Can this new report change the field?

For those even remotely interested in health games, the newest report from the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, “Game Changer: Investing in digital play to advance children’s learning and health,” is a must read.  The basic conclusion of the report is twofold:

1. Games are effective learning tools that can improve the lives of children, not just from an educational standpoint but also from a health standpoint.
2. There is a desperate need for more research and more funds on the use of digital games for improving the health of children.  R&D initiatives at the federal and state levels are a must, and we need to establish innovative methods of funding to move this field forward.

Cooney take a bow.

I have to say that the Cooney Center did an amazing job on this report.  Its quality and depth tells us that influential groups are really starting to pay attention to health games.  They are starting to invest their time and money into understanding how to further the industry. The Center’s research is solid, and their conclusions, well, let’s just say I couldn’t have said it better myself.  The list of interviewees ranges from Director of Health Games Research Debra Lieberman to President of Federation of American Scientists Henry Kelly.  Someone did their homework.  Here’s what I thought to be the major highlights:

• Appendix A – A great list of learning and health games with excellent descriptions.  I only caught a minor mistake here and there which is pretty impressive.
• Recommendations section – Based on their research, the Center recommends five major steps to move the field forward:
  • Implement R&D initiatives at federal and state levels for research.
  • Create innovative partnerships to develop more games.
  • Support adult guidance for children’s digital activities to develop a human infrastructure.
  • Modernize public media to move education from television programming to the digital age.
  • Initiate a broad public dialogue about digital media and games to educate the public.
• Games for Health section – Of course this would be a highlight for me, but they really did a nice job categorizing games into those for physical fitness, for healthy habits, for disease management and prevention, and for public health.  They even mentioned Playnormous as “among the handful of children’s games to tackle issues related to obesity.”  They somehow completely missed NIH as a federal agency funding health game development (ex: Escape from Diab and Nanoswarm: Invasion From Inner Space), but we’ll let that one slide.  Kudos to Playnormous for making the list!
• The References section – Thanks to the Center’s report, I’ve been able to add ten new peer-reviewed journal articles to the healthGAMERS Research section.  If you have others you’d like me to add please let me know.

About the Joan Ganz Cooney Center.

The mission of the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop is to foster innovation in children’s learning through digital media.  The Center supports action research, encourages partnershps to connect child development experts and eductors with interactive media and technology leaders, and mobilizes public and private investment in promising and proven new media technologies for children.  For other relevant readings, see the following publications from the Center:

• Challenge Paper: The Power of Pow! Wham!: Children, Digital Media and Our Nation’s Future
• Policy Brief: Getting Over the Slump: Innovation Strategies to Promote Children’s Learning
• Market Scan Report: D is for Digital