The New Coviewing:Intergenerational Play and Learning for a Digital Age

Michael H. LevineThe Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop

screen2screen, Fordham UniversityOctober 8, 2010

• About the Cooney Center• A brief history of intergenerational play and literacy

learning• The new coviewing: Joint media engagement• Research on joint media engagement• What next? Setting an R&D agenda

Overview

About the Cooney CenterJoan Ganz Cooney’s 1966 report to Carnegie Corporation,The Potential Uses of Television in Preschool Education

“How can emerging media help children learn?”

Pioneering Research in Children’s Media

The Cooney Center’s MissionTo foster innovation in children’s learning through digital media

What we care about• Middle childhood (5 to 11-year-olds)• Improving literacy: old and new• Underserved populations• Learning ecologies across formal and

informal environments

govt agencies

mass media

parents’ work

digital media market

local school system

the neighborhood

attitudes & ideologies of the culture

friends, afterschool,

etc.

home school

digital media spaces

An Ecological Framework

Bronfenbrenner, 1977

Research PrioritiesTo foster innovation in children’s learning through digital media

Our research priorities stem from an ecological perspective on learning:

• Joint media engagement• Bridging learning across home,

school, and community settings• Networked participation

Research Activities

• Research and market scans• Studies of digital media use and literacy learning• Convening key sectors and disciplines• Prototype design and testing• Policy papers

Recent Research Publications

A Brief History of Intergenerational Play and Literacy Learning

Research on Television Coviewing• Children who coview with their parents enjoy

programs more than other children (Salomon, 1977)

• Sesame Street researchers found that children learn more from the show when parents watch with them

• But parents must be actively engaged, talking and pointing things out (Wright, St. Peters, & Huston, 1990)

• To keep parents in the room and engaged, Sesame Street producers included adult humor, music, and celebrities

The New Coviewing:Joint Media Engagement

Joint Media Engagement

• Caregivers can act as guides by establishing joint attention to media features salient for learning

• This guidance promotes children’s engagement with media in purposeful ways

• JME extends the notion of coviewing to include newer, interactive forms of media and other learning spaces

• JME research studies how media content intersects with in-room and in-world interactions and learning (Stevens, Satwicz, & McCarthy, 2008)

Joint Media Engagement

Research on Joint Media Engagement:Two Studies

Intergenerational Play & Learning• Games are the most popular digital activity for children

ages 2-14, with 85% usage among device users• 97% of American teens play computer or video games• The average child starts to play computer games at age 6,

and cell phone games at age 10• A 9-year-old spends ~55 minutes on a

portable or video game console on a typical weekday, over double the amount of time spent by 6-year-olds

Intergenerational Play & Learning

Aim to develop research-driven design principles for creating intergenerational play mechanics that help children learn in a variety of settings

Partners• USC Game Innovation Lab• University of Michigan School of

Education• The Joan Ganz Cooney Center • Corporation for Public Broadcasting

Key Research Questions

• How can intergenerational play be intentionally designed and promoted during game play?

• What behaviors are associated with intergenerational game play?

• Which player dynamics attract both parents and children to play?

• Which platforms and play mechanics best support intergenerational engagement?

Trends

Intergenerational Play & Learning• Game choice• Rules of the game• Competition• Mentoring opportunities• Influence of game type• Focus of the interaction • Mutual engagement

Story Visit

• A traditional paper book (Monster at the End of this Book by Jon Stone)• A sensor-enhanced frame to monitor page each party is viewing• Video-conferencing technology• Video of Elmo to maintain child’s engagement and support the interaction

between the child and grandparent

• Grandparent and child-parent dyad were in different rooms of the lab, to simulate distance communication

• Grandparent read the story and parenthelped child follow along

• Small paper flaps in the grandparent’s book could be lifted to reveal a suggestion for how to engage the child in conversation related to the book content.

• Whenever Elmo’s thought bubble appeared, the child could touch it to hear a story-relevant comment or question from Elmo.

Story Visit - Study Procedure

• Most Story Visit calls lasted from 6 to 10 minutes, in contrast to parents’ reports of calls lasting under 1 minute when traditional phone technology is used.

• The quality of call interactions was much higher than in regular phone calls. Children remained highly engaged in the sessions 97% of the time with Story Visit.

• When using Story Visit, grandparents averaged asking two questions per page of the book.

Story Visit - Findings

Story Visit - Implications• Elmo can help make video-conferencing more child-

friendly• The Story Visit System can facilitate richer interactions

around reading and provide a shared context for long-distance family interaction

• Communication, education, and entertainment can converge to help young children play, learn and connect

What Next? Setting an R&D agenda

Challenges to Creating Effective Digital Media• Current research efforts are fragmented and lack shared

priorities and practices• Old models of R&D no longer apply to an evolving, multi-

disciplinary field• Most current investments in educational technology are spent

on hardware and software, rather than on training to effectively use technologies

• Educational digital media rarely bridges home and school, or spans multiple grades

• The public dialogue about games is often focused on their negative effects, not their potential

Studying Digital Media SolutionsCraft studies to investigate potential of digital media to:• Engage parents in scaffolding their kids’ learning• Personalize early literacy development• Promote healthy eating and exercise habits• Inspire kids to engage in scientific inquiry• Support learners with special needs

Advancing Methods to Study JME

How do gaming experiences transfer to in-room and in-world learning? (Stevens, Satwicz & McCarthy, 2008)

• Family as the unit of analysis

• Transmedia migration• Boundary crossing

(Barron, 2004)

Family as the Unit of Analysis

Can video games (re)unite generations?

Transmedia Migration

Boundary Crossing

• Youth Prize & Developer Prize categories• Announced at the White House on

September 16, 2010• Winners awarded at 2011 Leadership Forum• Visit http://www.cooneycenterprizes.org

Presented in collaboration with:

Sponsored by:

Founding outreach partners:

National STEM Video Game Challenge

Thank You