Getting Schooled by a Third Grader

Those were the guiding questions at this Future Tense event on technology in early education. During the introduction, New America Foundation fellow Lisa Guernsey, author of Screen Time: How Electronic Media—From Baby Videos to Educational Software—Affects Your Child, noted that we frequently think of educational technology as the realm of middle or high school. But research currently suggests that children between the ages of 6 months and 6 years spend an average of 120 minutes a day with screens. Meanwhile, teachers—and companies producing educational software and games—are increasingly bringing technology into the classroom to appeal to kids who enter kindergarten already familiar with iPads, smartphones, and Microsoft Kinect.

Guernsey was joined by the Joel Levin, a private school teacher from New York City who is creating educational versions of the blockbuster game Minecraft; Alice Wilder, co-creator and head of research and education for Super Why! on PBS; and Annie Murphy Paul, another New America fellow and author of Origins and the forthcoming Brilliant. Scott Traylor, founder of 360Kid, joined us via a prerecorded Skype interview.