BIF-2 Summit: Alice Wilder
Alice Wilder is here to talk about listening. In college, she did academic research as an undergrad, where she learned how to interview children. In graduate school, she met a visionary woman, Angela C. Santomero, who was working at Nickelodeon, and they worked on behavioral resonance, specifically looking at the negative effects of TV on kids, and they pondered how TV could have a positive effect on them.
Santomero created Blue’s Clues, and it became as popular as Sesame Street. They do a lot of research on the show (Wilder leads the R&D for the show). They get a lot of feedback from kids; one kid said “you’re making me a headache”, and the writers took it right back to the drawing board. They watch kids watching Blue. She showed a pair of simultaneous videos: the show playing, and the kids watching. I never understood how well some TV is configured for simulating true interactivity.
Kids want to be heard, want to express themselves and be listened to. They are working on an initiative to allow kids to publish as a way to learn writing.