Revisiting the Potential Uses of Media in Children’s Education - Report Structure and Contents

Oct 15, 2026

Revisiting the Potential Uses of Media in Children’s Education revisits decades of educational media efforts and translates enduring lessons into guidance for the next generation. It traces how early television initiatives informed learning goals, then contrasts them with today’s ubiquitous digital devices that enable creation, sharing, and constant access. The report frames both opportunities and risks, including privacy and security concerns, distraction, cyberbullying, and uneven educational equity. Expert reflections organize big ideas alongside practical next steps.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages33

Reading Time1 h 23 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Part One

What’s Been Done (Or Overdone)?

Where Are the Gaps?

Part Two

Starting Points

Digital Do’s and Don’ts

Part Three

Encouraging Adults

Desperately Seeking Curation

Scaffolding

Part Four

Media Literacy

Privacy

Part Five

Big Picture

Small Steps

Conclusion

Revisiting the Potential Uses of Media in Children’s Education Chris Berdik Winter 2020 The Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop About the Author Chris Berdik is a freelance science and education journalist in Boston. A former staff editor at The Atlantic Monthly and Mother Jones, he has covered topics such as virtual schools, DNA forensics, and climate engineering for national publications, including The New York Times, Wired, Popular Science, Politico, New Scientist, and The Washington Post. Since 2015, he has also been a regular contributor to the Hechinger Report, a nonprofit education newsroom. His reporting has won grants from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, the Society of Environmental Journalists, and the Solutions Journalism Network. In 2012, Penguin published his book Mind Over Mind, about medical and non-medical placebo effects. He is now working on a book about noise, expected to be published by Norton in 2021. A full-text PDF of this publication is available as a free download [from www.joanganzcooneycenter.org](from www.joanganzcooneycenter.org). CoNteNtS 4 — INTRODUCTION 6 — PART ONE 7 What’s Been Done (Or Overdone)? 7 Where Are the Gaps? 9 — PART TWO 10 Starting Points 11 Digital Do’s and Don’ts 13 — PART THREE 14 Encouraging Adults 15 Desperately Seeking Curation 16 Scaffolding 17 — PART FOUR 18 Media Literacy 19 Privacy 21 — PART FIVE 22 Big Picture 23 Small Steps 24 — CONCLUSION 26 — CONTRIBUTORS 3 INtroDuCtIoN In 1966, Joan Ganz Cooney presented her vision for the show in a report to the Carnegie Corporation of New York. Built on a foundation of research and interviews with cognitive psychologists, educators, and media professionals,“The Potential Uses of Television in Preschool Education” proposed to harness the power of television, still a relatively new medium, to key principles of children’s cognitive development and foundational learning. Cooney’s ambitions went well beyond creating an innovative TV program. She wanted to help remedy the shortfalls of America’s early education system by drafting parents and caregivers to watch the show with their children and to reinforce its lessons with branded workbooks, craft kits, and other products. In 1968, she and Lloyd Morrisett co-founded Children’s Television Workshop (renamed Sesame Workshop in 2000) to close achievement gaps with the help of an army of paid staff, social workers, and volunteers who would work within lower-income communities to incorporate the new show into classrooms, libraries, and daycare centers. Five decades later, the many insights about successful educational media that Cooney outlined in her report and made manifest in thousands of episodes of Sesame Street are still just as relevant. The needs of developing minds remain the same, as do many of the challenges to meeting those needs fully and equitably. At the same time, however, our media and education landscapes have changed immensely. We have moved from a handful of television channels airing a limited menu of scheduled programming to ubiquitous, portable devices that can deliver a universe of knowledge, games, and entertainment. These devices are also powerful tools for making and sharing media, able to connect people around the world instantly to chat, debate, and collaborate. And all of these functions are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. A wave of new educational media products—some intentionally designed for the classroom and some not—has washed over an educational system that is transforming, too, albeit far more slowly. These products offer a myriad of exciting new learning opportunities but also carry real risks of overblown expectations and unexpected perils—from privacy and security breaches to chronic distraction and cyberbullying. A half-century after Sesame Street’s debut is an opportune time to look back on the decades of children’s media efforts and to distill the most endur

FAQs

What historical foundation does the report use to frame educational media?

It points to Joan Ganz Cooney’s 1966 vision for educational television and the subsequent efforts that manifested in Sesame Street, while emphasizing the continuing relevance of challenges and needs for developing minds.

What major shift in media environment does the report highlight?

It describes a move from limited scheduled television channels to portable, always-on digital devices that support knowledge access, entertainment, and social interaction worldwide.

What risks does the report associate with newer educational media products?

It cites privacy and security breaches, chronic distraction, and cyberbullying, alongside the possibility of inflated expectations about what media can achieve.

Oct 15, 2026

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