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Everything in the app store says "educational". A lot of it says "expert backed" and "research backed" too. None of those words are regulated, and none of them tell you whether the app in your hand does anything for your three-year-old. In this episode I sit down with Charlotte Anne Wright, a learning designer and researcher at Begin and former president of the Bay Area chapter of the Children's Media Association, to swap the label for a framework you can use.
Charlotte taught young children for nearly a decade, then studied early childhood policy and spent almost three years as a LEGO Foundation Research Fellow working on playful learning with Dr. Kathy Hirsh-Pasek. She walks through six characteristics that learning scientists keep finding wherever powerful learning happens, and turns each one into a question you can ask while your child is using the thing. Then she gives us "ask, find, make", three offline extensions that take about five minutes after the screen goes off. Her closing message: this is genuinely hard, it is not just you, and you are doing better than you think.
What you'll learn
- Why "educational" and "research backed" are unregulated claims, and what to check instead
- The six characteristics of playful learning, each as a question you can ask in the moment
- How to tell an engaged child from an overstimulated one
- What stars, coins and points are really doing to your child's motivation
- What a good learning app does when your child gets an answer wrong
- Ask, find, make: three five-minute offline extensions after any show, game or app
About the guest
Charlotte Anne Wright is a learning designer and researcher at Begin, an early learning media and technology company for children and families, and former president of the Bay Area chapter of the Children's Media Association. She was an early childhood educator for nearly a decade before returning to graduate school to study early childhood policy, where she created the Explanatory Rubric for Play in Early Childhood (ERPEC). She then spent nearly three years as a LEGO Foundation Research Fellow working on playful learning and parenting alongside Dr. Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, and has published research with collaborators including Sesame Workshop.
Resources and links
- Charlotte Anne Wright on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlotteawright/
- Begin: https://www.beginlearning.com/
- Children's Media Association, Bay Area chapter: https://www.childrensmediaassociation.org/board/charlotte-wright/
- ERPEC, the Explanatory Rubric for Play in Early Childhood: https://www.erpecplay.com/
- Charlotte Anne Wright on Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=5lHFqN4AAAAJ
- Her writing for BOLD: https://boldscience.org/authors/charlotte-anne-wright/
- Common Sense Media: https://www.commonsensemedia.org/
- Dr. Kathy Hirsh-Pasek: https://kathyhirshpasek.com/
- Dr. Roberta Golinkoff: https://roberta-golinkoff.com/
If you are a parent of a child aged 6 to 17, we are running a survey on how families in different countries use AI for kids' learning. Anonymous, about ten minutes: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf8_kpH2rvRTESLUPFfxQDSiXigVh6Z_CmbwbBklgOeHsePWA/viewform
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If this episode helped you, share it with one parent who is trying to pick something for a two-year-old right now. That's how we build a village. Thanks for listening to Pixel Parenting.
