Jason Milligan is the Creative Director of Sesame Workshop’s Innovation Lab.

“Kids won’t know what that is!”

It wasn’t the first time I heard Sesame Workshop Curriculum Specialist Sue Scheiner say that, but this time it threw me a bit. We were reviewing Elmo’s World episodes to include in Season 2 of Kinect Sesame Street TV. Sue was referring to a camera. The camera was an old fashioned black box with a huge flashbulb attached. And one old fashioned camera in Mr. Noodle’s hands wouldn’t have mattered so much if any of the cameras in the piece looked and worked like current cameras do. But they didn’t. They were clunky film cameras and video cameras with tapes. There was a scene in which a kid takes film to a store to have it “developed.”

Not one person in the entire episode took a picture with a phone, or was able to immediately show Elmo his image on the back. The way today’s kids experience digital photography (often on smart phones) is completely, utterly, totally different than it was only a few years ago, apparently when this episode of Elmo’s World was made in 2005. Seriously. I checked the air date. It freaked me out a little. The same way it freaked me out when my niece pointed to a phone booth in a video and asked my sister what it was. Or when I explained to my kids how television used to show programs at certain times of day and you couldn’t pause or rewind or even decide which show you wanted to watch right now. Sue is right. Kids don’t know what those things are. Some Sesame content will always be relevant. Ernie will always be able to sing about the joys of bathing with his Duckie. C will always be for Cookie. But not this.

We couldn’t use Elmo’s World: Cameras. It was simply out of date.

The Sesame Workshop Blog

J Milligan, the creative director of the Content Innovation Lab at Sesame Workshop, spoke at this year’s PSFK Conference in London. In his presentation J explains how Sesame Street Kinect TV, the Workshop’s newest interactive educational platform, is just the latest step in a decades long exploration of how technology can enhance early education.

The Sesame Workshop Blog

Starting today “Kinect Sesame Street TV,” a groundbreaking 2-way television, Xbox-based experience that has plenty of educational potential, is now available for purchase.“It’s an opportunity to interact with our content,” said Sesame Workshop’s Vice President of Education and Research Rosemarie Truglio, PhD. “There’s a physical action to go with each concept. It’s truly interactive. That’s the beauty of this.”

Using a video camera that captures the image and movements of children as well as their parents and siblings (who often enjoy participating in the activities as much as the 2- to 4-year-olds Sesame Street’s educational content traditionally targets), “Kinect Sesame Street TV” intends to use a child’s physicality to help them learn fundamental concepts like spatial relations, enumeration and letter sounds.

For example, in one episode Grover spills coconuts all over the floor, and needs you to throw a specific number of them back to him. As the child makes a throwing motion with his arm – throwing, jumping, waving and clapping are the four basic actions children are asked to execute — the coconuts appear back on the screen. This interaction may offer the child an opportunity to more deeply engage with the concept than 1-way television traditionally has.

“We’re breaking the fourth wall,” said Sesame Workshop Senior Producer Todd Slepian. “Our characters can ask you something and you can respond.”

Over the course of the eight 40-plus minute episodes, children can appear on screen in an augmented reality version of Elmo’s World, help find hidden objects in a layered interactive street story, or be led by your furry monster friends through original interactive videos.

Here at Sesame Workshop we’ve been working on “Kinect Sesame Street TV” for a long time. We believe it has lots of potential, and we’re excited to be able finally to show the world.

The Sesame Workshop Blog