The GIANT Room Partners with the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop and Mrs Wordsmith
The GIANT Room continues their engagement with the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop to bring kids’ voices into the design process of STEM products - this time focused on a literacy Roblox game designed by Mrs Wordsmith
The GIANT Room, an innovation hub for children and their families, is pleased to announce they are continuing their partnership with Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop to bring together diverse groups of youth with researchers and industry innovators to put learning, wellbeing, and DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) at the center of product development for children. Families with children ages 8 to 12 years old are invited to apply.
Participation entails joining three free workshops focused on co-designing and prototyping a literacy Roblox game with Mrs Wordsmith’s design team. Kids who join will have a chance to learn and practice the art of giving and receiving feedback and then to join a prototyping exercise with industry innovators and researchers. These workshops will be scheduled June 26th to 28th, and held in person at The School of Visual Arts (SVA) in New York City, free of charge for families.
Following a range of award-winning print titles, and two mobile games proven for reading efficacy, Mrs Wordsmith was chosen by Roblox to partner with them on their first literacy-based game. “Words of Power transforms the principles of Game-Based Learning into an engaging experience through RPG gameplay,” explains Pierre Lagrange, chairman at Mrs. Wordsmith. “Leveraging social-emotional learning (SEL) via in-game effects enables children to grow as students and young individuals.”
The GIANT Room believes the best creative STEM tools are the ones that are designed with children’s POVs in mind, and even better, those that are designed with children involved in the design process. Kids have wonderful ideas to share. If given the opportunity, they design the most magical tools, toys, and products that can enlighten millions of other kids. This partnership allows kids to have a voice in designing a social network that is not only engaging and fun but also encourages kids to be mindful of positive digital citizenship.
Children who participate in this series of “co-design” workshops will engage in design sessions with Mrs Wordsmith’s team of designers who will fly from London to New York to join us in person, as well as researchers and educators from The GIANT Room and Joan Ganz Cooney Center. They will brainstorm, exchange ideas, build prototypes, share, and learn how to critique certain aspects of design as part of the product development cycle.
This program is completely free for children to participate. We are accepting a limited number of children in New York City to participate in the program. Families with children ages 8 to 12 years old are invited to apply.
For more information about GIANT STEAM programs and a full list of their workshops, class series, and events, please visit The GIANT Room’s website.
SVA is located at 136 West 21st Street New York, NY 10011.