I’ve spent some time in Finland recently as I’m part of a US/Finnish working group looking at educational games. I keynoted a few weeks ago at their biggest tech/ed conference and brought with me a digital postcard of what it’s like to work in the US where we’re still debating basic science (sigh) and where a classroom may have to contend with a dozen or more languages amongst its students.
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I met my wife when I was a photographer. I’ve encouraged both of my daughters to take photos. And I have TEDx and TED Ed talks online about photography. And as part of my ongoing encouragement to take advantage of this ubiquitous tool, I’ve produced (with my team at WGBH) a free, photographic iPhone app.
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MIT’s Media Lab in Cambridge is a powerhouse of innovation and is home to the origin stories for Lego Mindstorms, Guitar Hero, the XO One Laptop, the Kindle’s E Ink and many others. Housing a collection of self-described misfits and drop-outs, this eclectic band of designers, programmers, engineers, scientists, artists, and researchers remain on the forefront of new technology.
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Much as I’ve been writing here about other people, I also make stuff for kids so I’m sharing one of those projects today. I just produced a digital graphic novel, Tales from the Poisoner’s Handbook. It’s an adaptation of Deborah Blum’s book about poison that WGBH recently turned into an American Experience film. In other words, it’s a comic of the film of the book, and this version is designed to engage teenagers in forensic chemistry.
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An interview with Joi Podgorny, Director of Community Engagement at Smart Bomb Interactive, about the online playground Animal Jam.
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As the second interview, this is now officially a series of interviews with movers and/or shakers in the world of kids technology. Today we’re meeting Jens de Pedro, also know as JP. He’s Creative Director of Stories and Consumer Products at Toca Boca.
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I recently met Tony DeRose, a Senior Scientist and lead of the Research Group at Pixar Animation Studios. Between the two of us, at least one of us has a Scientific and Technical Academy Award for trail-blazing work on surface representations.
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As the start of an ongoing series of interviews with movers and shakers in the world of educational kids technology, I offer you an interview with Warren Buckleitner. Warren runs the Dust or Magic conference series, and is a writer, teacher, and founding editor of Children’s Technology Review.
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Much is being said these days about technology dominating the lives of our kids. National research is showing what many of us see every day, that kids are increasingly connected while we, as families, may be more disconnected.
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Although most of what we do is on the lighter side, I’d like to share a new digital project around health that we just launched at pbskids.org/arthur/health.
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