WGBH Spins a ‘Design Squad’ Remix
An interview with Melissa Carlson of the WGBH Education Foundation about the latest addition to the ‘Design Squad’ website.
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Author: Bill Shribman
‘PB & JAMS’: New Singer, New Music
New Jersey Native Erica Rabner released her first original children’s album this Thanksgiving, ‘PB & JAMS’. It’s an album of message-driven music for kids and families, all written and sung by Rabner, and produced by award-winning music producer, Brian Blake.
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‘Born Digital’: A Review
John Palfrey and Urs Gasser have updated ‘Born Digital: How Children Grow Up in a Digital Age.’
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Science in the Bath
A young English scientist explains complex theories from the comfort of his bath tub.
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The Internet Gets a Poke in the i.
With its own strange way of expressing itself, the AP Style Guide will change its guidance of Internet to internet on June 1. “We will lowercase internet effective June 1, when the 2016 Stylebook launches,” it offered via Twitter, while turning lowercase into a verb.
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Here Comes the Flood! A Digital Game of Wetness Protection
Interview with Melissa Carlson, digital producer of a game about flood protection.
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How to Put an End to Distracted Driving? Listen to Your Kids!
A new initiative to reduce distracted driving.
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TV Says “I’m Not Dead Yet!” in Brand New Research
New research sheds light on how kids today are using media.
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Unexpected Internet Lessons
Maybe like me you also use the Internet from time to time. Are any of the mundane aspects of your life now differently mundane thanks to cyberspace? Mine are.
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A Makeover for a Maker Community
Redesigned Design Squad website offers the youngest makers engineering challenges.
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‘Plum’s Creaturizer’: a New and Free Photo App for Kids
Discover a new photo app from PBS KIDS to get budding scientists into the great outdoors.
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Close Shave With the Terminator
Do you have other household items that look like movie icons from 1984?
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Apps to Straddle the Great Firewall of China
I produce apps for kids as part of my work at WGBH, and, while we have a few projects aimed at a global audience, our projects typically try to reach kids in the United States. Our ‘Plum’s Photo Hunt’ photography app, however, has had a very large number of downloads from mainland China.
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A Customer Service Story in Several (Plastic) Parts
Ordering new parts online is not as easy as it seems.
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Want to Cook at the White House? Take the Healthy Lunchtime Challenge!
Do you have a child between the ages of 8 and 12? Take the White House Healthy Lunchtime Challenge!
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Under the Volcano With Bruce Schneier
I’m in a locked room, underneath a volcano somewhere in the southern hemisphere talking to one of the world’s leading security experts, Bruce Schneier.
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YouTube’s New Kids App: The Experts Weigh in
Google is upping its fare that’s directed at kids. GeekDad talks to some of those that follow media closely about this new direction for YouTube.
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PBS KIDS Launches new Channel at YouTube
The wonderful PBS Kids has launched its own YouTube channel to collect all their great content.
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Batman and Aliens Meet the Real World: GeekDad Interviews Nate Ball
I spoke recently to uber-geek and new dad Nate Ball about his inventions, his books, and his role in helping a new generation of makers get inspired about engineering. We didn’t get to discuss his beatboxing, but you’ll find a link to his Ted X talk on that here also.
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New Apps for New Mathematicians
An unusual set of apps just started rolling out at iTunes. At first blush, Gracie and Friends may look like many other math apps for little guys. But a look under the hood reveals a unique and multi-year endeavor to create a breakthrough in evidence-based, educationally rich digital games for preschoolers. I asked my colleague Christine Zanchi to walk me behind the scenes.
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What We Love About Technology
We asked you to tell me some of your great experiences with kids and technology. Here are some of the positive stories you shared with us.
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GeekDad: Parents’ Tech Survey
We’re all wrestling with how to fit the abundance of new technologies into our lives. I’m working on a new media & technology project for PBS and I’d love to hear from you.
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Tinybop and a New Kind of App
“Inspired by children’s books, toys, and stop-motion films, we design digital toys that dive into the strange wonders of our everyday world,” according to Tinybop, maker of a stylish line of apps including a #1 App Store hit with their Toca Boca-style The Human Body and their new one, Plants.
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Kickstarter Alert: Tiny Robots for Tiny People
KIBO is a robot kit specifically designed for young children aged 4-7 years old. It is different from any other kit out there because it appeals to both technically minded kids and those that connect more to arts and culture or physical activity.
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A High Steaks Game
Suspended over a suburban landscape, dogs leap, hurdle, glide and tumble through a floating landscape of meat products. In other words, this is a typical day in the life of Martha Speaks, the PBS KIDS web site of the TV series of the book series. This latest game, produced by my friend and colleague Laura Nooney, […]
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Things to Know About the Internet of Things
Anyone familiar with how hard it is to get from London’s Putney Bridge to East Finchley by Tube will know that this visual analogy for how internetty our lives are becoming is as good as any.
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Truth, Justice & Stuff Like That
While everyone is enjoying superhero origin stories this year with X-Men, Spider-Man and Gotham, I thought I would (self-)indulge with my own trip down memory lane. Harking back to 2002, I and a handful of chums (Gentry, Kevin and Rick) formed the FFFBI, the Fin, Fur and Feather Bureau of Investigation: a motley crew of animal agents led by Agents Elbow and Wrist guided kids on adventures to foreign lands and some closer to home in valiant attempts to thwart (there was a lot of thwarting) the strangely charismatic Skip Intro and his Cyber-Toothed Tigers, not to mention C.R.U.S.T. and the Sandwich Faced Daddy’s Boys.
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Super Vision: a New App for Parents from PBS KIDS
Many parents want to use the free resources PBS KIDS offers and to engage with familiar PBS KIDS characters that their children love. Today, PBS moves another step forward in that direction with a sophisticated new (and free) app which gives a parent Super Vision.
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Counting on Our Kids: Playing with Data
For all the talk about NSA surveillance and major breaches of credit card security such as the recent one at Target, there has been little public debate about kids’ data and the vast trove of information our kids give away, usually unknowingly.
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Minecraft Will Eat Your School
I’m talking to one of the educator/gamers who is turning Minecraft into a powerful school resource, Minecraft Edu. It’s Mikael Uusi-Mäkelä in Finland.
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