Abstract
We approach our commentary of McClure and Barr’s chapter not only as research scientists, but also as educators involved in creating educational media experiences. We spend our days entrenched in developing content across media platforms to address specific educational needs of children spanning the ages of 2–8, creating curriculum documents to guide content creation, and conducting applied research at Sesame Workshop, the producers of Sesame Street. The mission of Sesame Workshop is to harness the power of media to help children grow smarter (academic skills and executive function skills), stronger (physical health and resiliency skills), and kinder (building empathy, compassion, and other prosocial behavior). Since its inception, content produced by Sesame Workshop is curriculum driven to address an educational, health, or societal issue, informed by content experts, and guided by basic and formative research with children, parents, caregivers, and educators. As such, we ensure that the media content that is created is of high quality and developmentally appropriate. Much of our experiences at Sesame Workshop, however, have been focused on unidirectional video interventions or interactive technologies for colocated parents and children ages 2 and older.
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Truglio, R.T., Kotler, J. (2017). Smarter, Stronger, Kinder—Developing Effective Media-Based Tools for At-Risk Populations: Commentary on Chapter 15. In: Barr, R., Linebarger, D. (eds) Media Exposure During Infancy and Early Childhood. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-45102-2_16
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