On October 16, 2004 I was invited to attend a performance by the Wiggles at Toys R Us in Times Square. The Wiggles performed in front of an audience about 200 people! The Wiggles were there to announce the launch of a new handheld toy device. In this clip, they sing the song "Everybody Clap" and Jeff falls asleep.
At the 2006 NY Toy Fair, Hasbro announced a life-size robotic pony. The head, face, neck and tail motion of this "FurReal" pony was very lifelike. This toy has built in light, touch and sound sensors. While my recording mentions that the pony can actually hold a person up to 200 lbs, the shipping version states 80 lbs.
(Audio only) An interview with Will Wright, creator of the successful video game The Sims. This interview is a discussion with Henry Jenkins of MIT's Comparative Media Studies lab and Will Wright. This presentation was recorded on May 11, 2004 at the Education Arcade, and event that focuses on how games could be used as a vehicle for learning.
(Audio only) Steven Johnson, best selling author of Everything Bad Is Good For You, presents his thesis regarding the evolution of media and its ability to make us all smarter. Johnson covers changes in video games, the Internet, film, and television in his book and discusses some of his thinking in this keynote at the Association for Educational Publishing (AEP) Summit.
I was at Toys R Us in Manhattan just a day after this toy went on sale. I had read a number of press releases about this latest Tickle Me Elmo release and did not think that Fisher-Price could out-do the last one. Well, ... I was wrong. This 10th anniversary release of the Tickle Me Elmo doll is FANTASTIC! Great job.
(Audio only) Ellen Wartella, Professor and Executive Vice Chancellor at University of California Riverside, presented to the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD) in Boston, MA on March 31, 2007. In this presentation Ellen discusses the history of youth and media over the last 100 years and how different media types have had an impact on children's leisure time.
I'm a collector of electronic toys, especially handhelds. This video is a montage of electronic toy images that were taken from patents submitted to the US Patent Trade Office.
Scot Osterweil, a pioneer in learning and game play, shares his thoughts on the concept of "The Four Freedoms of Play." Scot Osterweil works at MIT as the Education Arcade Research Director. Here Scot presents to the Harvard Business School in Cambridge, MA in a weekly education technology forum called BrainGain.
While visiting New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, I was greeted by two wonderful interactive art pieces that were created by the digital artist Daniel Rozin. Here is a video clip of one of those pieces called Circles Mirror. For more on Rozin's work, visit the website smoothware (dot) com (slash) danny
(Audio & slide presentation) Walter Bender, president of One Laptop per Child (OLPC, http://laptop.org) presented to the Association of Educational Publishers (AEP) in Washington DC on June 8, 2006. In this presentation Walter discusses the reasons for making a $100 laptop for the children of the world, technical difficulties in connecting users, and the open source nature of the device.
Daunted by Doubts - Riverside Press Enterprise In the 1970s, there was an Enjoli perfume commercial showing a woman, clutching a fistful of money, who proclaimed she could bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan. The jingle with the ad empowered me. Whenever it aired, I would prance around ...
Six ideas that could fix nation - Daily News Journal The presidential race has FINALLY entered the home stretch. To help the candidates move the political discourse from the smear tactics and whisper campaigns back to the issues themselves, I present six ideas — suggestions, if you will — to meet ...
Planning for future - Business Standard Retirement planning, across the world, focuses on the pension amount that a person would be able to garner in his sunset years. A lot of countries have safety nets to make life easier for the older generation. In India, however, we are still ...
![Butterscotch - \"FurReal\" life-size Pony by Hasbro](http://img.youtube.com/vi/VYON1xZBWxY/2.jpg "Butterscotch - \\"FurReal\\" life-size Pony by Hasbro")
