Can you imagine using video games as an effective tool to improve a child’s mind and physical well being? Can you also imagine video games that do more than just passively entertain and become media tools to improve a child’s life? These ideas no longer live in the domain of fantasy, and the researchers at the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, a non-profit organization named after the Sesame Street show’s founder, are exploring how new kinds of video games can help promote learning and healthy lives for children across the globe.

Yesterday at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington DC, the Cooney Center released its latest policy brief entitled Game Changer: Investing in Digital Play to Advance Children’s Learning and Health. (Note: Video of this event will be available soon on the Joan Ganz Cooney Center’s YouTube channel.) The paper was shared with a crowd of thought leaders specializing in the areas of education, public policy, research, television and video games. Game Changer defines a number of recommendations for a new framework related to learning games and games for health. After the event, which include a panel discussion from a number of pioneers in the learning games and games for health space, I had the opportunity to speak with Ann My Thai, one of the Cooney Center’s lead authors on this paper.

Scott Traylor: Your Game Changer report covers two sizable topics; learning games and games for health. Why one report and not two?

Ann My Thai: This was something we really struggled with because learning games and games for health are both large areas. Learning encompasses all types of content areas, be it literacy, math, programming, or 21st century learning skills. Health on the other hand has a certain kind of knowledge and a certain rigor in the medical field that doesn’t exactly map out in the same way to learning research, especially when you talking about educational intervention research, an area which created a really big challenge in writing this paper. In the end we decided we wanted to stay to the Sesame Workshop philosophy of the “whole child, ” or in other words, the many areas of a child’s overall development, not just one area of development. We felt it was important not to ignore one or the other but to present both topics together. There’s strong research that shows learning and health are closely connected in young children. It’s important to address these challenges in both realms when talking about digital media. We suspect these are the areas within digital media that provide the greatest benefits. They can help bridge the gap between home and school as well as provide tailor-made learning for children, areas that are really important in health learning and learning in general.

ST: In your report you cite that the health-based gaming industry is estimated to be a $6.6 billion market. How big is the learning games market?

AMT: That’s a hard question to answer. Defining what is a learning game can be tough to begin with. On one hand you have organizations that are developing learning games in a research-based way, to make games intentionally educational. On the other you have companies who are making games that are fun first, but sometimes accidentally provide great learning opportunities to kids. Financial data exists for the gaming industry generally but I’ve yet to find anything specific that defines the market size of just learning games.

ST: In your report you touch on Henry Jenkins’ Digital Media Literacies Project, a body of work that could provide valuable insights for integrating digital media in the classroom. What do you think it will take for the points defined in the Digital Media Literacies Project to find its way into the classroom?

AMT: I think it’s going to take a complete paradigm shift with everyone who is involved with educating children, from parents to teachers, to school administrators, to reasearchers like us. There are so many ways that learning can work better for students. We need to completely re-envision what it means to be a school. For example, the area of parental involvement with children’s learning alone is huge. There’s a big disconnect between what happens at school and what children do at home. Digital media can be a really powerful tool in this regard, but it won’t happen if there are calls for cell phone bans in schools because news reports claim students are cheating in school by texting with cell phones. I don’t believe this is the response that will keep kids engaged. Kurt Squire, a leading learning games researcher from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, recently said that kids pass notes in class to one another all the time, notes that have been created with pencils. We don’t ban pencils in the classroom. Pencils are a neutral medium, just like cell phones and other technologies. We need to spend more time exploring the benefits of these technologies, instead of banning them for what potential harm they may bring.

ST: Studies find that Nintendo Wii Sports players expended significantly less energy than children playing “real-life” sports. Would you say exergaming is more about behavior change than it is about physical exertion during game play?

AMT: That’s a good question, and one that reminds me of a comment made by Alan Gershenfeld, founder of E-Line Ventures, during today’s panel presentation. Alan wonders if the success of Guitar Hero has inspired children to want to learn how to play guitar. Wouldn’t it be great of we could track increases in guitar sales as as a result of Guitar Hero’s success!

I think behavioral change is one part of it. I also think about communities that may not be safe for children to go outside and play. As the exergaming pioneer Dr. Ernie Medina mentioned in our interviews, exergaming may not necessarily be better than going outside. However, if children are inside and they are playing games, playing games that require children to be physical active are a much better alternative than playing sedentary games. It’s all about a balanced media diet.

ST: How best can we achieve a coordinated effort to improve research related to learning games and games for health?

AMT: Certainly programs like the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Pioneer Portfolio national Health Games Research program is a good start. A good first step would be to get people who are developing games to communicate with others across a variety of other important disciplines. Game Changer calls for the government to conduct an inventory to determine what games research is being funded and by which agencies.   This would organize the current research and help accelerate collaboration across silos, which is already starting to happen. The government also needs to create incentives for people to work and play in the same sandbox. The way that academic research is currently being conducted is very much driven by individual researchers. There are not many opportunities for researchers to cross pollinate. This is something that digital media, as well as any other media, requires.

Researchers also need to have more communication with practitioners and people who are using these digital medias as part of their research. There needs to be more incentives to drive and encourage these sorts of collaborations.

ST: Are you hearing any feedback from policy makers about your report? What are they saying?

AMT: People are talking about these issues. This is a really pivotal moment in Washington in terms of setting an agenda for education and health. We hope that policy makers will read this report and see that if children are playing video games for hours a day, why not provide options that are not only entertaining and engaging, but also helpful with improved health and can teach children something as well. We have a briefing coming up with the Office of Science & Technology Policy. We know they have been looking at some of these barriers to multidisciplinary collaboration. We hope that our recommendations will give them some concrete ideas for how to lower those barriers.

Last week I attended a conference called the Sandbox Summit in New York City. The Summit was a day long event with many noteworthy speakers who are software and content creators, child development experts, and reviewers of technology toys for children. The event’s main theme? The power of play and its ability to help facilitate learning.

Opening

During the opening keynote, speaker Andy Berndt, managing director of Google’s Creative Lab, described how almost everyone can remember a favorite toy when they were young (link to audio of presentation.) Andy shared his favorite play activity, that being a creative experience which involved the process of inventing new bicycles. When he was a child, what he did was take apart many different bicycles, and because bicycle parts for the most part are standardized in terms of their bolt sizes and screws used to make them, he was able to recombine different bicycle parts into unique, unusual, and exciting combinations. One could say that Andy’s open ended experimentation with bicycle parts was on par with play experiences found in Legos, K’Nex, Lincoln Logs, Erector Sets, and the like. What is it about Andy’s creative experience that can lead to insights on how best to help facilitate a love of learning? Read on.

The Importance of Play and its Relationship to Learning

The next speaker who I thought did a fantastic job of providing an overview on the importance of play and the learning opportunities that come from play was Nancy Schulman, the director of the 92nd Street Y Nursery School in New York City (link to audio of presentation.) Nancy shared with the audience that one of the best things about her job for the last 18 years was the wonderful opportunity to watch young children play. With that experience she has learned a great deal about the benefits of play not just for preschoolers, but for all ages.

Nancy expressed that educators, psychologists, and even the American Academy of Pediatrics have great concerns today about the quality of children’s play, how children play, and the quantity of time children play. Parents on the other hand express a lot of concern around wanting their children prepared for success at a very early age. Through her work, Nancy speaks with many parents. One of the greatest anxieties she hears from parents is that they want to be sure their child has every advantage, making sure that before they’re five years old they’ve mastered a second language, mastered every sport they might possibly play, and excel at playing a musical instrument as well. While child professionals are encouraging more open ended play in a child’s life, sadly most parents aren’t paying much attention to these recommendations.

When Nancy was asked “What types of skills do kids learn through play? And why is that meaningful in terms of a child’s lifelong appreciation for learning or confidence in their ability to learn?” she responded first with a quote from child development expert David Elkind of Tufts University:

“Play is not a luxury, but rather a crucial dynamic of healthy, physical, intellectual, social, and emotional development at all ages.”

Nancy then discussed each of these developmental benefits and how child initiated play can lay the foundation for learning:

• Social – “Through play, children learn to interact with others. Play prepares children for morale reasoning. They figure out how to resolve a problem with a friend independently.”
  
  
• Intellectual – “They learn to recognize and solve problems. Children get that feeling of mastery that only comes from when they’re challenged but not frustrated at the same time. In academic areas, play is linked to creativity, imagination, and problem solving skills and it lays the groundwork for successful learning experiences in reading, writing, math, and science. If you think about what children do when they play, it’s very language rich. They are interacting with words and language all the time and learning communication skills.”
  
  
• Physical – “In terms of physical development, they can develop through play fine motor skills, gross motor skills, overall strength and integration of their muscles, their brains, and their nerves. It sets apart a start in their lives for healthy living and fitness, which of course, can counter obesity as well.”
  
  
• Emotional – “Play is Joyful. It is probably one of the greatest underpinnings for later adult happiness. It can’t be underestimated how much happiness and joy have in terms of learning as well.”

Survey of Kids Opinions about Play

The next speaker who offered some additional insight into what kids think about their favorite play objects was Peter Shafer, Vice President of Harris Interactive (link to audio of presentation.) Peter shared with the audience a recent online survey conducted in collaboration with the Sandbox Summit of 1, 353 US children ages 8 to 18.

There was a wealth of data to digest in this presentation that spoke to tween and teen toy preferences as well as video games and digital toy products. In general I found this data interesting in that it backs up many gut assumptions about what different age groups prefer in their toy playing experiences.

One observation, it appears the definition of a “toy” was intentionally left undefined in this survey. Did survey respondents think a toy was a traditional toy, a technology toy, or maybe even a video game? Parts of the survey appeared to suggest what the differentiation of a toy was while other questions were not as clear.

Here are a few pieces of data I found interesting to pull out of the Harris Interactive Sandbox Summit survey press release:

“How much do you agree or disagree with the following?”
Summary of Strongly/Somewhat Agree

I call your attention to a couple of specific items from the survey (colored in light blue.) For the 8 to 12 age group the most popular response for a toy product was that it should be “entertaining” whereas with the 13 to 18 year old group there is a great appeal in products that “make me think”.

Best Practices for Developing Playful Products

After the Harris Interactive presentation, Carly Shuler, a Cooney Fellow from Sesame Workshop’s Joan Ganz Cooney Center and educational technologist Carla Engelbrecht Fisher delivered a presentation called “Fun Follows Function: Ten Tips for Developing Quality Toys”. Below I briefly outline each tip, but you can download an audio recording or download a PDF copy of the PowerPoint presentation here.

1. Bridge the gap between industry and academia – This first tip strongly suggests the benefit of bringing together multidisciplinary teams (child development experts, content experts, pedagogy experts, etc.) This first tip is one my company follows frequently. There’s a great paper by Brian Winn and Carrie Heeter, both from Michigan State University, about the important balance needed (and often the necessary heated debate) that comes from working collaboratively with multidisciplinary teams. A copy of this paper can be downloaded here.)
   
   
2. Incorporate research and testing in your product development and discovery process – Any amount of testing, large or small, will have a beneficial impact on your product’s development. From informal focus and user testing groups to serious product research efforts there’s a research approach that can fit your budget.
   
   
3. Track what users do in your product – There’s lots to be learned from watching how your target audience interacts with your product either informally or through data collection. Spend time analyzing what you find.
   
   
4. Read some research – Become familiar with the basics of developmental psychology for the specific age group your developing for. Doing this will help avoid reinventing the wheel. A handout was shared at the conference with many great places to jump start your research reading list. A copy of this reading list can be downloaded here.
   
   
5. Become an observer – Watch kids at play in the real world or even on YouTube (a cool suggestion offered by Carla). Watch how kids interact with products, visit playgrounds, schools, toy stores. Note what’s on the shelf and where it’s located. Also be aware of what’s on sale, it may provide a tip for what’s not selling.
   
   
6. Break the traditional model of one child per screen – Think outside tradition single player models. Think multiple players, or better yet, how can you actively encourage inter-generational participation! Think outside the keyboard box, consider alternative input devices (dance pads, guitars, balance boards.) Consider how you could combine virtual and physical worlds in new ways (like the success Webkins achieved with dual play patterns online and offline.)
   
   
7. Leverage consumer market trends for learning – Consider user generated content, online video, or casual game approaches. Be aware of these every changing trends and you just might find one that will greatly elevate the success of your product.
   
   
8. Go beyond the “3 R’s” – Think 21st Century Skills: Creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, communication. For more on 21st Century Learning Skills, download this presentation from the May, 2008 Joan Ganz Cooney Center’s first annual symposium.
   
   
9. Become familiar with various game mechanics – There are many different game mechanics that could increase interest and engagement in your product. Some old mechanics can be made new again with the newest technologies.
   
   
10. Tap into your own childhood – Everyone has childhood experiences that can help shape your product for the better. Tap into your own experiences as well as those around you.

Note about Virtual Worlds

Kids and virtual worlds was touched on a few times throughout the day but I thought the following statement was worth calling out in its own section. Peter Shafer of Harris Interactive indicated that we will see explosive growth in the area of virtual worlds specifically for kids. The numbers cited were that there are about 80 virtual world destinations for kids today and by the end of 2010 there will be more than 150 virtual worlds to choose from. For a current list of virtual worlds available, I have the following link to share.

Takeaway

So what’s the key take away for developers, innovators and creators of playful learning products for kids, whether traditional or technological? Here’s the secret sauce that was repeated over an over again through words and through examples:

• Make the play experience as open ended as possible. Think about opportunities for vast exploration, not a limited path of play. Include opportunities to fail as well as ones to succeed. Let each child develop their own unique path to play, one that is customizable enough that it appeals to a single user and flexible enough that multiple users can find their own unique approach.
• Bring together a variety of child experts.
• Become familiar with research.
• Watch your audience, get familiar with your audience, test with your audience.
• Try something new! Break the habit of relying on the same old technology and user input solutions.
• Think 21st Century Skills

Nancy Schulman also offered this sage advice:

“If your child can’t play with a toy in at least three different ways, leave it behind.”

And one last thought for making the next greatest learning toy, digital or otherwise… Think bicycle parts.

Referenced Products and Videos

Here’s a list of digital products and online YouTube videos that were referenced throughout the Summit.

The New York Times recently ran a short article called Preferring the Web Over Watching TV which cited a few stats regarding TV and web habits of 10 to 14 year olds. The article was based on a study conducted by DoubleClick Performics. In the article it stated:

• 83% of children ages 10 to 14 spent an hour or more a day using the Internet
• 68% of children ages 10 to 14 spent an hour or more a day watching television
• 72% of the children online have at least one social networking profile on a site like MySpace
• 60% of this online group said they never or rarely read blogs (Don’t latch onto this stat. Read more below.)

I thought these stats were great to find, but I wanted more. Much more. So I started searching online for any additional information about this DoubleClick Performics report. While I didn’t find the full report, I did find this gem of a release many weeks earlier called New Data Shows the Tween Scene is Online written by Stuart Larkins, VP of Search Operations at DoubleClick Performics. The article was posted on a site called Chief Marketer. This report appears to have been written from data gathered in an online survey of more than 1, 000 tweens in the 10 to 14 age group. In this post the following additional stats could be found:

• Almost 50% of this group go online more than three times a day with each visit lasting at least a half an hour.
• 29% of children ages 10 to 14 spent an hour or more a day listening to radio
• 10% of children ages 10 to 14 spent an hour or more a day reading newspapers
• 5% of children ages 10 to 14 spent an hour or more a day reading magazines

As it relates to social networking for this demographic, the article states:

• 54% have a profile on MySpace
• 35% have a profile on Facebook
• 45% have a profile on some other social networking site
• 64% visit social networking sites at least once per day
• 34% spend four or more hours a week on social networking sites

In terms of this demographic reading blogs:

• 8% frequently read blogs
• 31% occasionally read blogs
• 40% rarely read blogs
• 20% never read blogs

What I find interesting about these stats in terms of this demographic having a MySpace or Facebook account is that both online services state in their Terms of Use (Myspace, Facebook) that users must be at least 13 years of age or older to use the site. Since the publicly available information from this report is not broken out by individual age, you have to wonder:

a.) What percentage of kids ages 10 to 12 report using MySpace and Facebook?

b.) Should we assume that the majority of these social networking statistics only apply to 13 and 14 year olds?

c.) Could it be possible that kids in the 10 to 14 demographic are over reporting their actual use of these sites because it’s a “cool” thing to say you have a profile on MySpace and Facebook?

Jennifer Kotler, AVP of Domestic Research at Sesame Workshop, presented a similar report a couple of months ago at the Joan Ganz Cooney Symposium and the Kid Power Xchange conference, but with a focus on 6 to 9 year olds. I’ll share more on her findings in a future post.

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:

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.