Early Ed Watch

Don't miss our podcast archive featuring more than 20 interviews with experts on a wide variety of issues in early education.

A few decades ago, electronic media for young children meant little more than Captain Kangaroo, Mister Rogers, Sesame Street and Saturday morning cartoons. Today children are awash in different kinds of electronic media at a very early age – from DVDs to game-like apps for tablets such as the iPad to interactive children’s books on devices like the Nook.  Families are increasingly eager to use interactive media with their children, and some early educators – especially in elementary schools – are curious to see how or if they might help children learn. But teachers and parents struggle to determine whether a product, show or game is really worth a child's time.

In this podcast, we talk with Rita Catalano, executive director at the Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning and Children's Media at Saint Vincent College in Latrobe, PA, about two new efforts to develop guidelines to help educators and families. One is the revision of the position statement on technology for the National Association for the Education of Young Children. The other is an initiative, led by the Fred Rogers Center, to come up with a framework for evaluating interactive media so that parents, educators and media makers can recognize high-quality and can stimulate rich, engaging experiences with that media.

Podcast: Grappling with Guidelines for Technology Use With Young Kids

With our guest, Rita Catalano, executive director at the Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning and Children's Media at Saint Vincent College