The winners of the inaugural Cooney Center Prizes for Innovation in Children’s Learning, an educational media innovation competition launched by The Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop, were announced yesterday.
Project NOAH (Networked Organisms and Habitats) was selected as the winner in the Breakthroughs in Mobile Learning category.
Project NOAH is a mobile application which teaches children and youth to understand and appreciate nature and serves as a common technology platform for research groups to harness the power of citizen scientists around the globe. The project has a community hub on the web site www.networkedorganisms.org where users can view submissions, explore the species database and discuss findings. Project NOAH was created by Yasser Ansari, Martin Ceperley and Bruno Kruse of Networked Organisms, LLC.
In the Breakthroughs in Literacy Learning: Innovate with The Electric Company category, Jay Schiffman was named the winner for his entry The Electric Company Heroes, an online game promoting literacy skills through role-play activities. Players create their own avatar heroes that can interact with members of The Electric Company and play games testing their literacy skills in such areas as vocabulary, decoding and reading comprehension. Schiffman is the founder of Thinkativity, an award-winning maker of electronic learning toys.
The Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop is an independent, non-profit research center that is fostering innovation in children’s learning through digital media. To read about all the Innovation in children's Learning prizes, visit www.joanganzcooneycenter.org.
