Where are your kids? If they are 2-11 years old, more than likely they are online. US K2-11 are spending +63% more time online over the last five years, according to a new Nielsen report, from about 7 hours in May 2004 to 11+ hours online in may 2009. In May 2009, K2-11 comprised 16 million, or 9.5% of the online universe (a fairly split evenly between boys and girls). This is an increase over 2004, with the number of K2-11 online growing +18%. K2-11 are also outpacing the increase for the overall population, which was up by +36% over the last five years. Boys are spending 7% more time online than girls, but girls are taking in more content, viewing 9% more web pages than boys in May 2009. Meanwhile, in May 2009, boys led in viewing and time spent, consuming 61% of video streams among kids and comprising 57% of the time spent viewing videos.
From: Cynopsis: Kids! 07/08/09
Friday, July 10, 2009
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Good News for Gaming, Kids!
Can video games be good for kids? According to a report from The Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop an investment in research-based digital games can improve kid's health and learning. The report Game Changer: Investing in Digital Play to Advance Children's Learning and Health provides recommendations for a new framework to use games to help kids learn healthy behaviors, skills like reading and math, as well as critical thinking, global learning and programming design. The report outlines 30+ examples of learning and health games and research projects. It includes a list of federally funded game R&D projects in which the Department of Defense, National Institutes of Health and the Department of Education have invested. The report is supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Pioneer Portfolio, and was unveiled at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C.
http://www.joanganzcooneycenter.org/
http://www.joanganzcooneycenter.org/
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Obama and Education
AMERICAN RECOVERY AND REINVESTMENT ACT:
With Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, $53 billion will be pumping into the country’s education and training programs—besides new K-12 reforms, the Act will focus on early learning programs (i.e. Head Start) and programs for children with special needs.
The money going into elementary and secondary schools also comes with new reforms and goals for states including: improvements in teacher effectiveness; have more college and career-ready standards to prepare students; improve achievements in low-performing schools, and; continue extensive research to improve these things further in the future. Working for Obama on this plan is Education Secretary Arne Duncan.
Duncan sees big things for the country’s educational future. The first thing he has in mind is a reform of the No Child Left Behind Act. Duncan will be meeting with teachers’ unions and finding other peoples’ opinions on it and what can be done to improve it, focusing on learning and not simply performance in standardized testing.
Soon, $140 billion will be going toward education—both for teachers and students. The money will go toward expanding early childhood education, creating better student assessments, and improving teacher quality. The White House says, “providing a high-quality education for all children is critical to America’s economic future. Our nation’s economic competitiveness and the path to the American Dream depend on providing every child with an education that will enable them to succeed in a global economy that is predicated on knowledge and innovation.”
Obama and Duncan believe that “investment in education must be accompanied by reform and innovation.” They will be tailoring the new education programs to foster learning and development in pre-school aged children, support successful charter schools, reform standardized testing, and change academic standards to better align with other leading nations.
“President Obama will reform America’s public schools to deliver a 21st century education that will prepare all children for success in the new global workplace. He will foster a race to the top in our nation’s schools, by promoting world-class academic standards and a curriculum that fosters critical thinking, problem solving, and the innovative use of knowledge to prepare students for college and career. He will push to end the use of ineffective, "off-the-shelf" tests, and support new, state-of-the-art assessment and accountability systems that provide timely and useful information about the learning and progress of individual students.
“Teachers are the single most important resource to a child’s learning. President Obama will ensure that teachers are supported as professionals in the classroom, while also holding them more accountable…
This mission statement also talks about encouraging students to continue higher education, but the majority of the focus is raising the standards for students in schools across the country. The new President seems especially eager to help children receive and continue in good education from the very first few years. Hopefully all the new funding will help our schools to better prepare children for facing the great, big world we live in!
http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/2009/02/05/what-arne-duncan-thinks-of-no-child-left-behind.html
(http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/education/):
With Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, $53 billion will be pumping into the country’s education and training programs—besides new K-12 reforms, the Act will focus on early learning programs (i.e. Head Start) and programs for children with special needs.
The money going into elementary and secondary schools also comes with new reforms and goals for states including: improvements in teacher effectiveness; have more college and career-ready standards to prepare students; improve achievements in low-performing schools, and; continue extensive research to improve these things further in the future. Working for Obama on this plan is Education Secretary Arne Duncan.
Duncan sees big things for the country’s educational future. The first thing he has in mind is a reform of the No Child Left Behind Act. Duncan will be meeting with teachers’ unions and finding other peoples’ opinions on it and what can be done to improve it, focusing on learning and not simply performance in standardized testing.
Soon, $140 billion will be going toward education—both for teachers and students. The money will go toward expanding early childhood education, creating better student assessments, and improving teacher quality. The White House says, “providing a high-quality education for all children is critical to America’s economic future. Our nation’s economic competitiveness and the path to the American Dream depend on providing every child with an education that will enable them to succeed in a global economy that is predicated on knowledge and innovation.”
Obama and Duncan believe that “investment in education must be accompanied by reform and innovation.” They will be tailoring the new education programs to foster learning and development in pre-school aged children, support successful charter schools, reform standardized testing, and change academic standards to better align with other leading nations.
“President Obama will reform America’s public schools to deliver a 21st century education that will prepare all children for success in the new global workplace. He will foster a race to the top in our nation’s schools, by promoting world-class academic standards and a curriculum that fosters critical thinking, problem solving, and the innovative use of knowledge to prepare students for college and career. He will push to end the use of ineffective, "off-the-shelf" tests, and support new, state-of-the-art assessment and accountability systems that provide timely and useful information about the learning and progress of individual students.
“Teachers are the single most important resource to a child’s learning. President Obama will ensure that teachers are supported as professionals in the classroom, while also holding them more accountable…
This mission statement also talks about encouraging students to continue higher education, but the majority of the focus is raising the standards for students in schools across the country. The new President seems especially eager to help children receive and continue in good education from the very first few years. Hopefully all the new funding will help our schools to better prepare children for facing the great, big world we live in!
http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/2009/02/05/what-arne-duncan-thinks-of-no-child-left-behind.html
(http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/education/):
Monday, June 15, 2009
Let's Start at the Very Beginning...
"we did not change as we got older, we just became more clearly ourselves."
--lynn hall, where have all the tigers gone? 1989
What our blog is about:
Children seek content. Dynamic, purposeful, reality driven content can inspire them. Every child is unique and learns differently. Meaningful content can stabilize and strengthen children, dissolving barriers and allowing their intelligence to accommodate a spectrum of aspiration. Appreciating children for who they are, presenting career content that allows young minds to explore and connect for themselves, in a fun and active environment, is our goal.
Society:
In today's constantly changing, mobile society, parents want to be actively involved in helping their children will develop as they grow older. Beyond keeping their rooms clean and playing nice, parents, teachers and care givers are looking further into their children's future. They know that their kids will need direction to find jobs, security, success, hope and guide them to be citizens and contributors to the global society.
Balance:
Since children are bombarded with messages that can steer them in a negative direction, it is important to balance their input with a variety of dynamic and meaningful content. Introducing concepts that challenge and provide ways for them to see other perspectives will contrast the pervasiveness of purely commercial and seductive activities that give children a way to escape from the real world and inhabit a fabricated one.
Fantasy:
Fantasy is a fun journey and is a big part of growing up. But reality based activities can also inspire and lead to further exploration and transfer them into the knowledge of what is going on in the world and how they can interact and enjoy the global world experience.
Results:
KC USA is a kids content company. We will "give kids options and access to explore them." Giving children an understanding of the world will help them develop, learn and prepare them to explore it with confidence. Our multi-media-based children's learning experience can become a part of the culture that kids today grow up in.
--lynn hall, where have all the tigers gone? 1989
What our blog is about:
Children seek content. Dynamic, purposeful, reality driven content can inspire them. Every child is unique and learns differently. Meaningful content can stabilize and strengthen children, dissolving barriers and allowing their intelligence to accommodate a spectrum of aspiration. Appreciating children for who they are, presenting career content that allows young minds to explore and connect for themselves, in a fun and active environment, is our goal.
Society:
In today's constantly changing, mobile society, parents want to be actively involved in helping their children will develop as they grow older. Beyond keeping their rooms clean and playing nice, parents, teachers and care givers are looking further into their children's future. They know that their kids will need direction to find jobs, security, success, hope and guide them to be citizens and contributors to the global society.
Balance:
Since children are bombarded with messages that can steer them in a negative direction, it is important to balance their input with a variety of dynamic and meaningful content. Introducing concepts that challenge and provide ways for them to see other perspectives will contrast the pervasiveness of purely commercial and seductive activities that give children a way to escape from the real world and inhabit a fabricated one.
Fantasy:
Fantasy is a fun journey and is a big part of growing up. But reality based activities can also inspire and lead to further exploration and transfer them into the knowledge of what is going on in the world and how they can interact and enjoy the global world experience.
Results:
KC USA is a kids content company. We will "give kids options and access to explore them." Giving children an understanding of the world will help them develop, learn and prepare them to explore it with confidence. Our multi-media-based children's learning experience can become a part of the culture that kids today grow up in.
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