 21st Century Skills approach to learning as outlined by Bernie Trilling, not just the country’s proficiency in math and reading skills.

The next memorable moment in the debate came from an impressive twelve-year-old middle school student named Madison. She is a member of the Scholastic Kids Press Corps. and a reporter for Junior Scholastic News. The reality of Madison’s question gave greater weight to the discussion. Ms. Madison’s question was:

“I attend a public school in Washington DC, just a few blocks from each candidate’s senate office. Although it’s academically one of the best schools in the city, we have clauster falling from the ceiling, water fountains and air conditioners that don’t work. We also learned that our entire foreign language program is going to be cancelled next year. How will your candidate make sure that all public schools have proper facilities and provide a variety of classes for students that will allow them to be more competitive in the global economy when they grow up?”

The first reply to Madison’s question was Jeanne Century, advisor for the Obama campaign:

“There is a sub-group within our education policy group that’s developed a plan for ensuring that school facilities are up to par with what they need to be. That we have not just the modern technologies, but the basics in place. It’s an obvious necessity. It’s part of that floor I was talking about [earlier] that needs to be in place. With regard to foreign language, it certainly shouldn’t be cut from middle school, but we need to have foreign language programs happening even earlier than that. Senator Obama is committed to helping our students become bilingual, trilingual. It’s a necessity for our country and for the future, not just so we can compete, but so we can communicate and collaborate with our colleagues and with their fellow students, as they are still students and their colleagues as they grow into adults.”

Next to reply was Lisa Graham Keegan for the McCain campaign:

“This question of school facilities is one that half of the states in the country right now, or at any given time, are in their supreme courts arguing about their school finances, and usually that revolves around inequities and access to facilities. I think this is a question this country needs to take very seriously. Senator McCain is very interested in hearing from different states because this is their purview and the federal government has not (been) acting to the facilities business except in the backing of the finance in various minimal ways. But we obviously need leadership together to ask why in areas like DC, where the money is seemingly available, it is not tracked down to schools. The percentage of money available to education that does not get into school facilities and classrooms and instruction is way too high. We’re one of the highest in the world for administrative overhead so salaries outside of school or expenditures outside of instruction need to be addressed and it’s something he would want for us to take a look at.”

Digitized video and audio podcasts of the debate will become available sometime in the coming days through the Association of Educational Publishers. For further information about the debate or for information on how to acquire video or audio files of the debate, contact Doug Ferguson (dferguson at aepweb dot org) at the AEP.

[The following is an article I wrote for the May 2008 issue of Children’s Technology Review. For those unfamiliar with this monthly magazine, it’s a great information resource to all the latest software, gaming, and technology products being released for children.]

Last month, I was presenting at a conference for education publishers when someone raised his hand and asked “What’s a Webkinz?” Hmmmm, I thought. Doesn’t everyone know about Webkinz World? Shouldn’t everyone know about this site and others like it without the excuse “I don’t have kids.” The next day, somebody asked me, “What’s an avatar?” I was starting to understand that there were still plenty of publishers firmly stuck in yesterday’s Web 1.0 world. But don’t worry. We’ll fix the problem the way we developers always do—with a Patch.

The Web 2.0.1 Patch is designed to help you become more thoughtful when creating interactive experiences for children (and it works well for school or library websites, as well). Installing this Patch in your brain is a quick and painless process as long as you have a USB 2.01 port just behind your left ear. Or, you can follow these three steps.

STEP 1 — Create an account for yourself in a virtual world like Club Penguin, Pirate’s Online, Nicktropolis, Second Life or any of the many virtual worlds that are popping up all over.
Once you have an account, test it out and play with it. Keep in mind—like many other Web 2.0 products available you may not see the benefits immediately, but you will see incremental improvements every time you come back to visit one of these virtual worlds.

STEP 2 — Upload digital photos to Flickr or a video to YouTube.
Don’t forget to include some tags that describe what you’re uploading so for others can easily find it. Once you have posted something, control your excitement, pat yourself on the back, and email friends and family with a link to your newly posted UGC (User Generated Content)!

STEP 3 — Create a personal profile on Facebook, LinkedIn, or any another similar social networking site.
If you don’t know one that’s right for you, ask a smart computer friend what she uses (chances are she will have already installed the 2.0.1 Patch and will be familiar with the requirements). If your techy friend is not available, casually ask someone under the age of 20 what sites they use. Don’t tell them that you are setting up a new account. If you do, he or she might give you that “Web 1.0 look” and then slowly back away.

Here are just a few of the benefits you’ll be able to enjoy from downloading and installing this Patch:

• You will start from, and work from, a central plan.
  If you’re designing a site or service with social features, there will be no more “winging it” or making it up as you go along. Thinking through the design of your new web idea, writing it down, and sharing it with all of your team members are more important now than ever before.
  

• You’ll test your work with your target audience.
  The Patch works best when testing is considered at the very beginning of your product’s definition on paper and throughout the development process. Some of you might explain “We never had to test our products during the Web 1.0 days!” Yes, in many ways the Web 1.0 days were a simpler time, and a time we will all look back on with nostalgia. However, the hustle and bustle of today’s fast-paced Web 2.0 world demands ongoing testing.
  

• After you install the 2.0.1 Patch, you’ll have zero tolerance for UI (user interface) mistakes.
  If buttons or other interactive controls don’t function as they are supposed to, your product will be in violation of the User’s Agreement. It is important to think through the entire user experience fully before launching an interactive product. This requirement can’t be overstated. You can’t blame it on Flash, Microsoft or some browser error. That’s the 1.0 baby talk of the past.
  

• If you are a Web 2.0 savvy developer, keep in mind that it is possible your audience is not acknowledging that he or she is a Web 1.0 user.
  Education outreach and friendly intervention is an important component of the Web 2.0 vision. Take the time to gently explain how their actions are hurting others around them. Also explain the benefits of the Web 2.0 universe. (Note: This should be apparent in the development documentation you will have recently created for your plan). To keep your Web 2.0 chops fresh, try out the latest ground breaking technologies, like the iPod Touch interface, for example. You may not know how to find it at first, but be diligent.

These steps can avoid wasting countless hours and dollars, and they can prevent you from having to install the 2.1.1 Patch and a 2.1 Update. In the end, keeping your Patches up-to-date can result in better products and happier users.

A Presentation by Connie Yowell at the First Annual Symposium of the Joan Ganz Cooney Center

May 9, 2008

[Background: The presentation that left the strongest impression on me during the Joan Ganz Cooney Center’s Symposium was the four minute speech delivered by Connie Yowell, the Director of Education for the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Before Connie Yowell spoke, the symposium’s keynote speaker Bing Gordon, the Chief Creative Officer of Electronic Arts, discussed his experience developing video games for EA. He gave an enlightening presentation about the successful video game franchise Madden Football. What was most impressive about Bing’s presentation was the amount of mathematics, statistics and probability that are an integral part of the game’s experience. To hear the recording of Bing Gordon or Connie Yowell’s presentation, please refer to my prior blog post.]

“Good afternoon everyone. I’m Connie Yowell, the Director of Education at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. I want to start off by saying that we do a lot more than give out “genius awards” even though that’s how Bing Gordon of EA referred to us in his introduction. One of the things we do at the Foundation is award a fair amount of education grants.

Two years ago the MacArthur Foundation began to question how effective our grant making was. We were really focused on district reform, school reform, and instructional improvement. It was suggested to me that I begin to look at the digital world. I did so kicking and screaming. My heart has always been in social justice and in civil rights. I understand that education is the pathway to that result.

I had a lucky opportunity one morning to meet with Will Wright, the video game visionary behind The Sims, SimCity and SimEarth. Will was kind enough to have breakfast with me and I spent two and a half hours listening to him talk about how he creates a game. I distinctly remember leaving that meeting and emailing my boss immediately thereafter to say “I just met John Dewey.” There was no question in my mind that game developers and the folks who are working on some of these new technologies are the pedagogical theorists of the 21st century. They are the folks who are developing curriculum for our young people.

I have just one point to make and that being my greatest concern is with who we are as adults. My concern is with the paradigms we bring to this work. My concern is that we are at a time where we need dramatic changes and shifts in how we think about learning. My concern is the paradigms we bring to this conversation.

I’m curious, of those of you here in the room, how many of you, prior to or even after seeing Bing Gordon’s presentation, could watch somebody play a Madden Football video game and recognize where learning is happening in that game? [About 12 hands go up in the crowded room of more than 150 people.] I see a few of you could. If you can’t understand where learning is happening through the Madden game, then we’re in the wrong paradigm. If you’re stuck in conversations about whether or not the Encyclopedia Britannica is better than Wikipedia, then we’re in the old paradigm.

What matters dramatically at this moment, for me and for the Foundation, is that we ask the right questions. You can’t get to the solution and you can’t understand what direction to move in unless you’re asking the right questions. So if you look at Encyclopedia Britannica and you look at Wikipedia and your questions are about credibility, then you’re probably more concerned about something from the 20th century. If you look at Wikipedia and you say “Oh my God, this is going to teach my kid how to be a historian!” it’s then that you’ll see this is an incredibly different kind of learning opportunity and a fundamentally different kind of reading practice that our young kids are engaged in when they’re looking at Wikis and blogs and other things on the Internet. We cannot measure what they’re doing or understand the learning that is happening in context with our old measures - our old paradigms for learning, and frankly, our old understandings of learning that are based on models of consumption.

We’re in a time of participation. We’re in a time of production. And as important as participation and production are, we’re in a time of networked learning. I want to say that over and over again; We’re in a time of networked learning, - where kids are communicating and collaborating with each other in ways that fundamentally shift the role of the teacher and fundamentally shift the role of the adult. If anyone thinks a classroom of 25 kids with a teacher at the front is the paradigm that will result in the most effective use of digital media, that result is not going to happen. We can’t be using the same kinds of standards and measures or think that we’re simply going to move digital media into schools as they currently exist. We will only find that they have no impact. And then we’ll miss one of the most important opportunities for advancing our kids’ learning that we have had in over a century. I can’t express this with enough emotion and importance; we are in a moment, and if we ask the wrong questions, if we stick with our questions from the 20th century, and hold the new digital media accountable to things we’ve been holding accountable in the same ways for decades, we’re going to miss this opportunity.

I would also like to point out that commercial industry is driving learning. They are fundamentally driving learning. They have outstripped anything the textbook industry is doing or anyone else. What has to shift in a significant way is the relationship with and our understanding of the relationship between public and private, and I think that’s a good thing. Thank you.”

On May 9th, the first ever Joan Ganz Cooney Center Symposium was kicked off at the McGraw-Hill offices located in New York City. The Joan Ganz Cooney Center is the newest addition to the Sesame Workshop enterprise. Its mission is to offer guidance, research and insight into how children can learn through emerging media. The symposium itself was an amazing event. A stellar list of speakers and influential attendees from diverse areas of education, broadcast, gaming and the toy world came together to discuss the future of learning and technology for children in the 21st century. This jam-packed event included presentations from over 34 different industry insiders. Over 150 invited guests filled the room. Included on the guest list was Congressman George Miller (D-CA) who is the chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee.

All of the presentations offered many important perspectives and voices that are shaping the learning and technology conversation today. A number of speakers served up new research and valuable insights to chew on long after the event concluded. While there was significant take-away from all of the speakers, I would like to call out two specific presentations. These include the presentations of Connie Yowell of the MacArthur Foundation and Jennifer Kotler of Sesame Workshop.

First and foremost, Connie Yowell’s presentation on new learning paradigms was simply amazing, passionately delivered, and has given many folks the most food for thought about the future of new media and learning. Connie expressed the importance of seeking out the right questions to ask at the beginning of our journey, stating that in order for us to realize the opportunity in front of us, we must be ready for a significant paradigm shift in the existing learning conversation. I heard many attendees echo the importance of Connie’s words at the conclusion of the event. In the matrix below, I have included an audio recording of Connie’s presentation. A transcription of her comments can also be found in my next blog article.

During this part of the symposium, both Ellen Wartella (of UC Riverside) and Connie Yowell’s words were offered in succession and both speakers expressed a great need for more research and a significant rethinking of our current approach to education and learning. Their comments were vital ones to be heard by policy makers, and while Representative George Miller attended the event for most of the day, sadly he left just before Ellen and Connie took the stage.

The next presentation I’d like to call attention to was that delivered by Jennifer Kotler. Jennifer presented two reports, but one in particular has an important story to be told. This report gathered information from interviews conducted with children ages 6 to 9. It asked them about their favorite games and websites. Included within this report was a very clever validity check that, when its findings were presented, calls into question any other self-reported findings from other organizations asking similar questions about kids and online preferences.

In the study, kids were asked about their technology preferences. Included within the interview question sets were six non-existent website and game names. That’s right, online products that were completely fictitious and do not exist. What this report revealed was that 56% of those surveyed claimed to have played these non-existent games and websites. How could this be?

What the research suggests is that kids may be more likely to exaggerate their actual use of technology because of the apparent “cool factor” and/or the aspirational aspect of these technologies. How does this cool/aspirational factor play out within the data? Here are just a couple of examples: When kids were asked if they have ever visited a MySpace page, the “clean” data suggests that only 19% of those surveyed have visited the popular online destination whereas the non-valid data states the number is 54%. When asked about posting video on YouTube, the numbers are 7% (valid data) vs 42% (non-valid data).

These findings suggest that similar studies conducted by other organizations would benefit greatly by the inclusion of a validity test in their research. If not, the numbers reported could be significantly skewed from what they should be. Now that we’re all armed with this information, go back and look at all the claims regarding other popular children’s destinations, like Club Penguin, Webkinz, and the like. Hmmmmm.

I would also like to call out presentations made by Bernie Trilling of Oracle Education Foundation about 21st Century Learning Skills, Allison Druin for her work with the International Children’s Digital Library project, Krista Marks of Kerpoof, James Paul Gee and his report on Getting Over the Slump, and Jim Styer of Common Sense Media for his report on how parents and educators view the educational potential of new media.

The matrix below offers audio recordings, papers, and related websites collected from the event. Friends and colleagues who know me well will tell you that I’m rarely without a camera or recording device at such events. I believe it’s important to capture and share such information with everyone so that industries can move forward together. The list below includes audio recordings from most of the speakers. However, my apologies go out to the last 8 or so speakers, mostly from Warren Buckleitner’s Dust or Magic panel, for by the end of the day my recording device lost power.

All of the audio clips can be downloaded as a single zipped file here.

The artwork developed by kinetic sculptor Theo Jansen is truly inspirational. The vision behind his movable works is that someday these mechanical beasts could live on any beach in the world as if they were some sort of futuristic animal that survives on wind power. In a way, Jansen has developed an improved version of the wheel, one that can easily travel over sand. One noteworthy creature he developed is called Animaris Rhinoceros, and it looks a cross between a Star Wars AT Walker and a dinosaur. It stands over five meters (16 feet) tall and weighs 3.2 tons!

So imagine my surprise when I saw a fully functioning remote control robot that looks very close to this Theo Jansen piece. It’s eight legs and walks in a similar manner. It also has an extendable arm for grabbing items. The miniaturized version was created with various parts from many robot kits offered by Innovation First. This amazing electronics company makes hobby kits for educational use and also developed the fully functioning Theo Jansen-like robot you can see in the video below.

I was told by representatives at Innovation First that this specific robot has garnered so much interest, that they’re thinking about making a specialized kit so others can also build this specific work. Bringing robotics, engineering AND inspirational sculpture into the classroom, now there’s a forward thinking idea worth watching!

Last year I wrote about a tech toy product called Hyper Dash developed by the toy company Wild Planet. Hyper Dash is an electronic game that allows one user to hide up to five hockey puck sized targets, indoors or out, and another person can search for these targets with the help of a talking controller. I thought this was a brilliant use of RFID, a technology that relies on small paper thin microchips that can be detected within short distances via the radio frequencies they emit. (So when will this technology become standard in all car keys? Imagine the time we could all save each morning trying to find them!)

This coming fall Wild Planet will release a new iteration of this technology enhanced play pattern specifically for preschoolers. The product will be called Animal Scramble and it relies uses the same technology, but will support a hide-and-seek learning play pattern using plastic animal characters. The talking controller is a giraffe and the small targets include a monkey, a parrot, an elephant and a tiger. The giraffe calls out different challenges for one or many different players to accomplish, like tag the animal that has stripes, or find the animal that begins with the letter “M”. The animals can be spread out across a living room, backyard, or even a larger space for more exercise.

While Animal Scramble and Hyper Dash are great uses of RFID technology, it feels like RFID is inching along when it comes to being used in new and original ways. I keep waiting to see breakthrough applications that rely on the technology but am surprised at how few new products take advantage of its possibilities.

The only other child-focused RFID product I’ve seen so far this year includes a child alarm system developed by Smart Target called Kiddo. This product sounds an alarm when a child or even a pet you’re watching (or maybe not watching) equipped with an RFID tag moves outside of a designated play area.

Immediately I see how this technology can be used in all the clothes I drop off at the dry cleaner, important books I wish to keep on a designated bookshelf, picking up luggage at the airport, and did I mention the part about car keys?

So today I’d like to congratulate Wild Planet for pushing the RFID envelope. Many more play patterns are yet to be discovered. I look forward to this space heating up. Thank you for leading the charge!

The world’s first hydrogen powered toy, called H2Go, was presented at the 2008 NY Toy Fair by a company called Corgi. The fully functioning prototypes Corgi brought to the show were very impressive and the best example of toy technology innovation at the show.

The remote controlled car is powered by hydrogen fuel which is separated out from common tap water through a device called the “Refueling Station”, or as the company commonly referred to as the “cooker” Connect the car up to the cooker via a small fueling tube, press the plunger down on the cooker to force the hydrogen into the car, and away you go! The cooker and the remote control itself are powered by rechargeable batteries.

Corgi demonstrated a strong commitment to being as green as possible by quoting just what percentage of renewable energy was used through the combination of the different components that power the car. The car, cooker, and remote control sell together for $100. The solar panel, which can be purchased separately costs an extra $20. Without the solar panel, the cooker and remote control require a traditional electric outlet to recharge its batteries.