KIDS FIRST! News

“Can we watch this some more? I bet I can make an instrument like that,” my ten-year old enthuses. Super young engineers have “Peep and the Big Wide World,” and now, older engineers have “Design Squad,” thanks to producer Marisa Wolsky and her team. Produced by WGBH , Design Squad is a PBS reality television show where teens between the ages 15 and 19 design whimsical machines in order to win a college scholarship.Although the show highlights teenage kids, it appeals to younger children, also, making the viewing an entertaining and educational family event. “Can I see just one more episode?” asked Hudson, an eight-year-old KIDS FIRST! juror. “I love this show!” He set up his laptop and watched one episode after another in the series online. This is not unusual according to Wolsky. Statistics show that ¼ of their audience watches online.How is this series different from a million other reality shows out there? Well, for one thing, there are no product placement. Parents don’t have to worry about subliminal commercial advertising when their child is watching this show. Also, the kids are competing for an opportunity to go on in life, using their natural smarts and the information they learned on this show.The students on the teams put in a lot of effort to yield great results. Once filming began in the first season, Wolsky found that it was inspiring to see the cast of eight evolve over the season with growth both socially and academically. The winner of Design Squad receives a $10,000 college scholarship provided by the Intel Foundation.One of the biggest hurdles Wolsky and her team had to overcome was creating two-day challenges that had a satisfactory result. Season one taught them about time constraints, which included shopping time and finding challenges that appropriately fit the time frame. They made some slight changes so the teens in season two can focus more on the engineering and creativity. Season two is off to a terrific start with episodes ranging from building furniture with cardboard to building a safe roller coaster in the backyard.Season Two premiers April 2008. Check Design Squad for more details.

Dr. Alice Wilder, co-creator of “Blue’s Clues,” has come up with a new project to help children learn the process of story writing. Think It Ink It Publishing is designed to inspire children of all ages to practice creative writing in a way that entertains, educates, and promotes self-esteem.My 8-year-old is a big-time-writer. The child is constantly coming up with stories. Think It Ink It provides professionally illustrated books give a child the opportunity to write an original story and become a published author. I was curious to see how my son would react since he usually comes up with stories from scratch.A cool feature is a small pack of post it notes with lines that kids can put on each page to write their rough draft so they don’t have to erase on the final copy. My son loves the notes and the pencil which comes with the kit. In fact, he was a bit distressed when he momentarily lost his “special pencil.” He’s still in the process, but is really enjoying the writing process. According to him, “It makes it a lot more easier ‘cuz I thought up the words already after I looked at the pictures.”A neat option is that we can order his story and it will come to us as a regular hardcover book. A great feature.I know some children really have a problem putting a story in order and getting words on a page. I think this is a great tool to get them started so they story development becomes second nature to them and they develop the freedom to write whatever they want without being hampered by fear of structure.Who knows? In a few years we might see some of these kid’s creations in our KIDS FIRST! film festival!

Current, the media company Al gore co-founded six years ago with partner Joel Hyatt, launched a new web site that integrates television and the Web in an unprecedented way. It provides, as never before, a platform for citizens to make the media their own.One of the features Gore is most excited about on Current.com is called Viewpoints. Viewpoints is a virtual town hall where you can share your opinions, in video, about the issues that matter in the 2008 election: from global warming to government eavesdropping, and many more.This digital town hall is already bustling, and you can find viewpoints from me and from a lot of people, including the candidates running for President. Come and listen to their positions and, more importantly, tell them and the rest of the world what you think at Viewpoints!