With that legacy of innovation in mind, we are proud to announce a new collaboration with Qualcomm centered on researching and developing new ways to educate children using mobile devices and applications. By bringing together Qualcomm’s cutting-edge mobile technologies and Sesame Workshop’s expertise in educating young children, Qualcomm and Sesame hope once again to revolutionize early childhood education.

The partnership was announced on Tuesday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada.

One of the first educational products created by this collaboration will be Big Bird’s Words, an app that will feature Qualcomm’s Vuforia augmented reality platform. The app will make teaching literacy an interactive experience by encouraging children to use a virtual “wordscope” to search for and find new words in their surrounding environment.

And American pre-schoolers won’t be the only children whose educational experience will be improved by this partnership. Qualcomm and Sesame Workshop will continue collaborating in China and India through Qualcomm’s Wireless Reach program. In India, Sesame Workhop’s Galli Galli Sim Sim, the Indian version of Sesame Street, is using 3G mobile technology to distribute radio content, videos and fun lessons about healthy living, hygiene, literacy and math. This program is critical to reaching children in rural areas where televisions are not commonly owned.

In China, a project launching later this year will provide tips, activities and other tools to help families with young children prepare for emergencies. These are just two examples of ways mobile devices can positively impact young children around the world.

With each passing day mobile devices and applications are reshaping the way we engage with one another and the rest of the globe. With the help of Sesame Workshop and Qualcomm, it will also reshape the way we educate our children.

The Sesame Workshop Blog

Millions of families in India are cut off from information that can help children grow up healthy, happy, and ready to learn. To get around the barriers that marginalize these families, Sesame Workshop India is using phones to make educational media an integral part of the community. The poor and deeply conservative village of Nagina in the Mewat district if Haryana does not have electricity. Children here have never seen a radio or TV before, let alone a Bollywood movie.

Yet there is one media source that’s breaking through in Nagina. In the evenings, children and parents gather around a mobile phone to tune in Radio Mewat, a nearby community radio station. What are they hearing? Laughter mixed with learning, as characters from Galli Galli Sim Sim talk about literacy and math lessons, as well as good nutrition and healthy habits like always washing hands before you eat.

This audacious children’s health initiative, known as RadioPhone, is the first of its kind ever in communities like Nagina. The need for health lessons is critical here, where basic knowledge of nutrition and hygiene is scarce. Each year throughout India, approximately 1.9 million children under age five die from preventable diseases.

The pilot program began in 2011 with 31 episodes of Galli Galli Sim Sim broadcast by Gurgaon Ki Awaaz (GKA), a community station in Gurgaon, accessible via FM radio and on cell phones. So far Galli Galli Sim Sim RadioPhone broadcast in Gurgaon has reached over 200,000 listeners.

In separate subprojects funded by Qualcomm and HSBC, families and classrooms use 3G-equipped phones to stream Galli Galli Sim Sim radio shows on demand and access related videos and print materials that reinforce healthy messages. Community radio broadcasts are typically limited to a radius of 10 kilometers. But streaming content enables a far larger audience and consistent access for migrant families constantly on the move.

Given the great diversity of culture and language in India, RadioPhone relies on local relevance to break through. GKA in Gurgaon broadcasts in the language of its listeners and episodes include segments featuring Chamki, the beloved star of Galli Galli Sim Sim, interviewing neighbors in the local broadcast area.

By becoming part of the community experience, RadioPhone is giving families a voice. GKA reports an enthusiastic response from listeners, who call in to offer feedback and ask questions of health experts on air. More amazingly, listeners are using the program as a forum to share community concerns such as water access issues. Women are calling in to the show as well, a sign we’re making in-roads where other media cannot.

To understand where our efforts can have the biggest impact, we’re also bringing the program to life in 10 schools with “Healthy Habits” educational materials and curriculum guidance for teachers, with support from HSBC Bank.

Next for RadioPhone: nine more community stations, anticipated to reach over 1.5 million new listeners, and an expanded curriculum, with 60 new episodes on literacy and math now in the works. By combining local radio, mobile technology and engaging Sesame education, we’re delivering critical information to families whose health may depend on it.

Partners

Schwab Charitable Trust, Qualcomm, The Restoring Force (HSBC)

The Sesame Workshop Blog

That’s why we have partnered with Qualcomm to explore how augmented reality technology can encourage learning and emotional growth in young children. Our CEO Mel Ming, Innovation Lab team member David Glauber and Grover demonstrated the Vuforia^™ augmented reality platform at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on January 10th. By merely holding up a tablet to a traditional playset, children can interact with their favorite Sesame Street characters while developing socially, emotionally and cognitively.

Quite simply, when a child points a tablet or smart phone at these toys, the camera recognizes the objects and they come to life on screen. The camera on the tablet recognizes 3-D objects – in this instance specially designed versions of Bert and Ernie as well as a television, a bathtub, a racecar and other toys for Bert and Ernie to play with. (The characters are designed with special code-infused clothing so the camera can identify them. But developers at Sesame Street’s Innovation Lab are confident that, someday soon, the camera will be able to recognize any of the plush Sesame Street characters children own.) T-shirts, books and countless other items also have the potential to “come to life” when viewed through the app.

When Ernie is placed onto the playset, the camera recognizes the floor and triggers a response on screen, creating “walls” around him.  In the prototypical version of the technology presented at CES – the app is not yet available for purchase – Ernie says hello to the user and asks for another Sesame Street character to play with. But in future, more developed versions of the technology, Ernie and the other Sesame Street characters will have a wide range of reactions to any given scenario. This will allow for both a more guided form of pretend play, as well as child-directed experiences.

Both kinds of play – guided and child-directed – are important for fostering social confidence and a children’s ability to manage their own behavior and emotions. As children move toys in and out of the playset, they choose what kinds of social situations they would like to experiment with. Meanwhile, the app provides the structure necessary for them to learn more advanced forms of narrative construction, such as telling stories with a beginning, middle and end.

It was important to our Innovation Lab team that, in the words of team member Jason Milligan, the use of the augmented reality technology not be “gimmicky.” Milligan and the rest of the team wanted it to genuinely support and enhance the well-established ways children already play with their toys. So they reimagined the ways information can be input into a digital tool like a tablet.

For instance, when children play, they physically move their toys in and out of the playset. That’s why, instead of using a mouse or touch screen as an input device, the toys themselves are the input device. It’s also why all it takes to “activate” the toy’s digital rendering is to point the tablet at it. Directing the camera at the jukebox causes music to play; directing it at the TV turns it on, and causes whatever Sesame Street scene is playing to fill the tablet screen.

Because it comes in the form of an app, the technology is very malleable. As new characters are created and new storylines for them imagined, the software can be automatically updated like any other app. This is just the first generation of a new technology that has almost limitless possibilities.

The future is a fun place to play.

The Sesame Workshop Blog

Qualcomm's Vuforia In Action with Sesame Street Characters

“Much of Sesame Workshop’s success can be attributed to our collaborative, research-intensive approach to the development of programs and activities. Qualcomm’s Vuforia platform offers a new dimension to mobile experiences. We think it can bring enhanced entertainment and educational benefits to children.”
- Terry Fitzpatrick, chief content and distribution officer, Sesame Workshop.

Sesame Workshop has been a longtime advocate of embracing cutting-edge technologies to enrich children’s early learning experiences. At the International CES (Consumer Electronics Show), Qualcomm and Sesame Workshop unveiled the result of their latest collaboration, a prototype playset that brings physical toys to life.

Using a tablet and a traditional playset, children engage with their toys to make playtime both fun and educational. The prototype playset includes elements such as common household objects, as well as figurines of classic Sesame Street characters Cookie Monster, Bert and Ernie. Children interact with this playset using a tablet and an application that features Qualcomm’s newly branded Vuforia^™ augmented reality platform. When the tablet is pointed at the playset, the pieces and the play environment come alive through the tablet’s camera, transforming the playset into an interactive experience.

“In the past, the only place toys came to life was on TV and in movies. Today, we are bringing that magic one step closer to reality,” said Jay Wright, senior director of business development at Qualcomm. “With the ability to recognize 3D objects, Qualcomm’s Vuforia platform will transform the play experience. Our collaboration with the Sesame Workshop is helping us demonstrate the power of augmented reality to enrich children’s lives.”

Qualcomm’s award-winning Vuforia platform transforms real-world objects into interactive experiences for use in gaming, interactive media and instructional applications.  Sesame Workshop seized the opportunity to combine their educational research with cutting-edge technology to address children’s developmental needs. Augmented reality is another major step in proving that technology can be a useful tool in children’s education.

For more information, read the full press release here.

News Coverage:
A Game-Changer for Television? Sesame Street Will Be First Interactive Show
Reuters

CES: Qualcomm Teams with Sesame Street, Microsoft
The Street

Educational Applications of Augmented Reality
Raman Media Network

CES Moment of Zen: A Fuzzy Friend
CNet

The Sesame Workshop Blog