The second Sandbox Summit, held in New York City on Wednesday, September 24, 2008, focused on ways today’s toys can foster creativity and critical thinking, skills that we rarely worried about when kids were happily playing with classic blocks and Playdoh.

But now that technology has become omnipresent in almost every new toy, the concern is that the products too often do the playing, while the kids do the watching. Dolls come with complete back stories; animals repeat the phrases they utter on TV; and so-called learning toys preach rather than teach.

The cofounders of Sandbox Summit, Claire Green and Wendy Smolen, put forth the challenge “How can we ensure that our children become active users, and not passive consumers of technology?”

To answer the question, they engaged a strategic mix of toy and media industry executives, academics, researchers and journalists.  Among the presenters were representatives from Google, LEGO, Leapfrog, Disney Worldwide Publishing, MIT Learning Lab, The 92nd St. Y Nursery School, Harris Interactive, Cartoon Network, University of Pennsylvania, Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop, Global Kids, Inc., Microsoft, Kidthing, Senario, Indy Mogul, Dizzywood, and others.

The tone of the summit was set when keynote speaker Andy Berndt, Managing Director of Google Creative Lab told a story about watching his friends get new bikes for Christmas. What Andy got was a used bike and a box of assorted parts, stripped from bikes that were confiscated at the police station. But he soon discovered that all these different parts from different bikes shared certain standards, and that they could be combined in a variety of new configurations. His homemade hybrid bikes became the hits of the neighborhood. And Andy grew up to become the head of the Google Creative Lab. This tale of innovation, and learning through discovery and imaginative play is what we—as content developers, teachers, parents, and consumers—need to heed.

Claire and Wendy set three objectives to communicate during this Sandbox Summit:

Technology should enhance, not overshadow the benefits of play.
Again and again we saw examples of how technology is not the antithesis of play, but it needs to be a “partner.” Mitch Resnick from the MIT Learning Lab showed how clever, integrated use of technology in products such as LEGO Mindstorms and Scratch make learning part of the process of play, not the product. The Sandbox Summit Toy Survey conducted and presented by Harris Interactive concluded that whether or not technology was present in toys, kids value the fun factor above all. Kids also think fun is more important than overt learning.

Play is as much a business issue as it is an early childhood issue.
Carla Englebrecht Fisher and Carly Shuler from the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop presented 10 tips for developing quality toys. Among them, was to incorporate testing and research into the development process. The panel discussion on the new paradigm of play, led by Maggie Jackson, corroborated their findings. The bottom line is that toys with long term play potential inspire creativity and learning and ultimately result in more successful products for both manufacturers and the kids who use them. Once again, technology is not the end product, but part of the process of play.

Open-ended play is a valuable commodity.
Two words that kept coming up throughout the conference are worth noting: “Fun.” And  “blocks.” Play is the way kids learn. And unstructured play lets them learn at their own pace, in their own way. If we forget that the purpose of play is to have fun, we may as well cover our ears with our iPod buds, focus our blinders on our Blackberries, and let our fingers do the working. Seeing new applications and inventions such Indy Mogul’s Backyard FX and Dizzywood’s use of collaborative play in the classroom underscored how important it is to think out of the box----and encourage our kids to do the same. These “new playing fields” used technologies in highly creative ways to teach basic skills in modern “language.” Wow!

Finally, a fourth, unexpected objective came out of this Summit, which may be the most important one yet.

Never underestimate the power of a Sandbox.
One of the most fun and inspiring aspects of having so many accomplished people all in one room was the energy and expertise they brought. During breaks, breakfast and lunch, the conversations were animated, the networks were connecting, and the business cards were swapping. It was amazing to see how much you really do learn in a Sandbox.

Event Overview | Speakers | Presentations on YouTube