I just spent two days in Cambridge, MA, for the Sandbox Summit at MIT. The Sandbox Summit is an exploration of technology and play. This year, the Summit theme was iPlay, YouPlay, WiiPlay: How Play is Changing Media and How Media is Changing Play. Speakers included celebrated authors, professors and representatives from leading media names such as WGBH, Sesame Workshop and Cartoon Network. While the conversations were at times lofty, there was plenty of time for play and exploration as we explored with our senses, colored with light and tried out some video games.
The good news? This knowledgeable group agreed that technology, including oft-disparaged video games, can help kids develop essential life skills including the ability to create, communicate, collaborate, hypothesize, estimate, set goals, budget, plan ahead and manage time. The information is a lot to process all at once (I'll be digesting it for quite some time), but I'll be sharing some of it with you here in my blog over the next few weeks.
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