PlayIsTheWork.com

That is a statistic that is remarkable in and of itself but when you consider the level of responsibility we as parents have in the aid of that development it’s truly daunting. As I have said for a long time, as parents there are many tools we have in our toolbox that we employ at any given hour of the day or night—many times based on what we believe our children need or want at that time, but also driven by our state of mind at the time. Are we tired after a long day of work? Are we feeling overburdened by the demands of parenting and working? Are we just plain spent after a long day of playing at the park, the beach or the children’s museum? The point is that there are many things that influence which tool comes out of the box at a specific time and one of those tools is media. 

We all know that media is powerful. As our media evaluator and advisor for Braincandy, Dr. Michael Cohen, reiterates to us on a regular basis, “Media is like fire. It’s powerful. It can keep you warm, cook your dinner or you’re your house down.” We also know media comes in many forms, on many different platforms and our children are exposed in many different contexts throughout the day. There are many new studies that have emerged recently to attest to this power—either for good or for evil (ok, evil might be a bit strong but you get the picture) but what I miss from these studies is an evaluation of which medium handles which type of communication best. A new benchmark study now emerges that begins to do just that. The study conducted by the Michael Cohen Group is the first of its kind. It takes a broad look at media consumption and habits amongst children ages 2-8 with a particular emphasis on children living in poverty. The study, commissioned by the Department of Education and the “Ready to Learn” project is designed to begin to understand how we can maximize the effectiveness of media as a learning tool and provide children of all backgrounds, learning styles and age with great media that will help prepare them for a lifetime of learning. The study covers data relating to television, video, video games, computers and of course, print media (yes, that’s right, books are media.) 

For those of you with young children, I urge you to take the time to either view the streaming media file or download the report. There are some surprising results and remember, this is just the tip of the iceberg. My children are fascinated by media of all types. In fact, we just bought tickets to the live show “Walking with Dinosaurs” and I can’t wait to see how they respond to educational content delivered in a live performance based arena. As a media creator, I am passionately engaged in harnessing the power of the flame and as an aside, am glad I’m practicing away from the heat of California. 

Posted on November 5th, 2007 by Sam
Filed under: Uncategorized