Introduction

Behind or in front of the scenes, I love children's media--the planning, the production, the evaluation. I like brainstorming new ideas around a conference table, contributing to script treatments, and finding ways to measure the effectiveness of program segments or techniques. I am commited to being a part of the effort to provide children with quality options, learning opportunities, and a chance to enjoy it along the way. Ideas are the beginnings of all things. And I believe it takes dedicated people and collaborative efforts to make quality children's media whether that media is television, video, the World Wide Web, print, or ideally a convergence of media.

Video Production

Through Creative Media Solutions (CMS), a company which I co-founded with MariRae Dopke-Wilson, I have had the opportunity to work on many varied television and video projects through the years. Today, MariRae runs the Syracuse, NY office and I run the office in NC. We still enjoy collaborating on projects which can utilize our combined talents. If you are interested in quality video production, please email us at cmediasol@aol.com. From pre-production to videography and digital editing, we have serviced corporate sales, training, television, and multimedia needs of all types of clients. The ones that I will focus on here, however, are educational and children's media.

Our company, working with Craftsman and Scribe's Creative Workshop as executive producers, was the production company of record for Pappyland, which aired nationally on The Learning Channel (TLC) and will soon air in reruns on PBS. I will speak more about Pappyland under "Consulting" since I was responsible for all in-house research and evaluation. We also produced numerous Pappyland interstitials (short program formats) aired on TLC for holiday and special events. Another fun project was a syndicated series of life-skill vignettes called Kidsminute. We've produced instructional and informational videos, and even children's music videos! (My experience in children's media production pre-dates CMS with examples listed on my vitae.)

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Consulting and Project Management

I regularly consult with organizations on both development and evaluation issues. On the Pappyland program, I served as director of research and evaluation and conducted studies in California, New York, Boston, and Texas to help inform production decisions. The program won several Telly awards and was featured as one of the Top Ten new children's television programs in 1996 in TV Guide (see photo at left). I have served as project director on numerous educational media projects for CMS.

Currently, I serve as director of educational media for Syracuse University's Center for Digital Literacy. Two examples of projects for CDL include:

Co-principal investigator for S.O.S. for Information Literacy, a national web-delivered multimedia database and resource for educators. This resource, currently in development, is intended to enhance information literacy instruction for elementary students. It is federally funded by the Institute of Museums and Library Services (IMLS), Washington, D.C. (2002-2005) My responsibilities include project management focusing on technical development, media design and production, training materials development, and dissemination. I co-authored the proposal that won this national leadership grant, one of only 14 awarded nationally in 2002.

Director of media production, Reinventing Urban School Libraries: Creating Effective Programs, Services and Resources for Children in High-Risk Elementary Schools funded by the John Ben Snow Foundation.

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Motivation and Children's Media

In addition to addressing learning goals and objectives for children's media, it is important to include motivational goals. My work in designing television and video for children integrates the CTW Model for children's program development, instructional design principles, and the ARCS Model of Motivational Design developed by Dr. John Keller of Florida State University. ARCS is an acronym for Attention, Relevance, Confidence, and Satisfaction. In my book, Motivational Design: The Secret to Producing Effective Children's Media, (published by Scarecrow Press, 2005), I bring these models together in a systematic way for children's media producers.

Television and video requires special attention to motivational issues and so does the Web. Several years ago, Dr. Ruth Small and I addressed the need to develop special guidelines for evaluating the motivational quality of children's Web sites. If motivation answers the "why" of behavior, then the "whys" related to children's Web sites are 1) Why visit? 2) Why stay? 3) Why return? We developed a series of instruments called the WebMACs (Website Motivational Analysis Checklist). If you would like more information on the theory behind the instruments and a sample of the questions, here is a link to an article published in Educational Technology (the file has been scanned and converted to a PDF document).

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Puppetry in Media

If you have visited the About Me page, you already know that I love working with puppets and kids. I've had the chance to puppeteer on a number of projects including Pappyland where I worked with several puppets. My favorite was Doodlebug. One day, Mike Cariglio, the program's creator and Pappy himself, brought this little green felt puppet into the studio. I picked him up and said, "This little guy could be fun!" I proceeded to develop a personality for him -- a kind of "driven" character who just had to be the best doodler in the land. In fact, he would constantly challenge Pappy with new doodles but Pappy could always make a wonderful drawing out of them no matter what! Soon, I will be adding video clips of Doodlebug to this page.

Belle and Lily were also fun characters which I played. Belle was a telephone with her pulse on Pappyland. She knew everything that was going on and always had an opinion to share. Lily was a mild-mannered flower who cheerily greeted Pappy everytime he entered Pappy's cabin at the beginning of the program.

I enjoyed playing Primose Path, a broadcast reporter (puppet), on a cable television program callled Polkaberry Mountain produced and created by talented Dave McDonald who invented the popular character of Snuckleby. I also served as educational consultant so I really had fun on that program.

On The New Howdy Doody Show back in the late seventies, I operated a number of puppets with master puppeteer Pady Blackwood when I wasn't needed elsewhere, and was also the voice of the puppet Princess SummerFallWinterSpring. See the About Me page for more info on that terrific experience.

On an educational program called Puppet Quiz which was syndicated for a short time a number of years ago, I worked with master puppeteer Paul Ashley who gave meone of his puppet creations. I called her Itty Bitty Kitty and she has moving eyes, eyelashes, mouth, and arms. I treasure that puppet.

Pady Blackwood created my all-time favorite puppet, Genie, for a special we produced in Miami, Florida called Clarbell and Krystal's Astro Circus directed by Errol Falcon. I have used that puppet in a number of educational productions since then and children always love him.

My very first puppet was a mere sock puppet, a Texican donkey I named Calico. He shared the billing with me on a program that aired on Saturday mornings back when I was a little tike in Boston, Massachusetts.

Well, no one said you couldn't be both a fun-loving puppeteering big kid while at the same time a serious-minded academic type, did they??!!!

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