Google Plays Host to Breakthrough Learning
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Lauren Barack -- School Library Journal, 11/2/2009
Media professionals and educators converged on Google’s campus in Mountain View, CA, to discuss technology, teaching, and new ways to enthrall children at the Breakthrough Learning in a Digital Age forum held October 27–28. Presenters addressed ideas on how to tackle the continuing digital divide and announced new mobile media initiatives meant to propel education truly beyond today’s boundaries. Speakers at the two-day forum—cosponsored by The Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop, Common Sense Media, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation—included Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, who noted that efforts to change schools might require greater buy-in from communities at large.
Also on hand was principal Jason Levy of middle school IS 339 in the Bronx in New York City, who described how a new 1-to-1 computing program on their campus, coupled with teachers open to new online tools such as Google docs, opened new avenues of learning to their entire school community.
“At 339, we don’t see laptops as toys, or even as tools,” he said. “We see them as megaphones to give students and teachers global voices.”
In a taped message, Sesame Street cofounder Joan Ganz Cooney implored attendees to look to “emerging media” to become the next arena in educational tools. Her group, The Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop, unveiled two new prizes meant to spark creative approaches in engaging students and teachers with technology to promote literacy and learning.
Tagged The Cooney Prizes for Innovation, each will award seed funding for projects—$50,000 for Breakthroughs in Mobile Learning, and $10,000 for Breakthroughs in Literacy Learning. The latter award entitles the winner to work with the Sesame Workshop to develop ideas for the revival of its show The Electric Company.
Applicants can submit entries from January 7 through April 1, 2010 with winners expected to be announced mid-June, says Michael Devine, executive director of The Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop.
“We want to look at how children are able to learn,” he says. “And look at ways to create personalized learning environments wherever they are.”
