Common Sense Media
Project Title
For project support for digital citizenship resources, library pilot, and annual summit sponsorship
Date
Mar. 06, 2025
Duration
18 months
Description
Children and education are at the forefront of rapid advancements and disruptions in artificial intelligence (AI), which holds the potential to deliver significant benefits such as creating immersive virtual learning environments, overcoming language barriers, providing real-time feedback, developing personalized learning plans, and fostering creativity. However, children are also vulnerable to ethical issues like biases, misinformation, privacy breaches, and the digital divide in AI usage. Without a deeper understanding and responsible adoption of AI practices, today’s youth face significant risks. Established in 2003, Common Sense is the leading organization in the U.S. dedicated to helping kids thrive in the digital world. Their comprehensive Digital Citizenship Program draws on research conducted by Harvard’s Graduate School of Education. Their trusted brand, and broad network enables them to make a significant impact in the information and media literacy field. With support from the Corporation, Common Sense will redesign their Digital Citizenship Curriculum to reflect the rapid changes in the AI field. These changes will equip educators and public librarians with the support they need to prevent further equity gaps among students from different socio-economic backgrounds and help all students become healthy, safe, responsible citizens of the world.
Website
Project Title
For project support of an artificial intelligence ratings system designed to assess the ethical use, transparency, safety, and impact of AI products for families
Date
Jun. 06, 2024
Duration
12 months
Description
Children and education are at the forefront of rapid advancements and disruptions in artificial intelligence (AI), which holds the potential to deliver significant benefits such as creating immersive virtual learning environments, overcoming language barriers, providing real-time feedback, developing personalized learning plans, and fostering creativity. However, children are also vulnerable to ethical issues like biases, misinformation, privacy breaches, and the digital divide in AI usage. Without a deeper understanding and responsible adoption of AI practices, today’s youth face significant risks. Established in 2003, Common Sense is a leading independent nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering children, parents, educators, and policymakers with unbiased information and clear guidance on navigating AI’s impact, thus fostering clarity, trust, and understanding among millions of families and educators while influencing industry practices positively. With support from the Corporation, Common Sense will enhance the safety and practicality of AI tools for children, families, and schools, focusing on research, AI product ratings and reviews, and AI literacy initiatives.
Website
Project Title
For general support
Date
Mar. 09, 2023
Duration
12 months
Description
Ensuring children’s academic success and well-being through high-quality digital resources and support is essential for families, students, and educators. Common Sense Media, the leading organization in the United States dedicated to building a digital world where children can learn and thrive, is uniquely positioned to help families navigate a rising tide of digital-age parenting challenges while seizing opportunities that technology presents to help students learn at home. Through this grant, Common Sense Media will (a) conduct research to raise public awareness, drive a national conversation, and provide crucial data about the needs of all families related to media and technology; (b) ensure families have access to the high-quality content, guidance, and tools they need to support their kids’ learning at home and use of technology in safe, responsible ways; (c) provide educators, schools, and districts with robust digital citizenship content, professional development training, and family engagement resources that strengthen the home-school connection and lead to better academic and emotional well-being outcomes for students.
Website
Project Title
For general support
Date
Sep. 15, 2022
Duration
6 months
Description
The COVID-19 pandemic laid bare the fact that millions of households across the country lacked the technological resources and know-how to shift into remote and hybrid learning. We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to close the digital divide for good thanks to $100 billion in federal funding secured towards this effort. Common Sense Media, founded in 2003 has been leveraging its resources, expertise, and reach to help not just close the digital divide, but also to make sure newly connected families/caregivers, educators, and students have the high-quality instructional materials, digital literacy and citizenship training and support programs to harness the power of technology, which will contribute to greater overall equity for underserved families. With continued support from the Corporation, Common Sense will offer training and education for newly connected families, run an awareness campaign to ensure eligible families learn about and sign up for a high-speed internet connection through the Affordable Connectivity Program, and continue to conduct research to ensure the fidelity of their programs and to share findings with the greater community.
Website
Project Title
For general support
Date
Dec. 10, 2020
Duration
18 months
Description
This upcoming academic year, ensuring children’s academic success and well-being through high- quality digital resources and digital supports will be essential for families, students, and educators. Common Sense Media, the leading organization in the United States dedicated to building a digital world where children can learn and thrive, is uniquely positioned to support the continued education of students with a particular focus on helping parents become partners in their children’s learning during the pandemic, and to put in place the longer term infrastructure changes needed to ensure a more equitable future for all. Through thisgrant, Common Sense Media will (a) conduct and publish research on the needs of parents and educators during this unique time and the role that media and technology play in children’s learning and development; (b) continue to operate Wide Open School, disseminate digital learning and parent engagement tools and resources, and provide professional learning supports to teachers and school leaders; and (c) raise awareness about effective ways to close the digital divide by collaborating with policymakers and tech-related organizations.
Website
Project Title
For the project Kids, Technology, and Learning: Building Public Understanding and the School-Home Connection: Phase IV
Date
Mar. 05, 2020
Duration
9 months
Description
Although digital media and technology have transformed and enhanced how children learn and interact socially, the overwhelming presence of technology can affect every aspect of children’s learning and development. As the world has shifted to the digital space, the rise of fake news floods media channels with fictitious information meant to create confusion. Common Sense Media, a leading nonprofit organization working to help all children thrive in the world of media and technology, believes that digital citizenship skills are central so students will participate fully in their communities and make smart choices online and in life. With continued support, Common Sense Media will: (a) conduct an update of their research report, Kids and America’s News; (b) refine their School-Home Connection program to support schools in engaging families; (c) partner with districts in select regions across the country to provide deep support and build educators’ capacity to effectively engage families around media/tech; and (d) create and disseminate best practices for family engagement as well as high-quality materials and information that enable parent and community engagement around digital citizenship and news literacy.
Website
Project Title
As an emergency response to the COVID-19 pandemic to support of Wide Open School, a free collection of online learning experiences for children and their families
Date
Jun. 04, 2020
Duration
6 months
Description
Due to the COVID pandemic, schools across the country will likely remain closed for the rest of the school year. Our education system is unprepared to transition to remote learning, and families are scrambling to come up with solutions for how to keep their children learning and emotionally strong. Through this grant, Common Sense Media, the leading nonprofit organization working to help all children thrive in the world of media and technology, will design and operate Wide Open School, a digital initiative that will make “learning from home” an effective and emotionally rewarding experience for families and students. With Corporation support, Common Sense Media will: (a) operate their open collection of online learning experiences for kids and families that curates resources from leading media, tech companies and education publishers such as Amplify, Scholastic, Sesame, Google, PBS Learning Media, National Geographic etc.; (b) add hundreds of additional vetted digital resources in core academic subjects, as well as gym, music, art, dance, reading, mindfulness, well-being check-ins, and movie nights; and (c) build new interactive and community features for educators and families.
Website
Project Title
For building public understanding and supporting the home-to-school connection in a digital age
Date
Dec. 06, 2018
Duration
15 months
Description
Research shows that student achievement increases when parents are engaged in their children’s learning. But in today’s digital world, learning happens both in and out of school, often through technology and portable devices. Families are in need of tools and resources to support their children’s learning and healthy development in this context. Common Sense Media is the country’s leading nonprofit organization working to help all kids thrive in the world of media and technology, by empowering parents, teachers, and policymakers with unbiased information, trusted advice, and innovative tools to help them harness the power of media and technology as a positive force in all children’s lives. With continued Corporation support, Common Sense will provide guidance to families through their valued ratings and reviews, advance the national dialogue around the roles media and technology play in children’s learning through national surveys and research, and strengthen the school-home connection by helping educators support families in the learning process.
Website
Project Title
As a final grant for the Next Generation Science Standards learnings ratings
Date
Mar. 02, 2017
Duration
10 months
Description
With support from the Corporation, the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) were developed and published in April 2013 to address the poor performance of U.S. students in science and related subjects, as compared to their peers around the world. So far, eighteen states and D.C. have adopted the NGSS. But even in states that have not adopted the standards, there is grassroots enthusiasm among many science teachers to adapt their instruction to the NGSS. At this moment in U.S. STEM education, teachers are being asked to adapt to several transformations at once: they need to engage students in more rigorous and challenging science learning, they need to find high quality content to teach to the standards, and many need to integrate technology and other digital tools into their teaching. This is a lot to ask. With grants from the Corporation, Common Sense Media embarked on research to help teachers and schools combine the power of digital technology with implementation of the NGSS. Common Sense was able to launch an NGSS Explorer platform and built a robust library of content to help teachers understand how digital learning products can help them create the kind of investigative and hands-on science learning envisioned by the standards. With this renewal grant, they are requesting support to complete the final phase of this three year project to develop and reach a critical mass of product reviews, tools, and training content that they will be able to maintain in the future with periodic refreshes; and build awareness and grow the reach of the valuable STEM-related resources for educators in both formal and informal learning environments.
Website
Project Title
For the Learning at Home platform providing digital tools for educators to connect with parents
Date
Jun. 01, 2017
Duration
18 months
Description
Research strongly suggests that parental involvement in education has positive effects on student achievement. As technology transforms teaching and learning, there is a pressing need among parents and educators to communicate about ways technology can support student learning. Today, flipped classrooms and blended learning models leverage technology to bring instruction to students anytime, anywhere. These shifts have created an unmet demand to form new kinds of home-school connections to inform parents and educators about the resources that exist to create a more seamless learning experience for children. With Corporation support, Common Sense Media will continue to create media ratings and reviews to help parents select the best digital content to promote social, emotional, and cognitive development; will continue to support educators in helping parents in reinforcing learning at home; and will publish original research on kids’ media use and the ways educational technologies are being adopted in the education landscape.
Website
Project Title
For the home-to-school connection project
Date
Jun. 09, 2016
Duration
12 months
Description
Research strongly suggests that parental involvement in education has positive effects on student achievement. As technology transforms teaching and learning, there is a pressing need among parents and educators to communicate about ways technology can support student learning. Today, flipped classrooms and blended learning models leverage technology to bring instruction to students anytime, anywhere. These shifts have created an unmet demand to form new kinds of home-school connections to inform parents and educators about the resources that exist to create a more seamless learning experience for children. With Corporation support, Common Sense Media will research, design and test a new model of parent engagement and advocacy to strengthen the home-school connection by providing parents content, tools, training, and confidence to support their children’s learning at home; giving teachers the tools to communicate with parents, share what their students are doing in the classroom, and providing content and tools to promote parental support of learning at home.
Website
Project Title
For continued development of the Next Generation Science Standards learning ratings
Date
Dec. 10, 2015
Duration
12 months
Description
In the vast sea of digital content available, one of the biggest challenges for educators is to find high quality digital products that truly enhance and propel learning. Common Sense Media (Common Sense) has answered this challenge by creating Graphite, a K-12 learning ratings platform that helps teachers discover, use, and share the best quality digital media products for learning in the classroom and at home. Since launching in June 2013, Graphite has received an enthusiastic reception from educators with over 250,000 teachers signing up to use these free resources over the last two years. With support from the Corporation, Common Sense was able to build the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) Explorer along-side their Common Core Explorer. With renewed Corporation support, Common Sense plans to launch the NGSS Explorer and build a library of content to help teachers understand how digital learning products can help them create the kind of investigative and hands-on science learning envisioned by the standards.
Website
Project Title
For the development of Next Generation Science Standards learning ratings
Date
Dec. 04, 2014
Duration
12 months